United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 23rd November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 23, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, to which I was pleased to add my name. We have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, who has also signed it, and he put his finger on the case for this amendment, as did the noble Baroness herself.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, said, this amendment would ensure that there is a derogation from the market access principles of mutual recognition and non-discrimination which would allow all four UK nations to put in place proportionate measures to protect the environment and tackle climate change. I echo completely what she and the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said. We do not need to emphasise the crisis that we are facing with climate change and the environment. It is the big issue of our time.

There are concerns that without this derogation there is a potential for stifling innovation, as there will be no incentive for a nation to set higher environmental standards for goods given that it will have to sell goods from the other three nations which may have been produced to a lower standard. I make no apology for repeating the example of a possible consequence if we do not include this amendment, and I want my noble friend the Minister to put my mind at rest on this.

A potential ban on peat for horticultural purposes is a good example, and something that I have been campaigning on for some time. It is an issue that affects climate change and biodiversity. If any of our four UK nations decided to ban the sale of peat for horticulture due to its impacts on biodiversity and emissions, and to preserve our precious peat bogs, what would that mean for another part of the UK that had, at that time, decided not to go down that line? Can my noble friend confirm that, as I read the Bill as currently drafted, the far-sighted nation that decided to ban peat would still have to sell peat from elsewhere in the UK? I am no expert on this, so can my noble friend the Minister also clarify what the situation was while we were still within the EU? I have often heard that one of the advantages of leaving the EU was being able to do exactly what we wanted.

I use that as an example, but I could have given a number of other similar scenarios, such as single-use plastics. I know well from my time as a special adviser to the previous Prime Minister that the devolved countries do not always move at the same speed on environmental measures. I do not want their ambitions to be stifled, however accidentally.

I do not want to detain your Lordships over this excessively, as we have heard already from several others, but I will just say this: without insurance, I regard this as a very serious flaw in the Bill.

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

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 22, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Wigley and Lord Hain, and Amendment 23, in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and the noble Lords, Lord Whitty and Lord Randall of Uxbridge. I too will be brief, because those introducing the amendments—which the Green group support—have done a great job of explaining the urgent need for them both.

Amendment 22 deals with public procurement. I spoke quite extensively—for three minutes, anyway—on a statutory instrument on this issue on 16 November, so I will not go on at great length. I will just point out that we have seen many states in Europe make great progress on this issue, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, set out, Wales has also made significant progress—perhaps the most progress of the nations of the United Kingdom. We have also seen great progress in England for what is known as the Preston model. Public procurement is absolutely crucial for improving the quality of our public health and our environment, for tackling climate change and for supporting small independent businesses. We are setting the model here for what we might hope to be future devolution within England—for Yorkshire, perhaps, and Cornwall, so they should also be able to leap ahead with the resources and powers to do so.

On Amendment 23, as the noble Lord, Lord Randall, just said, it is crucial that no nation in the United Kingdom is held back by others being laggards—and we know which ones that is likely to be. The point of devolution is to allow nations to diverge, to take different paths and to act according to their local circumstances. The noble Lord gave the very good example of peat, something on which we keep hearing promises of action but where we have yet to see the action needed. We hope that we will see real leadership on this and then see the laggards follow.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, I raise an issue that has already been referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hain, pertaining to Amendment 22. It came to my attention two weeks ago, and I suspect that many Members are not aware of it, but we need to make ourselves aware very quickly. I attended Grand Committee when we were discussing the SI on common rules for exports. It was introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone. Bear in mind that the SI dealt with circumstances in which the UK Government could require one of the devolved regions or a company not to export certain items, if they were deemed to be required for the national purpose. For instance, the UK Government could say to a manufacturer of PPE anywhere in the UK, “We need that in the United Kingdom. We cannot let it go abroad.” However, in his opening remarks, the Minister said that the European Commission would exercise these powers in Northern Ireland.

In a different context last week, I asked the noble Lord, Lord True, about this and in what other areas the European Commission would exercise powers. He was unable to answer and said he would write. I put down a Written Question to which I have not yet received a response, but I am trying to get at the significant change taking place to the internal governance of the United Kingdom. In this example, a Minister of the Crown is telling us that a foreign power—which the European Commission will become on 1 January—will exercise powers in a part of the United Kingdom. I do not believe that that SI, and we have had hundreds of them, is the only SI to which this applies. I have asked for research to be undertaken on this, but the question arises in this case specifically, so perhaps the Minister will address it. If he cannot address it today, I would be grateful if he would write and place his response in the Library.

As Northern Ireland will be left in the EU, and subject to the single market and customs union regulations, and state aid rules, where, ultimately, does the power reside? If the procurement rules in the rest of the United Kingdom change, or if they change in the European Union but not in other parts of the United Kingdom, who will ultimately decide on these matters? Public procurement is an EU competence at present. It is not entirely devolved, because competition policy was a reserved matter, as I understand it, but there is a question over who actually decides. In my opinion, the constitution of the United Kingdom is being changed by statutory instrument. Very few people even seem to be aware of all this. Things like this amendment tease out who decides.

The subsequent Amendment 23 has some noble aims and objectives. A question also arises there as, if European Union environmental standards change, how will they be translated into regulations that could affect what happens in Northern Ireland versus Great Britain? There are big questions to be asked here. If the Minister cannot deal with them today, I would be grateful if he would write to me and put the letter in the Library for Members to see. There are changes taking place to our country, and people seem almost to be oblivious to their full extent and what they will mean in the long term.

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37: Page 461, line 30, at end insert—

“Teaching Services

provision of teaching services in schools or colleges”

Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would add the profession of teacher and teaching services to the scope of the exclusions from the Bill, in the same way that the legal professions and legal services are excluded.

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

My Lords, I will also speak to Amendment 50 in my name, which is also signed by the noble Lord, Lord German, to whom I am grateful for his support. Also in this group is Amendment 51, tabled by the Government, for which I thank the Minister. It is clear that the Government were listening during the debate in Committee, and I note that in the letter that the noble Lord circulated this afternoon to interested Peers he acknowledges the representations made by stakeholders on this issue. I can only express my appreciation that we have seen movement from the Government on this. This is also a demonstration of the usefulness of having a House of review.

