Tuesday 19th January 2021
(3 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberTrade Bill 2019-21 View all Trade Bill 2019-21 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Commons Consideration of Lords Amendments as at 19 January 2021 - (19 Jan 2021)
17:53 - The House divided: - Ayes: 353 / Noes: 277 - Question accordingly agreed to.
18:06 - divided: - Ayes: 365 / Noes: 265 - Question accordingly agreed to.
18:17 - The House divided: - Ayes: 364 / Noes: 267 - Question accordingly agreed to.
18:27 - The House divided: - Ayes: 319 / Noes: 308 - Question accordingly agreed to.
18:37 - The House divided: - Ayes: 357 / Noes: 266 - Question accordingly agreed to.
18:47 - The House divided: - Ayes: 364 / Noes: 266 - Question accordingly agreed to.
18:58 - The House divided: - Ayes: 353 / Noes: 270 - Question accordingly agreed to.
19:08 - divided: - Ayes: 355 / Noes: 267 - Question accordingly agreed to.
19:19 - The House divided: - Ayes: 357 / Noes: 274 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)
I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.
Madam Deputy Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Lords amendment 2, and Government motion to disagree.
Lords amendment 3, Government motion to disagree, and amendment (a) in lieu.
Lords amendment 4, and Government motion to disagree.
Lords amendment 5, and Government motion to disagree.
Lords amendment 6, and Government motion to disagree.
Lords amendment 7, and Government motion to disagree.
Lords amendment 8, and Government motion to disagree.
Lords amendment 9, and Government amendments (a) and (b) thereto.
Lords amendment 10, and Government amendment (a) thereto.
Lords amendments 11 to 31.
Greg Hands
This Bill marks a significant milestone. Its passage into law will have numerous benefits for the UK economy: giving certainty to business with regard to our continuity trade agreements; confirming the UK’s access to the global procurement markets; providing protection to businesses and consumers from unfair trading practices; and ensuring that we have the appropriate data to support our exporters and importers. This Bill has enjoyed rigorous parliamentary scrutiny, having been through many of its parliamentary stages twice, and I am delighted to finally see it reach this stage. I am sure it will soon be passed into law, to the satisfaction of all.
I will speak to each amendment in turn, beginning with Lords amendment 1, which is in the name of Liberal Democrat peer Lord Purvis. With our new-found freedom, it is right that Parliament should be able to scrutinise effectively the UK Government’s ambitious free trade agreement programme. However, Lords amendment 1 goes far beyond what would be appropriate for our unique constitutional make-up and would unduly tie the hands of Government to negotiate in the best interests of the UK. The Government have listened to the concerns of both Houses throughout the passage of this Bill and have moved significantly to improve further its enhanced transparency and scrutiny arrangements.
Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)
My right hon. Friend said that the amendment would go too far. In the European Parliament the power existed for MEPs to give consent to trade Bills. Now that power has come back to this country, is he suggesting that this should not go to MPs but should go to the Executive? I think that is what he is suggesting.
Greg Hands
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I know that he has taken a long-standing interest, during the passage of this Bill and its predecessor, in these questions, and I will make two points. First, it would be inappropriate to compare this Westminster-style of democracy with the European Parliament and the European Commission. Secondly, all the trade agreements in scope within the continuity provisions of the Bill have already been scrutinised in this House. These arrangements were set out in a written ministerial statement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Trade on 7 December. The enhanced arrangements that we have set out are entirely appropriate for a Westminster-style democracy such as ourselves; they are at least as strong as, and in some cases are stronger than, those in comparable systems, such as those in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Greg Hands
I am going to make a bit more progress.
Finally, I remind the House that ultimately if Parliament is not content with a trade deal that we have negotiated, it has statutory powers, under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, to prevent ratification by resolving against ratification indefinitely. That is in addition to Parliament’s power to vote down any necessary implementing legislation, again thereby preventing ratification.
That brings me on to Lords amendment 5. I suggest to the House that this amendment is unnecessary, as it covers things that the Government are already doing, or that are established precedent of the UK as a dualist state. The Government are already under a statutory obligation to publish an explanatory memorandum when a treaty is laid before Parliament. As Members will have seen, in section 5 of our explanatory memorandum to our agreement with Japan, we set out how we would implement the agreement and where legislation would be required. We, as a dualist state, have well established precedents for putting in place implementing legislation place before ratification of a treaty. If we did not do so, we would risk the UK being in breach of its international obligations. We have no desire to change this established way of working.
Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)
One of the complaints of the International Trade Committee, on which I sit, was that there was not enough time to debate the report that the Committee put forward on the Japanese trade deal. Will my right hon. Friend perhaps look at offering extra parliamentary time—I know it is perhaps not in his purview—for Parliament to have such debates? They could be followed up with debates on the general trade agreement that has been agreed by the Government at the time.
Greg Hands
My hon. Friend makes a very strong point. The whole purpose of providing the relevant Select Committee with the relevant text in advance is so that the Select Committee can produce a report that will inform debate in Parliament. In that sense, I agree with him. On his specific point about making time available to the Select Committee to debate that report, I think that question is properly within the domain of Parliament, rather than the Government. I am sure you would agree, Madam Deputy Speaker, that allowing time for a parliamentary Select Committee to debate a report is best done through the usual channels, in conjunction with the Speaker’s Office. I do not think it is entirely within the gift of the Government to allocate time to a parliamentary Select Committee.
Greg Hands
No, I am going to move on, because I want to come on to what I think might be the areas of greatest interest in this debate, including Lords amendments 2 and 3 on human rights. I remind hon. and right hon. Members of the Foreign Secretary’s statement on Tuesday last week, in which he outlined a range of measures in response to the deplorable human rights situation in Xinjiang. I also refer colleagues to the article I wrote about Xinjiang as long ago as 2011, showing my personal interest in that question.
I recognise that the amendments before the House are not specific to China per se, but some of the supporters have China in mind, and it is worth reminding Members of what the new measures the Foreign Secretary announced will do, as they are germane to the ongoing debate on human rights. The measures will help to ensure that UK businesses and the public sector are in no way complicit in human rights violations in Xinjiang. They include: first, strengthening the overseas business risk guidance to make clearer the risk to UK businesses investing in, or with supply chains in, Xinjiang; secondly, a review of export controls as they apply to the situation in Xinjiang to ensure we are doing all we can to prevent the export of goods that may contribute to human rights violations in Xinjiang; thirdly, the introduction of financial penalties for organisations that fail to comply with the Modern Slavery Act 2015; and, fourthly, ensuring that the Government or public sector bodies have the evidence they require to help them exclude suppliers that are complicit in human rights violations in Xinjiang.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
I understand the point my right hon. Friend is making, and we do not have a free trade deal with China at the moment, and we are not likely to, but many of us for years have been frustrated that every time we try to raise genocide in this place in terms of trade deals, we are told that it is subject to the international courts, and that China, Russia or other countries in the UN Security Council have a veto on the matter. Is there any way we can acknowledge that genocide is taking place in a country when we do a trade deal, without losing parliamentary control of our trade deals, and without getting trade deals bogged down for months or even years in courts?
Greg Hands
I can reassure my right hon. Friend that the Government are very ready to have these discussions. I am sure that the amendment in the name of Lord Alton is not an appropriate amendment to put into this Bill. As my right hon. Friend will have seen from the Foreign Secretary’s statement last week, we do take the situation in Xinjiang, and other allegations of serious human rights abuses, extremely seriously. However, we also have to think about what we are dealing with—the appropriate role for the High Court in international treaties, and particularly the right in the Alton amendment for an automatic revocation of an international treaty.
Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for presenting what the Foreign Office is doing on human rights. We have tabled a compromise amendment that takes into account all the concerns that the Government have expressed about the Lord Alton amendment, and that makes very clear the separation of powers—fundamentally, that Parliaments advise, and Ministers decide. What is his objection to the compromise amendment tabled by me and my colleagues?
Greg Hands
I will have to look at my hon. Friend’s amendment. My role is to speak about the amendment from the other place in the name of Lord Alton.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I gave the amendment to the Foreign Secretary and his team last Wednesday, and it is on the amendment paper today. With respect, is not a case of, “We can have a look at it”; the Minister must have a view on it, surely, because it is there on the paper.
