Treaty Scrutiny: Working Practices (EUC Report)

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for introducing the committee reports and note how strongly worded all three are about the need for change and the inadequacy—not to mention the ancient nature—of much of what currently governs the oversight that we have.

I think it is worth revisiting the words quoted by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith: trade deals are as important as most laws. It is one of the ironies of Brexit that, whatever happens, we have lost not only the oversight of laws by a democratic Parliament—as neither House in this place is—but the very strong oversight of trade deals and treaties in general that comes under the Lisbon treaty, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, just alluded to.

I will quote an independent report from the European Parliament think tank, which says that the European Parliament is

“powerful and active in trade policy, on a comparable level to the US Congress.”

We should aim for that level of scrutiny here in the UK. I note the powerful words of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newham, that we can safely conclude that “take back control” did not mean that the people wanted to hand over control of our international treaties to Dominic Cummings.

However, I agree with Boris Johnson that we need to find a new place for the UK in the world, given where things are now. That is crucial to our security. This is an unstable, insecure world, threatened by multiple shocks, of which Covid-19 is just one. That place should be as chair of COP 26 and as a champion of climate action. Given our strong history in the UK as a place where much human rights law originated and much human rights campaigning has been done from, we should be a champion of democracy and human rights. However, we are not in a position to do that, just as we are not in a position to be a champion for climate action, unless we get our own house in order first. These three reports set out very clearly that we currently do not have that in place.

I will briefly refer to the debate in the Chamber today, which referred to the debate around the withdrawal agreement. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, noted that repudiating treaties is what rogue states do. I probably spend more time on Twitter than most noble Lords, but I can tell any noble Lords who are listening that the hashtag “#PerfidiousAlbion” has been trending across most of the UK. If we are to be trusted in the world and if we are to take a stable, secure place in the world, democracy, oversight of treaties and full scrutiny have to be part of that process.