I wish to thank the General Teaching Council for Scotland, as I did in Committee, for assisting me in the analysis particularly of the differences between the government amendment and those I had tabled. I also note and thank the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, with whom I consulted about this matter, as a former chair of the education committee and a member of the General Teaching Council for Scotland. He empowered me to say that he supports the push to see that the full powers of the General Teaching Council for Scotland are retained. I wish, however, at the moment to retain the possibility of taking Amendments 37 and 50 to a vote, depending on the answers to two questions that I wish to put to the Minister, of which I have given him prior notice.

The first, and perhaps the most crucial one of all, is about the word “school” in the Government’s amendment. I remind noble Lords that government Amendment 51A says that the mutual recognition provisions do not apply to “school teaching”. Could the Government confirm that they intend that this will be interpreted in a broad sense, so that it encapsulates any educational institution in which teaching is delivered? The original amendments, Amendments 37 and 50, refer to the “teaching profession”, which obviously has a potentially broader scope.

I note also that the Minister’s letter circulated to Peers says that the Government have tabled an amendment to remove the teaching profession from the recognition provisions. Clearly, “the teaching profession” and “school teaching” are not necessarily the same thing, and I think it is crucial that we make this very clear. I am not a lawyer, but I doubt that a letter from the Minister to Members of your Lordships’ House has a huge amount of legal standing. I think we need to get on the record precisely what the government amendment means.

The second question is perhaps more technical, and that is a remaining question about the application of the mutual recognition principle and the scope of the exclusions in Schedule 2 Part 1. I seek confirmation from the Minister that the above exemption would not be restricted by the provision in Schedule 2 covering:

“Services provided by a person exercising functions of a public nature or by a person acting on behalf of such a person in connection with the exercise of functions of a public nature”.


Teaching in local authority schools, which would constitute a service provided by a person exercising a public function, would appear to be covered by that. But, obviously, education and teaching extend far beyond that. In particular, what about teaching in independent schools? Teaching is not solely carried out in a public service context, which casts doubt on how the exclusion applies in the context of teaching services as a whole.

Given that the General Teaching Council for Scotland register is not employment based and that the GTCS has no role whatsoever in where a registered teacher ultimately becomes employed—indeed, this often changes over the course of registration—it is important to know that the Government’s intention, and the effect of the law, is to cover all of these elements.

I have focused here particularly on the Scottish case, and I believe the noble Lord, Lord German, will address Welsh issues in particular, but I hope that the Government have also taken full account of the particular situation of Northern Ireland and the teaching profession there.

Finally, I would like to ask a somewhat broader question of the Minister. In Committee, I noted that it would appear that there are also issues potentially with other professions, particularly social work—but there may well be others. I ask the Minister to confirm that the Government have fully consulted with all the professions which may have different arrangements—sometimes long-term, continuing arrangements—in the devolved nations regarding registration or qualification requirements. If the Minister is not able to answer now, perhaps he could write to me about that question.

I note the comments made in the last group by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara. We are, at this stage of the Bill, still left with very considerable uncertainties and concerns and a real lack of clarity, which has to be a worry given the importance of the Bill and these issues and the pressing nature of the deadline approaching us. I beg to move.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to support Amendments 37 and 50 and slightly to push the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, just mentioned, that the words “teaching profession” appear in a letter which was circulated to colleagues in the House of Lords today but the words “school teaching” are used in the amendment. People who teach in further education colleges are called teachers or lecturers, but teaching is what they do. In fact, sometimes they are called teachers in universities as well. That clarification is needed, but at the moment we clearly have two separate terms. I recognise that the Government have moved in this direction and are thinking about this issue following representations made to them, and I welcome that.

However, there is a problem with the words “school teaching” only. I consulted the Education Workforce Council, which has responsibility for the registration of teachers in Wales. It registers petitioners in seven workforce categories across four settings: schools, further education, work-based learning, and youth work. While there are no minimum qualifications for further education staff in Wales as part of EWC registration at present, that might change. In England, there is no registration system for further education staff or any minimum qualifications. It might therefore be that this is not future-proofed in this legislation, where further education might well become a regulated profession as in other forms of education.

The other issue that comes out of this is the four settings that the Welsh council regulates. I would like to ask the Minister about youth work. If you are a registered professional working in youth and it is requirement for you to be registered if you are to be in this area, is that included in the government amendment which refers to “school teaching”? The definition of “teaching” and “school” is quite wide.

I would like the Minister to have a look at the common framework in this area because there is already a mutual recognition of professional qualifications common framework. I would be grateful if she could update the House on how that common framework is progressing. If it is progressing and it is part of the common framework procedure on which we have already passed an amendment, clearly it will make a substantial change to this section of the Bill as well. The principle of automatic recognition imposed under the Bill may well prevent Welsh Ministers, for example, regulating in future on professionals qualified elsewhere in the UK who have lower qualifications or standards than those which would be required in Wales.

Finally, I turn to an issue which has come out of this discussion. Social care is also an area where there are professions. Social care regulation in Wales is also undertaken by a separate regulator. It is one of its primary functions. Under the Regulation and Inspection of Social Care (Wales) Act 2016, from 2022 a range of social care professions will be mandated by the Welsh Government. In other words, you will not be able to operate as, for example, an adoption service manager, a fostering service manager, a residential family centre manager or an adult care home worker unless you have had your registration approved by Social Care Wales.

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[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I will of course be delighted to do that and I will take the point back to the department.

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

I thank the Minister for her answer and I apologise for not noting the changeover in Front Bench responsibilities.

To be honest, I am not entirely reassured, and I want to put a specific question to the Minister that follows on from what the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, has just said about further education. The suggestion of Pilates teachers is something of a red herring, or perhaps a straw man or woman. I am not a lawyer, but perhaps a term like “registered teachers” would allow for an arrangement whereby those who are currently covered by the General Teaching Council for Scotland, or indeed those teachers who are covered by the Education Workforce Council in Wales, would be covered by such a term.