Greg Hands
I note what my right hon. Friend says. The Government are open to further discussion on these matters. Nobody denies the importance and seriousness of the situation in Xinjiang, nor this Government’s continued commitment to combating human rights abuses, or that human rights cannot and should not be traded away in a trade agreement or anything like it.
I should emphasise to hon. Members the seriousness with which the Government approach human rights issues as they relate to trade. We are taking action and will continue to do so. The UK has long supported the promotion of our values globally. We are clear that doing more trade does not have to come at the expense of human rights. In fact, as I am sure my hon. and right hon. Friends will agree, there is a strong positive correlation between countries that trade freely and human rights.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
I think we all appreciate the work that the Foreign Secretary has done to ensure that firms look at their supply lines to check that they are not purchasing goods produced through slave labour or through human rights abuses. Now that the United Kingdom is out of the EU, we want to stand on the world stage as a global leader. What objections does the Minister have to putting in the law of this country that we will not tolerate trade deals with countries that abuse their population by engaging in genocide?
Greg Hands
I emphasise to the right hon. Gentleman, who I know is passionate about these issues, the importance attached by the Government to the underlying issue of allegations of genocide and human rights abuses. However, it is right that the Government give significant attention to how that process would work. The Lord Alton amendment, which allows automatic revocation by the High Court of an international trade agreement that was negotiated between Governments and approved by Parliament, would not be the right way forward.
Lords amendments 2 and 3 pose significant legal and other problems and so cannot be accepted by the Government. Lords amendment 3, tabled by Lord Alton, seeks to revoke trade agreements where the High Court of England and Wales makes a preliminary determination regarding genocide. This would, in effect, take out of the hands of Government their prerogative powers to conduct international relations with regard to trade. That goes to the heart of the separation of powers in Britain’s constitutional system. If we accepted the amendment, the High Court could frustrate or even revoke trade agreements entered into by the Government and approved after Parliamentary scrutiny. That would be an unprecedented and unacceptable erosion of the royal prerogative, and not something that the Government could support.
Greg Hands
I will make a little more progress, if I may.
It is for the Government, answerable to Parliament, to make trade policy, not the courts. In any event, the Government already have the power to terminate trade agreements. Modern trade agreements include termination provisions as standard, allowing either party to terminate the agreement if they so decide, usually following a specified notice period. The option of terminating agreements would remain available to the Government to use at their discretion, with or without the amendment.
It is crucial to understand that we do not have a bilateral trade agreement with China. There is no trade deal with China to revoke. Not a single person in Xinjiang—the people we are trying to help—would benefit from the amendment.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
I am listening to the Minister carefully. He is right that, of course, we do not have a trade deal with China to alter. If we did, given the situation with the Uyghurs and the genocide going on, would the Government be minded to implement their power to revoke such an agreement?
Greg Hands
Obviously that is something the Government would have to look at. We would have to consult across Government, and there would also be, quite properly, a significant role for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in that decision. But it is clear that we do not have a bilateral trade agreement with China that is within the scope of the Bill. We have no plans for a bilateral trade agreement with China. The amendment could have an impact on bilateral trade agreements that the United Kingdom is party to, but China is not a party relevant to the consideration.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
As my right hon. Friend knows, I admire him enormously, but I want to take him back to that point. He said he has no plans for a trade deal with China, but what that really means is that we may yet make up our mind to have one, so that is not an absolute statement. If he decides that the British Government will never do with a trade deal with a country guilty of genocide, how would he know whether a country was guilty of genocide, if only a court can decide that and the International Criminal Court cannot reach that decision? Surely the amendment would give him a chance to say, “Our High Court has said this country is guilty of genocide.”
Greg Hands
I am very interested in this topic, but it is not for me as Minister for Trade Policy to make Government policy on which court would be involved, or where that court should be, or on aspects relating to genocide. However, I think the amendment before us is flawed and should be rejected by this House.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
Will the Minister give way?
Greg Hands
No. The right hon. Lady will have plenty of opportunity to speak, and I can respond to her points in due course.
The lack of evidence for the effectiveness of such action underscores the need for the Government to take targeted, appropriate and effective measures on human rights, such as those we are taking towards China in the package of measures announced by the Foreign Secretary.