I do not think that we have gone into the detail of the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord German, about the common frameworks and how they work with the Bill, which is a question that noble Lords have been wrestling with right through this Bill. I will quote the noble Lord, Lord German, who said that we are trying to “bottom out the detail” of the Bill. I do not think that we are there yet, and the government amendments do not quite get us there.

Before I make a final call on this amendment, perhaps the Minister could say why a term like “registered teachers” would not do the job more clearly and fully than the term “school teachers”.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

We are talking about semantics here. We are trying to be clear that who we intend to exclude from this provision are school teachers working in a school environment, whether or not they come from a higher education college in order to work in that environment. I do not believe that I can go further than what I have said already.

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

I thank the Minister for her answer. I am still not sure that we are where we need to be or that we have dealt with the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord German, regarding youth work and the social care professions. However, I am not sure that pushing a vote on Amendments 37 and 50 would get us to where we need to be. I hope very much that, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said, the Government will look at the lack of clarity and problems that have been exposed in this debate and seek to tidy up the Bill, as the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, has said. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 37 withdrawn.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 18th November 2020 Lords Chamber

The devolution settlement is by no means perfect but, as a Conservative and unionist, in company with my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern and my noble friend Lord Bourne, and many other noble Lords who have spoken today, I want to resolve the conundrum without destroying the integrity and cohesion of the United Kingdom. The natural and probable consequence of enacting this statute in its unamended form only three years after the quadrilateral agreement underpinning the common frameworks process will pull us in a damaging direction, through unwanted domination, absence of collaboration, lack of respect for the limited powers of the devolved Administrations, and a failure to recognise the complex and dynamic nature of this area of public policy. It will provoke an unequal and opposite reaction and hasten the break-up of the union.

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

My Lords, speaking after so many distinguished noble Lords, I will try to avoid repeating what has been said. I formally offer the Green Party’s support for these amendments and thank the noble and learned Lord who tabled them and his co-signatories for their labours and powerful arguments.

I will offer three perspectives from green political philosophy. First, on the value of diversity, which the common frameworks approach embraces, a healthy ecosystem and a healthy governance system contain diversity. Our outdated, dysfunctional Westminster system acts to suppress that and, in response, we have seen the successful drive for devolution that has brought in political diversity across these islands. As we speak, the Senedd is considering extending that diversity to local government in Wales. That is a direction of travel that the Bill clearly and deliberately seeks to wrench into reverse, being deliberately destructive, as the noble Lord, Lord Garnier, said.

Diversity has obvious practical benefits, such as the ability to experiment, as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, reflected earlier, with different approaches to blocking the flood of single-use plastics into our choked islands; different approaches to producing healthy food from flourishing small market gardens and farms; and different approaches to educating our children, which later amendments in my name address. Where one approach is transparently successful, we hope others will follow its lead—unless political calculations get in the way.

The second philosophical point is about the value of localism—the people affected making the decisions that affect them, ideally democratically, as the nations other than England enjoy their democratic devolved legislative structures. “Take back control” was a very popular slogan in 2016. I entirely agree with that need, and put it to your Lordships’ House that this is what the amendments in support of the common frameworks agreement do for the people of these islands.

Finally, there is the value of co-operation. Working co-operatively is something that we, as Greens, find is very popular with the public. They are fed up with the see-saw of two-party politics, of a new Government seeking to sweep aside and to argue against everything their opponent did, just for the sake of claiming victory. The common frameworks approach is the very epitome of a co-operative way of working.

The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said that for the Government to reject these amendments is to reject devolution itself. I agree. She said that it would be a step towards the break-up of the United Kingdom. I agree. My view of the union is different from the noble Baroness’s. I believe there is a strong natural current towards taking back control in many parts of the United Kingdom but, if it is to happen, we can surely agree that it should be in a co-operative, positive environment, not nations feeling that they have to struggle their way out from under the boot of an overweening, care-less, distant Westminster.

Finally, taking the scientific perspective that reflects my background, I invite your Lordships’ House to consider the fate of the trilobites, whose long story of ocean success and eventual extinction was laid out in a paper in the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Science this week. Through three periods of mass global extinction, the trilobites were a large part of ocean ecosystems but, after each challenge, they had less diversity in ecological niches and bodily forms. Eventually, they dwindled to one species and disappeared. In diversity, co-operation and local power is strength. In homogeneity, dominance and centralism is a loss of resilience, decline and the potential for disaster.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a remarkable afternoon. I agreed emphatically with my friend the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, when he said it was not so much a debate as a series of statements. I have said similar in the past about other debates. I really believe it is essential that we do something to restore debate. My very good and noble friend Lord Naseby made an interesting speech, but I would have loved to have intervened. I would have challenged him, for instance, when he said the Bill is entirely legal. It is now, because we took out Part 5 last week but, if they attempt to put it back, it will become illegal again. He would have responded robustly and interestingly to that sort of interchange. It brings the place alive. We are in a dead, one-dimensional Parliament and we have to do something about it.

Having said that, I will make a suggestion. If we group the speakers who are in the Chamber, it should be permissible for me to intervene on the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, on me, me on my noble friend Lord Naseby or whatever. At the beginning, whoever is on the Woolsack reads the rubric about all noble Lords being treated equally, but there is a time to depart from that. It is entirely right and proper for noble Lords to speak on the screen but, if they are there and not here, they cannot expect to enjoy all the privileges and preferences that those of us who take the risk to come here ought to have. I urge those who arrange these things to consider that.

Outside Part 5, the subject of today’s debate is the most important part of the Bill. We had a magisterial introduction to the debate from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, wonderfully and amusingly backed up by somebody who led him so often, my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern. I beg the Minister, in his reply, to reflect on what those two eminent lawyers said. One was a Conservative Lord Chancellor of many years, and he was backed up by others such as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, who was another signatory to the amendment. I think that all noble Lords who introduced this amendment gave, as one noble Lord described, a masterclass in how to do it.

Despite what my dear and good friend the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said, the Government have demonstrated that they can listen to your Lordships’ House—not only on the Agriculture Bill a week ago, but today on the Order Paper. We have all had a letter, signed by my noble friends Lord True and Lord Callanan, thanking us for our contributions in Committee and saying that they have taken points on board. They have—not enough, but they have. If any point is to be taken on board it is that which we are debating in this first series of amendments. It is crucial, as several noble Lords have said, as the union is at stake.

We were not helped by a certain insensitive remark by an eminent personage a couple of days ago. As we have said before, the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and I were on opposite sides in the 1970s when we were debating devolution, but it has happened. It is a fact of life. Therefore, there has to be an arrangement between the constituent Parliaments of the United Kingdom. Every noble Lord who has spoken today, with the possible exception of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, has expressed a fervent desire to keep the union. It is the most remarkable union in modern history, but it is at risk. It is at risk because the Prime Minister is perceived—and perceptions are so important in politics—to have a rather haughty attitude towards Scotland. It is at risk because the Government are perceived not to care sufficiently about the frameworks of the constituent Parliaments of the United Kingdom.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, laid this out with forensic and clinical precision. I beg my noble friend, in his reply, to reflect on what the noble and learned Lord said in introducing our proceedings. Notice that I am not calling them a “debate”. I beg and beseech my noble friends, Lord True and Lord Callanan, to show a degree of sensitivity, as they have on some other amendments. Sensitivity is not a political weakness; it is sign of political maturity and strength. Reflect and, as I hope, we may not have to vote this afternoon.

I hope the Minister promises to come back at Third Reading, having had conversations with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern, and my noble friend Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth. Remember that, for several years, he led the Conservative Party in the Welsh Assembly, as it then was. These are not political enemies and this is not a party-political issue. It is a constitutional issue of supreme importance to all parties. I ask the Minister, please, to take it away and have conversations with the noble and learned Lord, my noble and learned friend and other noble Lords, and to come back at Third Reading. If he cannot give that conciliatory, sensible and constructive answer, then I will have no hesitation in pressing the “Content” button on my machine.

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

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 24 in the name of the noble Baronesses, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick and Lady Suttie, and the noble Lord, Lord Hain, to which I have attached my name.

First, I shall reflect briefly on the earlier words of my noble friend and the response of the Minister. I believe that this is highly relevant to this debate and to the nature of the Bill. We have, on one side, a combative politics of struggle and conflict—the politics of “Gotcha” —and, on the other side, our side, an attempt to work together to achieve a good outcome with which a large majority are at least comfortable, if not 100% satisfied: the politics of compromise. That, I believe, reflects the two sides of the debate about the Bill. I am a former rugby player and I do understand the pleasures of a crunching tackle, but I do not think that that is an approach that produces good outcomes for the people we are here to represent.

Going back to the specifics of the amendment, the noble Baroness, in introducing it, set out a precise and detailed explanation of the legal circumstances and the need for this clause. I do not intend to repeat that. The noble Lord, Lord Hain, has just laid out, from a position of great knowledge and experience, how this reflects the need to protect vital parts of the Good Friday agreement: rights and equalities protections. These are vital things that the Government would surely not want to downgrade.

We have a very long night ahead of us, so I shall add just one additional reflection to their words, while echoing everything they have said. I note that earlier, the noble Lord, Lord True, for the Government, said that he was concerned that the common frameworks process would create uncertainty for business. I suggest that what the speakers before me have made very clear is that, without this amendment, we have a great deal of legal uncertainty and lack of clarity, with conflicting responsibilities. That is something that creates a great deal of uncertainty for business—although, perhaps, lots of work for lawyers, reflecting many Members of your Lordships’ House. But that is not what we should be aiming for. We have some fundamental issues, concerns, rights and balances to protect here, so I commend the amendment to your Lordships’ House.

[Baroness Suttie (LD) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. She makes very many important points, and I hope that noble Lords listened to them this evening. This has been a short but deeply important debate and I shall speak in support of Amendment 24, to which I have added my name. As has already been said, it is a cross-party amendment signed by the noble Baronesses, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick and Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, and the noble Lord, Lord Hain.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, has already comprehensively explained, the purpose of this amendment is to raise very real concerns about the potential impact on the obligations under Article 2 of the Northern Ireland protocol, which ensures that there will be no reduction of rights, safeguards or equality of opportunity in Northern Ireland, as set out in the Good Friday/Belfast agreement, following the end of the transition period in just over six weeks’ time. Article 13(3) of the protocol obliges Northern Ireland to remain in alignment with EU equality directives, as set out in Annexe 1. This amendment would ensure that Northern Ireland could not be challenged under the Clause 5 non-discrimination principle as set out in the Bill if, in future, it has to make certain changes to the law to ensure that it remains aligned to EU standards after the United Kingdom has left the European Union.

At present, all parts of the United Kingdom are aligned under EU law covering equality issues, but this will not necessarily always be the case. I will take the specific example of equal pay. Currently, the whole of the United Kingdom is covered by the equal treatment directive, but if, in the near future, the EU amends that directive to incorporate extended equal pay obligations on employers, the new obligations would have to be introduced in Northern Ireland but not in Great Britain. As the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, and the noble Lord, Lord Hain, spelled out very clearly, it is possible to imagine that a British company with a predominantly female workforce might decide not to employ staff in Northern Ireland. Under the indirect discrimination prohibition in the Bill, it is not inconceivable that the employer could then challenge the Northern Ireland legislation that had been put in place to comply with Article 13(3) of the protocol. It is also possible to imagine similar scenarios following future amendments to EU race, equality and disability directives, for example.

The Government will no doubt reply that it is not their intention to reduce standards in UK equalities legislation following the end of the transition period. But it is equally unlikely that, in years to come, Britain will follow and replicate every future amendment to EU equalities directives. This amendment is therefore really about future proofing. This is a complex matter. All legislation is capable of resulting in unintended consequences, but it is surely important to anticipate future problems now and to provide potential solutions to safeguard against such problems.