Lords amendment 2 seeks, among other things, the publication of risk assessments, annual reports and determinations on whether trade agreements comply with the UK’s international obligations. Such legislative requirements would again represent serious constraints on the royal prerogative powers to negotiate, ratify and withdraw from treaties. Erosion of the royal prerogative is a red line for the Government, so we cannot support that amendment, either.
I need to make a little more progress, Madam Deputy Speaker—I am conscious that we are 18 minutes in and there are a lot of speakers. I turn to Lords amendment 4, which would introduce a wide range of restrictions on the regulations that can be made under clause 2. Those relate broadly to the delivery of free, universal health services, the protection of medical data and scrutiny of algorithms, and a prohibition on the use of investor-state dispute settlement, ratchet clauses and negative listing provisions.
Greg Hands
I am going to make a little bit more progress, with apologies to the right hon. Gentleman. He obviously has a special interest in this space, but I am conscious that time is moving on.
Turning to the amendments concerning the Trade and Agriculture Commission, the Government have offered alternatives to Lords amendments 9 and 10. We also accept Lords amendments 11, 12, 29 and 30. These amendments put the commission on a statutory footing to help to inform the report required by section 42 of the Agriculture Act 2020. The Trade and Agriculture Commission was originally set up by the Department for International Trade in July 2020 to boost the scrutiny of trade deals. That is alongside other steps that the Government have taken to ensure that relevant interests are taken into account at every step of the negotiation process, from public consultation at the start, dedicated trade advisory groups during the process and independent scrutiny of the final deal at the end.
The Trade and Agriculture Commission will advise the Secretary of State for International Trade on certain measures set out in section 42 of the Agriculture Act concerning the consistency of certain free trade agreement measures with UK statutory protections for animal and plant health, animal welfare and the environment. The Government amendments were modified in the other place, however, also to include advice on human health. The Government do not consider the inclusion of human health to be appropriate for the Trade and Agriculture Commission, as it would duplicate the work of other appropriate bodies. Just because human health will not be in the remit of the Trade and Agriculture Commission does not mean that there will be no scrutiny in that area. It must still be covered in the section 42 report under the Agriculture Act, for which the Secretary of State may seek advice from any person considered to be independent and to have relevant expertise.
I hope that that has been a useful introduction to the Lords amendments we have in front of us. I am looking forward to the debate and to responding later.
Emily Thornberry
It is a pleasure to open this debate for the Opposition. I want to thank Members from the other place for all the work they have done on these amendments, which follows the considerable amount of work on the Bill’s previous iteration, all of which is welcome.
It is a great tribute to how deeply Members on all sides and in both Houses have engaged in our debates about trade over the last few years that we have such a wide range of important amendments before us today. They reflect the values, priorities and safeguards that we believe the UK should apply when negotiating new trade agreements. We have one amendment that reflects our desire that young boys and girls growing up in this country should be able to learn, play and interact with their friends online without the fear that those experiences will be tainted by bullying, grooming or exposure to harmful content. We have another amendment that reflects our equally strong desire that young boys and girls growing up 4,000 miles away should be able to live in freedom, practise any religion they choose and one day have children of their own without the fear that those rights will be taken away by the criminal actions of the Chinese state. I want to focus most of my remarks today on the amendments relating to human rights and to parliamentary scrutiny, but let me first talk briefly about the other key amendments we have before us.
We welcome Lords amendment 4, which seeks to exclude NHS patient data from the scope of future trade deals. This amendment cuts to the chase of the debate over whether the NHS is on the table when it comes to trade negotiations. To some people, that concept would mean private healthcare companies from overseas being able to compete against the NHS to provide taxpayer-funded healthcare, but in fact it is much more realistic and pernicious. What it means is those same companies winning a greater right to provide services to the NHS through open procurement contracts and thereby gaining access to the vast resource of NHS patient data, which, quite frankly, they have been actively pursuing for years. This amendment seeks to prevent that, and I cannot see why any Member of the House would disagree with it.
We welcome Lords amendments 6 on standards affected by international trade agreements, which rests on the very simple notion that the international trade agreements we negotiate should not undermine the domestic standards we apply on everything from environmental protection to employment rights—again, something we would have thought everyone would support.