In his concluding remarks, I would be very grateful if the Minister could reassure the House that the Government have thought through how the non-discrimination principle set out in Clauses 5 and 6 will operate in practice in Northern Ireland, given the pre-existing commitments set out in Articles 2 and 13(3) of the Northern Ireland protocol. Equally, I would be grateful if he could give assurances that there will be no reduction in the mandate for the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission to oversee the Government’s implementation of Article 2 of the Northern Ireland protocol. I conclude by echoing the request of the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, for a meeting with the Minister and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission to discuss these matters further.

Competition (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 16th November 2020 Grand Committee

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

My Lords, as the Minister outlined, today we are bringing over EU competition regulations into UK law. With only a few score days until the end of the transition period—whatever that is going to look like—there is little chance to make anything other than the fairly minimal and technical arrangements described, although plenty of complications remain, and may well be added to by future legislation, as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, clearly outlined.

The debate on this SI is also a chance to think about the place of competition in our society. Competition law—or anti-trust law, as the Americans call it—traditionally seeks to maximise competition. In that our current law is clearly failing, with the dominance of a handful of internet companies in cyberspace; the dominance of the great parasite, Amazon, in cybercommerce; and the oligopolistic place of a handful of companies at each stage of our food chain, from seeds and fertiliser supplies to manufacturing fast food.

There is also the fast-growing issue of common ownership—the way in which trading practices and the dominance of a few hedge funds and financial players mean that those companies are owned by a handful of financial firms with no real interest in seeing competition between each of their shareholdings. I would be interested in any comments the Minister is able to make on what plans the Government have to tackle that issue, which has been raised by the OECD, among others, as a growing concern. Small independent businesses, innovators, inventors and creatives are swept up by the logic of our “might is right” business world—bought out, possibly at considerable financial benefit to themselves but at great cost to the rest of us, who are left with a handful of companies dictating what we watch, read, eat and wear, albeit that they might be carefully differentiated by brand into different segments.

If we go to systems thinking, to ecological thinking, what we have is a poor, degraded business environment, lacking in the diversity that brings colour, taste and richness, and resilience—something that Covid-19 has made only too clear. We clearly need different kinds of laws and arrangements.

Yet when we go to other elements of our society, there is far too much competition. The privatisation of public services has led to the cutting of the pay and conditions of workers, a reduction in the quality of provision and the pumping of public money into private hands. The competition is played out in the race to the bottom of provision. I take as an example the report last week from the Children’s Commissioner. The commissioner—a commendably brave and stalwart public servant—noted in a tweet that the “market” in residential care homes was broken. I would like to step back and say that this is an area in which the market—competition—should have no place at all. Competition has been and continues to be unable to work out how to provide the best possible provision for mistreated suffering children. It requires co-operation from all those involved, all along the line, from social workers to residential homes to foster carers. To set up a system designed to make profits from this is nothing short of obscene.

We might look to the United States for another area where competition is entirely inappropriate: the provision of prison places. This is also true here in the UK, where private prisons are demonstrably worse than their public counterparts. Privatising—seeking to make profit out of—the coercive power of the state, setting up the companies providing this in competition, can never be right and can lead only to perverse incentives, such as encouraging more imprisonment, however much the individuals in the system might be there for entirely right, humanitarian reasons, as the vast majority are.

We have a society both lacking in competition and with far too much competition, but behind that is a monolith: no competition at all, financialisation, the turning of everything from the water we drink and bathe in to the council houses that were once public assets and the social care that supports our frail elderly and disabled into a source of profits—profits that all too often are sucked out of our society into the nearest handy tax haven, something supported by the same financial sector, the same City of London, that services and supports that tax haven.

We have seen the destruction of a balanced, mixed, healthy and economic ecosystem, with some things working by good competition, such as local market gardeners seeking to produce the freshest, tastiest and most interesting vegetables, local tailors being the best at reviving and updating your wardrobe, and carpenters producing solid, useful and attractive furniture—and other things, such as schools, carers and housing, which are built not on competition but on co-operation, being regarded as the solid foundations of a decent society.

There is no choice at this moment but to support this SI and go forward from where we are but, as the Government keep talking about building back better and levelling up, we need to look at far more foundational issues and laws for our society.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 9th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, may I begin by joining with the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, and other noble Lords in mourning the loss of our noble friend Lord Sacks?

I shall speak to Clauses 44 and 45. I may be being thick but, for me—and I think for millions of people who voted for the UK to leave the EU—these clauses go to the heart of why we felt there was no alternative. I did not vote to leave the EU almost four and a half years ago because I hate Europe or because I am xenophobic. I did so with a heavy heart because I believed that, unless and until we had left and the transition period had passed, British democracy would be inexorably undermined by a lack of transparency, accountability and control. I did so because I believe in a stronger, not an ever weaker, Parliament, in government that is more accountable, not less, and in a people that thus have more power, not less.

The idea that we should surrender in the final round makes no sense at all. For that is what we would be doing without this insurance policy. Whether we like it or not, it is an inescapable fact that, without it, the integrity and viability of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland could be at risk. Of course, who in your Lordships’ House does not hope that we achieve a favourable outcome through the Joint Committee process? However, this is not guaranteed by any means.

It is worth reflecting on the practical consequences of an unfavourable outcome. My noble friend Lord Lilley posed the key question: what would it mean for people’s lives and livelihoods in Northern Ireland? As the noble Lord, Lord Dodds of Duncairn, made clear, it would have a terrible impact.

Essentially, damaging defaults would come into effect, which would achieve the very opposite of what noble Lords, the Prime Minister, the Taoiseach, the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, and the President-elect of the United States all reject—the effective creation of a hard border in the Irish Sea between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. If I may, I would like to take this opportunity to say how excited I am personally by the election of the first woman and person of colour as Vice-President of the United States. It must mark one of the most exciting milestones in my lifetime and is a testimony to the overwhelming, inevitable logic of equality.

If Michel Barnier or President-elect Biden want to protect Northern Ireland’s integrity and equality through the Good Friday agreement, surely they must accept that a hard border would not achieve that objective. It is therefore essential that we safeguard the gains that have been made and ensure there is a safety net in place to protect the people of Northern Ireland—their jobs, their livelihoods and their financial security—should the EU fail to agree reasonable solutions in the joint committee. As my noble friend Lady Noakes said, these clauses do that pragmatically. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey. If parliamentary sovereignty is to mean anything, these clauses must stand part of this Bill.

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

My Lords, earlier today in the debate on the Agriculture Bill, there was a great deal of rightful praise for the impact of your Lordships’ House, particularly on the crucial issue of trade standards. That reflected 90 hours of debate. We are already well into double figures on this Bill, and that is a good job: first, for the coverage of crucial issues, particularly the effective destruction by the Bill in its current form of the devolution settlements canvassed in earlier sessions; and, secondly, because the time taken to get to these amendments has meant that there is a positive global atmosphere for today’s debate, to which the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, has just alluded.

I want to respectfully disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Lympne, who said that nothing had changed since Second Reading—although he was right to say that nothing had changed in the government position. But the global picture has changed. Had this debate been happening even a week ago, the atmosphere and environment in which it was occurring would have been very different—far more fearful. It would have felt more like the Committee was swimming against a fast-flowing current. But now the Government are the side in this debate that looks isolated and exposed. The global tide is running in the opposite direction, and they are high and dry.

The technical issues have been very clearly set out by major legal minds, and I do not intend to draw on the highly useful multiple briefings received from the major legal institutions of the nation—backing the action of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, in particular—to repeat what they have already said. I simply offer the Green group’s support for all the amendments in this group tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and for all the non-government amendments, and I will reflect on the national, and indeed global, reasons for your Lordships’ House to follow the lead of the noble and learned Lord on Part 5.

Today dawned with the dangerous forces of disorder and decay—those who want to sweep aside the rule of law and who demonise the vulnerable and the different, building walls and seeking to install nets to keep them out—very much on the defensive. Donald Trump has lost the US presidential election. The EU has decided to impose sanctions and deny funding to members that defy the rule of law—a move very clearly directed at Hungary’s far-right regime. In Poland, an outpouring of anger led by women against a further tightening of tiny abortion rights has developed into a far broader challenge against regressive forces. In Thailand, young people are standing up against the long-term repression of the combined forces of the military and tradition.

By backing the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, the Committee can today begin to point the UK in the direction that the rest of the world is travelling: towards restoring a democratic culture and the rule of law. That restoration protects the Good Friday agreement, that crucial bedrock of security and communal trust. That the unelected House—a phrase we hear a lot from the last-stand defenders of our isolated Government—should be doing this is, however, a pointer to the future.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 2nd November 2020 Lords Chamber

These amendments seek to correct that gross imbalance in the Bill and to make some provision for the independent governance of the internal market and UK state aid in the post-Brexit future. They have my strong support.

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

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and the noble Lords, Lord Wigley and Lord Hain. I agree with much of what they have said. The noble Baroness was particularly clear in setting out the issues that arise with this group. I have attached my name to, and will speak to, Amendments 119 and 126, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, who I thank for originating them.

They share the purpose of many amendments in this group: to ensure that the devolved nations have a voice in the operation of the internal market—the market that will govern much of what they can regulate and what protections they can provide to their peoples, as the Committee discussed last week in the group starting with Amendment 15.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has not yet spoken, I will briefly address the detail. I interpret Amendment 119 as something of a back-up to Amendment 118, which would ensure that the Government have to obtain the consent of devolved Administrations before appointing the chair and members of the CMA’s office for the internal market panel. Amendment 119 says “seek consent”. I prefer Amendment 118, but it is important that at this stage we offer a range of amendments to the Government.

Amendment 126 refers to the membership of the OIM panel, saying that it should include representatives from each of the four nations of the United Kingdom. The purpose of these two amendments, as in so many of the amendments in this group, is—to adapt the well-known phrase— to ensure that there is no regulation, or deregulation, without representation or democracy.

In briefly making the case for these amendments, I go back to the first group debated today, which, as your Lordships will recall, related to professional qualifications. I quote the words of the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, in that debate:

“There is the whole world of artificial intelligence or gene editing—there is a massive range of new and potential professional areas, bodies and qualifications that may come forward … in the case of new professions, it is entirely possible that the individual nations of the UK might seek to regulate them differently, and we want no new barriers to trade to emerge”.


In that one short statement, the Minister managed to sum up the disturbing intention of the Government to centralise in Westminster decision-making on extremely important areas of public policy that are currently devolved; the reasons for the objections to this Bill held by many, particularly those concerned with defending the devolution settlements; and the case for these amendments. Even if the protections that the still relatively new institutions of the nations have been able to create for their peoples stay in place, they will not be able to react to social, economic or technological changes, or strengthen existing protections.

To go back to the single-use plastics example that was discussed extensively under Amendment 15, if the Welsh Government want to provide extra protections for their people and environment from these deeply damaging products, they can rush to get measures under the wire now, before the internal market replaces the single one. For what happens after that, I cannot think of better examples than those provided by the noble Lord, Lord Callanan—gene editing and artificial intelligence, where different regulations might be applied by the devolved Administrations in their areas of competence. That would include areas ranging from agriculture to education, from food safety to transport. We need to ensure that the devolved Administrations can keep control.

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, I listened carefully to noble Lords who spoke before me. The devolved Administrations are failing to recognise that both the CMA and the office for the internal market are fundamentally UK-wide bodies working on UK-wide issues. They are not bodies where territorial interests will be played out. The devolved nations are part of the United Kingdom, which exists and is not just a federation of four independent nations. There are clear United Kingdom functions, which is why we have UK Ministers looking out for the interests of the whole United Kingdom. We should not regard the UK as somehow morphing into an equivalence with England, which the noble Lord, Lord Hain, came close to saying, even if he did not actually say it, when he spoke earlier.