I have spoken already about Lords amendment 7 on the protection of children online, which seeks to protect the very welcome progress we are making in the UK to keep our children safe when using the internet, and to force major service providers to help prevent children from exposure to illegal content or harmful activity. We know for a fact that the major US internet companies have sought to use trade deals with Mexico, Canada, Japan and Korea to exempt themselves from liability over the harms caused by their services and to guarantee unrestricted access to user data, including that of children. The Minister might well assure us that the same thing will not happen here, but I would simply urge him to allow the passage of this amendment to ensure that the same thing cannot happen here.
We also welcome Lords amendment 8, the Northern Ireland amendment, on non-discrimination in goods and services, for which we thank my good friend the former right hon. Member for Neath—a much missed presence in this House, but still a good friend to the people of Northern Ireland. When we look at the delays, disruption and economic damage that has been caused by the loss of unfettered access for goods travelling between Great Britain and Northern Ireland surely we would all agree how important it is that we protect the unfettered access for goods travelling the other way and for the exchange of services in both directions. Indeed, if the Government are promising to maintain that unfettered access, I cannot see why they would urge Members of this House to vote against the opportunity to put that promise into law.
Finally, let me turn to the other amendments. We welcome amendments 9 and 10, which would expand the remit of the Trade and Agriculture Commission to cover the impact of food on public health. If the Government are to leave it to the commission to protect our food and farming standards against low-cost, low-quality imports, rather than putting those protections into law, then the least they can do is ensure that the commission’s remit covers all the standards that we wish to protect, including those related to public health. I understand that the Government are trying to lift the public health aspects of this amendment, but, before the Minister does that, I urge him to speak to his colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs about Government undertakings that may have been given before we had clause 42 of the Agriculture Bill.
There is a common thread running through all the amendments that I have mentioned and through those that I will come on to relating to human rights. The common thread is this: if we do not have the right procedures in place to allow proper parliamentary engagement in the Government’s trade negotiations and proper parliamentary debate and approval of the Government’s new trade deals, then, inevitably, Members will seek instead to ring-fence what the Government can give away and protect in law the standards that we want to preserve.
I just do not understand why the Government are so stubbornly holding on to the Ponsonby rule and CRaG and laws that come from a previous century and a previous age. Why we cannot step into the 21st century as a confident democracy is beyond me. In other words, if we do not have proper scrutiny of the Government’s trade deals, we must have proper safeguards on what the deals can do. Personally, I argue that we should want the best of both worlds—proper safeguards coupled with proper scrutiny—but surely every Member of this House can agree that the worst and most illogical of all worlds is to have neither. I urge Conservative Members, when they are instructed by the Government later to vote down not just the amendments relating to NHS data, online harms, standards, public health and unfettered access, but Lords amendments 1 and 5 relating to parliamentary scrutiny, please to say to the Government that one set of amendments or the other may be opposed, but logically they cannot oppose them both.
Anthony Mangnall
It is a pleasure to speak on this Bill. I rise to speak against Lords amendments 1 and 3. I start by saying how sorry I am that I will not be in the same Lobby as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani). I have gone into battle with them in the past and hope to do so again.
At the start of the Minister’s statement, he made a point about the opportunities that Parliament would have to ensure that human rights were included in trade deals, and that mechanisms could be provided to ensure that every trade deal had the proper level of parliamentary scrutiny. I would welcome his going further—and intervening, if he must—and telling us how Parliament will be able effectively to ensure that every Member can scrutinise, debate and discuss these issues.
Greg Hands
I thank my hon. Friend for that specific request. I think it is fair to say that this House enjoys significant expertise and experience on questions of human rights, which the Government would seek to take advantage of. I hear various Members and Chairs of Select Committees and others with great experience in this space, and the Government are absolutely committed to making sure that knowledge is utilised and to exploring how we can make sure that the views of colleagues are heard and considered on these issues in relation to our future trade agreements.
Anthony Mangnall
I thank the Minister for his comment, which I would echo in terms of the scrutiny that the International Trade Committee, through the reports we publish, can give each and every one of the trade deals that comes before us.