Furthermore, these significant independent public bodies should not be seen as having nominees or representatives on them: it is important that you get the best people to contribute to the functions given to these bodies by statute. Those people will require qualifications and experience. It does not matter where they come from: the most important thing is to get the right quality of individual on those bodies to carry out their functions. Any sense that those individuals become the possessions of devolved Administrations could take them into political alignment, which would have a very negative influence on the effective operation of the independent bodies.

Schedule 3 already requires consultation with the devolved Administrations over the appointment of the chair and panel of the office for the internal market. That is the normal formulation. I do not think that there is a precedent for what is proposed, for example, in Amendment 117: direct appointments by devolved Administrations to independent UK-wide bodies. That would take us in a direction that could undermine the independence and coherence of those bodies. I hope that noble Lords will not pursue their amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Judd (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I shall not now speak to the group starting with Amendment 134, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering. As this debate went forward, I came to realise that I can perfectly adequately cover what I want to say in that context in this group.

At several points in this evening’s debate, I have been struck by the measured and telling way in which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, has said that he believes that the Bill is undemocratic. It is certainly undemocratic in the arrangements for the even distribution of resources. I do not want to become a Jeremiah; I would rather leave that role to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. However, as someone who is half-Scottish and half-Welsh and closely identifies with both families, who has northern Irish blood, and whose wife has Welsh blood, I see disturbing trouble ahead unless we get the spirit of what we are doing right.

The key to that is to recognise that what happens in the future must belong to the people of Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England. Even in the context of this debate, in an excellent speech, the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, referred to partnership. I am not sure that partnership is an adequate description; it must be a completely common approach, in which all parties are on an equal footing.

We are rather good in this House—no less than anywhere else—at talking with utter conviction about the priorities that must be faced in political and social policy, and then failing to make consensus on the detailed policy before us. My noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock made that point about the environment very well indeed.

If the Bill is basically undemocratic, Amendment 167 in the name of my noble friend Lord Stevenson, is highly relevant. I am very glad that he has brought into it one of the big preoccupations of this House and the other place: poverty and child poverty. He has made it central to what we are doing.

I also commend the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, for bringing up the environment and climate change so seriously. Climate change is going to dwarf everything else that we are dealing with as it moves forward. We must not only speak about it and make dealing with it an aspiration; we have to make it central to everything that we do in mainstream policy and legislation. If this is not mainstream legislation, then I do not know what is. Therefore, it is crucial that climate change comes on board as well.

I was very glad to see the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, because obviously we want policies in the interests of the people in all four parts of the United Kingdom: Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England. We want long-term policies which are sustainable and tackle climate change and the nature emergency. We have a major nature emergency at the moment, not least in the sphere of biodiversity. We need all those things, and I am glad to see that amendment there to keep our eye on the ball and our feet on the ground as we move forward, not just with a constitutional arrangement but with an arrangement that will be viable because it really belongs to all the people of the United Kingdom and deals with crucial issues that will make all our tactical politics seem pretty trifling by comparison.

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

My Lords, I thank those who assisted me in getting the chance to speak after the accidental omission of my name from the original list. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and welcome his front and centring of the climate emergency and nature crisis. I thank the noble Lord for his expression of support for Amendment 169 in my name. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, for his expression of support.

Before I get to that, I wish to briefly speak in support of Amendments 132, 167 and 168 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara. It is notable that in the EU there are rules about the funds allocated for the alleviation of poverty and inequality—something that has been entirely lacking from UK practice and procedure, under which the Government have been able to direct money for electoral advantage without rules or oversight. The Americans have a word for that, “pork-barrelling”, and the practice is as unattractive as the metaphor.

I share the concerns expressed by other noble Lords speaking in this group about devolution issues, which other amendments seek to address, but as I have addressed those in other speeches I now speak chiefly to Amendment 169. It seeks to ensure that those who receive financial assistance, provided under the provisions of the internal market, can receive it only if a climate and nature emergency impact statement is undertaken first. This would ensure public money is granted only to development consistent with net climate, nature and environmental targets.

Amendment 169, and my argument for it, build on the comments of my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb on the previous group, who reflected on the damage done by massive and continuing fossil fuel subsidies. As others have noted, my amendment has much in common with Amendment 166 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, to which my noble friend has already spoken, but my amendment extends further, calling for a detailed mechanism for each project, rather than the overview included in Amendment 166.

I must remind the Committee, as the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, did, that the UK is the chair of the COP 26 climate talks. We have a responsibility to be the world leader the Government often proclaim they want to be. Green finance is an issue of great interest to a wide range of international bodies and commercial organisations. All new and continuing financial schemes, whatever their sources, have to be green, given the urgency of our climate emergency and nature crisis.

I note that on 25 June, the Committee on Climate Change made a progress report to Parliament, although we are yet to hear the Government’s response. The report showed how far our current policies are from meeting our existing commitments and the future, larger commitments we must surely make to live up to our enhanced ambition, beyond that of Paris 2015—something we have recently seen China taking a clear global leadership role in.

I refer to an Answer I received today from the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, to a Written Question on the green homes fund. I asked whether the programme would be extended and the funding enhanced. In his Answer, the noble Lord helpfully told me that £65 billion of investment will be needed for housing retrofit across the 2020s—£65 billion in nine years versus £2 billion of current funding. We clearly need to see some of the funding covered by this Bill directed towards this area, not nature-destroying, planet-trashing options.

Since the Government are very keen to look at league tables for education, we might look at two published in the last fortnight on the environment. One showed per capita contribution to plastic waste production. In this, we are, unfortunately, world-leading. We are second behind the United States on this plastic-choked planet—a huge and terrible responsibility. We have to use regulatory tools and funding to promote ways of cutting back on this. Secondly, the European Environment Agency reported that the UK has the third-greatest proportion of marine and land areas in bad conservation status; we are close behind Belgium and Denmark. More than 70% of our habitats

“exhibit overwhelmingly bad conservation status.”