What is the intent here? We are trying to address the injustices that people face around the world, from the Uyghurs to the Yazidis to the Rohingyas.
Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab) [V]
The Government are at pains to say that the NHS is safe in their hands. They say that we do not need to worry about US healthcare companies. They say that it is fear-mongering. “Trust us,” they say, “and stop asking questions.” But in politics, if you want to know someone’s agenda, just look at their actions: see what they say when they think people are not listening. If we do that, we see that the Government are saying something quite different.
A 2011 book argued that the “monolith” of the NHS should be “broken up”, and that
“private operators should be allowed into the service, and, indeed should compete on price.”
The book set out a plan for a Conservative Government after the coalition. Its authors? Well, they were five newly elected Conservative MPs, who now sit on the Government Front Bench, including the Secretary of State for International Trade, the Home Secretary, the Foreign Secretary, and the new Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. It does not stop there. The Prime Minister, when he was a Back Bencher in this House, called for the privatisation of what he called the “monolithic” and “monopolistic” NHS. Writing in a 2002 book, he also said:
“we need to think about new ways of getting private money into the NHS.”
If we look at this Government’s actions, again we see their true intentions. During the last 10 years of Conservative rule, the NHS has not just been chronically underfunded; it has been privatised by stealth. The Health and Social Care Act 2012 opened the floodgates to private health companies. In the last five years, nearly £15 billion-worth of contracts have been handed to private providers; that is an 89% increase. In this crisis, again they see an opportunity. They call it NHS Test and Trace, but really we all know that it is Serco test and trace. Billions of pounds have been handed out to failing private companies that put profits before people.
The clearest test of all was last summer’s vote on the amendment to this Bill that would have provided legal protection for the NHS from outside private health companies. The Government voted it down, with not a single Tory MP rebelling to vote in its favour. Sadly, I do not have time to go through the donations, speaking fees and close links between Government Members and private healthcare companies and firms linked to NHS privatisation—but, of course, they know that too well.
In conclusion, the NHS is our proudest and most precious public service. Its staff are incredible, dedicated to public health and caring for our country. Today we can show our thanks. Conservative MPs can finally put their warm words into action. This House can vote to protect our NHS. I urge all Members to vote for the NHS protection amendment, Lords amendment 4, and for the scrutiny amendment, Lords amendment 6.
Greg Hands
With the leave of the House, I will respond to what has been a wide-ranging debate, covering many domestic and international matters.
Let me first say that the Government recognise that this House enjoys significant expertise and experience on questions of human rights. We are committed to ensuring that that knowledge is utilised, and to exploring how we can ensure that the views of colleagues are heard and considered on these issues in relation to our free trade agreements.
Let me turn to the points raised during the debate, although I do not have so long to respond. The shadow Secretary of State made a number of points. She said that the Government were stubbornly holding on to CRaG and the Ponsonby rule, despite entry into the 21st century. I was intrigued by that, because, of course, CRaG was introduced by the last Labour Government, in the 21st century—and the right hon. Lady supported it. I would add that, through CRaG, there is an ability to prevent ratification.
Through the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, we have added to the process the publication of negotiation objectives and economic impact assessments, and parliamentary statements after each round of negotiations. We have created the Trade and Agriculture Commission to inform Parliament; section 42 of the Agriculture Act reports; and the International Trade Committee and the International Agreements Sub-Committee having access to the texts to provide their own reports to Parliament.
The right hon. Lady mentioned China. She has come a long way in a short time on China. In her very first appearance at the Dispatch Box in this role on 12 May, she asked my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to make it clear to the USA that she would not agree to
“any version of article 32.10 of the USMCA that would constrain the UK’s ability to negotiate our own trade agreement with China”.—[Official Report, 12 May 2020; Vol. 676, c. 111.]
She did not want anything that would conflict with the UK’s ability to negotiate a trade agreement with China. I have been absolutely clear that the Government—
Greg Hands
No.
The Government have no plans to negotiate a trade agreement with China, but it does seem that the right hon. Lady might.
I turn to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith). We know that he is passionate on the issue and we know he has had a long-standing interest. We have worked together on many aspects and on trade. He is right that it is for the UK to shine a light across the world. I do not disagree with any of his passionate statements about human rights and genocide. However, we also in this country shine a light around the world by making good law. The scope of his amendment is very wide. It would cover not just free trade agreements, but potential trade agreements, and agreements that the UK might hope to accede to. It covers not only bilateral agreements, but plurilateral and global agreements—even WTO agreements. I do not think it would be right for the Government to wait for the human rights in a country to reach the level of genocide, which is the most egregious international crime, before halting free trade agreement negotiations. Any responsible Government would have acted before then.
It is also unclear what is meant by preliminary determination procedure. The nature of that procedure has not, I believe, been thought through. As a matter of international law, it is individuals not states who commit genocide. Therefore, in requiring a preliminary determination as to whether a state has committed genocide, it is also unclear what both amendments would actually require a court to deliver.
What the official spokesman for the SNP, the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie), did not say is that it is the SNP’s policy to rejoin the EU.
Greg Hands
The hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) says, “Hear, hear.” But that would mean immediately having to sign up to the EU—
Greg Hands
I am not going to take any interventions. I have a lot of points to respond to. I apologise to my right hon. Friend, but I have responded to his speech.
As I was saying, that would mean immediately having to sign up to the EU’s brand new investment deal with China from day one. The hon. Member for Glasgow North says, “Oh, we wouldn’t do that,” but he has just said that he would re-join the EU.
My right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) made a very strong point that trade policy must be conducted by the elected Government. We have taken control from unelected judges in Brussels and it should be for elected parliamentarians to scrutinise. He said that amendments put forward today for the very best reasons will result in the very worst practice.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) and Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee made a powerful speech, in particular about his own family’s experience of genocide. He is absolutely right. Genocide is the worst crime there is; it removes an entire people, but we still need to make sure we are making good law. If a country is committing genocide, it is extremely unlikely that any UK Government of any colour would be negotiating a trade agreement with it. I do not believe it would need a court to tell us that, a point also made by my hon. Friends, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie).
The Chair of the International Trade Committee had a few points to raise in terms of the Committee’s scrutiny of the Japan deal. I remember that his Committee actually praised it, but we can work with him further to improve scrutiny.
We had some very good speeches. My hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Katherine Fletcher) spoke against the involvement of courts. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) made strong points on the UK’s international position, but I do not believe that if he had really dug into Lords amendment 3 he would be supporting it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall), who has studied the amendments, made an excellent speech. He pointed out that, from the scrutiny from the International Trade Committee, Ministers have proven ready to listen. My hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies) knows trade policy well and was also against the amendments.
My hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson) called for more parliamentary scrutiny. Well, there is a very significant increase in parliamentary scrutiny from the CRaG position that we inherited. We compare favourably with other Westminster-style democracies, such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani) was passionate on the issue, but she said that the UK Government are in a do-nothing position. That is not correct. The statement made by the Foreign Secretary last week was very clear about the trade actions that the UK Government are putting in place on supply chains and information and on making sure that no companies benefit from any of the appalling practices happening in Xinjiang.
Greg Hands
I am going to try to summarise all the points that have been made.
The amendment in front of us says:
“International bilateral trade agreements are revoked”—
it is not a suggestion—
“if the High Court of England and Wales makes a preliminary determination that they should be revoked”.
That is an absolutist position as expressed in the Alton amendment. More to the point, there is not a bilateral free trade agreement with China to revoke. I will come back to that point shortly.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), who has been to Xinjiang and spoke strongly against what is happening there, made the point that the amendment, which may have China in mind, could well be used for countries with whom we do have trade agreements. I agree on finding a balance, but the Bill, as he rightly points out, is all about continuity trade agreements and agreement on Government procurement and so on.
My hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) quoted the amendment of the LibDem peer Lord Purvis. I say to him that parliamentarians can have their say through the CRaG process on any future trade deal, if Parliament has concerns. That is a key part of our scrutiny arrangements that are set up.
The hon. Member for South Antrim (Paul Girvan) questioned whether Northern Ireland would benefit. It is absolutely clear that Northern Ireland will benefit from UK trade deals. The UK says that. The EU says that. The 63 continuity trade deals all apply to Northern Ireland and the withdrawal agreement and protocol are clear that Northern Ireland will benefit from UK FTAs.
My hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) spoke on platform liability. He asked us to agree that what happened with the US in relation to the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement, which the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury quoted earlier, will not take effect in the UK. We have been absolutely clear that those provisions will not take effect in the UK. He also called for a formal role for the Information Commissioner. I met her recently and I am considering what she has to say on the matter.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) made a powerful point about the importance of the issue, but the flaw is in the amendment in front of us today. It is not for the courts to revoke trade treaties. That is a denial of the fundamental supremacy of Parliament. He is absolutely right on that, while being passionate about what is going on in China and other parts of the world. He asked for more parliamentary debate. Determining the parliamentary timetable is not always entirely in any Government Department’s hands, but we at the Department for International Trade always welcome more debate on trade deals, wherever parliamentary time allows. It is great to have Members passionately interested in trade deals.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Gary Sambrook) made a powerful speech on the 63 deals done. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright), a former Attorney General, raised some really strong points about the legal language of the genocide amendment. What does a preliminary hearing mean? Who is the respondent? Would it be the foreign Government, or would the UK Government have to respond for that foreign Government, which in almost all conceivable cases would be a Government that the UK Government would have been very critical of? He raised serious points that get to the heart of the amendment and how it is not appropriate in our constitutional settlement for the High Court to be doing such as thing as trying to revoke an international treaty. On online harms, I am very happy to engage with him further.
There were excellent speeches from my hon. Friends the Members for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, for Hertford and Stortford (Julie Marson), for Dudley North (Marco Longhi) and for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) on the importance of our trade agenda.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Tom Randall) is quite right. He is passionate—he is the vice-chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on Hong Kong—but he also said that lawmaking is about workable rules and doubted whether a court should have the right to automatically revoke an international treaty.
May I also say a few words about some of the Opposition contributions? I do not have time to reply to all of them, but it is good courtesy to try to reply to as many as possible. I think the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) was making an argument about whether courts should pronounce on genocide, and that is a relevant topic for debate. However, what we have in front of us is not the question of whether courts should pronounce on genocide; the question is whether the courts should have the right to automatically revoke an international trade agreement. That is the amendment that is in front of us, and that is the amendment that I urge my colleagues to reject. It is not for a court to revoke international treaties.
The NHS was raised by Opposition Members including the hon. Members for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood). The Government have been consistently clear about their commitment to the guiding principles of the NHS: that it is universal and free at the point of need. The Government’s position is definitive: the NHS is not and never will be for sale. The NHS is of course the most beloved of British institutions and is not in anyone’s interests, including this Government’s, to change that. No UK trade deal will change that either.
Let me just say a few final words about Lords amendment 3 on genocide from Lord Alton. I know Lord Alton well. I have worked with him closely on a lot of these issues. He and I were instrumental in the all-party parliamentary group for North Korea, and I know his absolute passion on these issues. I also know from my own involvement in these questions in relation to central Asia, including here in Parliament in 2006, and in articles that I wrote in 2011, how passionate he is about these issues. Being passionate about an issue is why we are in this place, but it is also incumbent on us to make good law, and that is fundamentally the question in front of us tonight with the Alton amendment.
I want to make three other points quickly. The first is that there is no bilateral free trade agreement with China to revoke, so even if the High Court decided to do so, that would not bring any comfort to the Uyghurs. Secondly, as I have mentioned, is it a matter for the courts automatically to revoke international treaties negotiated by this Government and approved by Parliament? I do not think that can be right. Thirdly, we do not have a bilateral free trade agreement with China, but we do have such agreements with dozens of other countries. I am not at all sure that it is the right role for the High Court to be potentially clogged up with questions of other countries, international relations and international treaties. I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to consider carefully whether that is the route they wish to go down.
The amendments introduced into the Bill by the other place were undoubtedly done with good intentions, and I hope that I have spoken to all the points arising in this debate and to the speakers and the amendments. But it is our strongly held position that these amendments would, in the aggregate, be to the detriment of the Bill rather than to its advantage. I hope that what I have said here provides the House with clarity regarding the Government’s position on the amendments we are discussing today, and that it will vote to reject them.
Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.