Again, we must not only make sure we do not fund further damage but, as a matter of extreme urgency, direct funding in ways that start to repair the centuries of damage that has been turbocharged by our economic structure in recent decades.

These are not abstract, environmental, “nice to have” issues. They are about human survival. I ask your Lordships to think about the people of Nicaragua and Honduras seeking shelter and safety. To quote an NBC headline:

“Eta forecast to make landfall as a Category 4 hurricane, a rare occurrence in November.”


If noble Lords think that is an odd name for a hurricane, we are using the Greek alphabet now, because the normal alphabet has been exhausted this year.

The Committee might think about the people living now in low-lying areas around the world, including in the UK—we had a reference to flooding earlier. There have been reports from the Arctic of the failure of sea ice to form by the end of last month. That month broke the record for the lowest extent of sea ice in October. Its extent was more than 1.5 million square miles less than the 1980s average. That is an area larger than India, if noble Lords can envisage that.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 28th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB) [V]]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord German, just said, it would be far better if we did not have these provisions in the Bill at all, but one must assume that they may remain. That is why these amendments, particularly Amendments 15 and 30, to which I have added my name, address the provision which talks about consultation but does not mention the word “consent”.

I have two requests for the Minister; I will not elaborate further on what the noble Lord, Lord German, said in his very helpful introduction to this group. First, would he be good enough to repeat, in the context to which these amendments refer, the assurance he has already given that the Sewel convention principles will be applied without any hesitation in regard to consultation?

Secondly, will the Minister consider whether it would not be wise, in view of the importance of the clauses in which these provisions appear, to adopt the system used, he will recall, in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 when considering the system of seeking the consent of the devolved Administrations—Assemblies, Senates and Parliaments—to the modification of EU law? He may recall that Ministers were given power to restrict the powers of the devolved Administrations to modify EU law in certain respects by delegated legislation. Provided for in Part 1 of Schedule 3 was a system whereby the Parliaments, Senate and Assembly were given an opportunity to provide consent. The wording in the Scotland provision was:

“A Minister of the Crown must not lay for approval before each House of the Parliament of the United Kingdom a draft of a statutory instrument containing”


the relevant

“regulations … unless … the Scottish Parliament has made a consent decision in relation to the laying of the draft, or … the 40 day period has ended without the Parliament having made such a decision.”


If it came to the point of there being no consent, when the Minister of the Crown laid this draft, as mentioned, before either House, he would be required to explain his decision to lay it without the consent of the Parliament.

That system was arrived at after a great deal of discussion in the 2018 Act; it is quite a useful one that might well be thought appropriate in this case to reduce the element of dismay which the devolved Administrations are feeling about how they are being treated by these provisions—all that has been provided for is consultation. They would at least have an opportunity in their legislatures to consider whether consent should be given. Of course, if they fail to give it within 40 days, ultimately the Minister can go ahead, provided he explains why he is doing so. There is no amendment to this effect, but this is an opportunity for the noble Lord to consider whether it would not be wise to soften the blow that has been felt by the devolved Administrations by adopting that system, which was so carefully worked out and eventually accepted in the 2018 Act.

Beyond that, I support everything the noble Lord, Lord German, has said in support of the amendments to which he has spoken.

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

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord German, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead. I thank them both for setting out detailed consideration of this rather long list of amendments, the length reflecting the levels of concern in the Committee about this area of the Bill.

I will speak to a series of amendments in this group to which I have attached my name, Amendments 15 and 64 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and Amendments 16, 41, 48, 74 and 99 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town. I apologise to your Lordships for not taking part at Second Reading. My name was down to speak, but I was caught up in the collision with the Medicines and Medical Devices Bill, which also prevented me from taking part in earlier Committee sittings.

That is not the only crucial political collision we are encountering at the moment. As a former newspaper editor, I am well aware of the problem of the media being able to focus on only one issue at a time. I sought to place an article about the environmental issues in the medicines Bill with a major news outlet, and was told “No, we’ve already run too many articles on this Bill.” We are at risk of falling into the same problem with this Bill.

I can identify at least three major areas that could in normal circumstances expect attention from the serious media. Rightfully getting top billing are the Part 5 issues that we expect to get to on the final day of this Committee’s deliberations. The second area, which would normally get massive amounts of attention, is the clauses that provide powers even greater than those of Henry VIII, as the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, and others spoke to so powerfully earlier today. As a former journalist, I have a shorthand for that—Henry VIII on steroids. I share the liking of the noble Lord, Lord German, for the amendments that wipe those out altogether.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I wish to draw the Committee’s attention to the risk to future public health policy as a result of the inconsistent nature of this Bill and focus on the impact of artificially splitting the public health exclusion so that it applies unevenly across the market access principles.

I will concentrate on Amendments 39A, 47A and 52A —tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham—to which I have added my name and which are also supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover. As the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, said, the exclusions to the market access commitment differ between mutual recognition and non-discrimination. I struggle to understand the rationale of legislation that recognises the importance of allowing policy that is necessary to protect some aspects of human health but provides no equivalent avenue for others. This is not a continuation of how our internal market is currently regulated, but a significant departure from it.

The example of minimum unit pricing for alcohol, which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Young, illuminates the risk of arbitrary distinctions. Much of the discussion in the House of Commons on this Bill’s health impacts revolved around its potential effects on minimum unit pricing, which arguably was covered by the mutual recognition principle. If it were covered by mutual recognition, this could have rendered any future similar policy—possibly even modifications of the existing minimum pricing regime—largely untenable due to the lack of a public health exclusion from mutual recognition.

In responding to this, rather than applying a public health exclusion to mutual recognition, the Government instead moved minimum unit pricing and similar manner-of-sale policies from mutual recognition. When introducing these amendments, the Minister in the other place said:

“We are taking the opportunity to put it beyond any possible doubt that alcohol minimum unit pricing-type regulation and any other sales requirements are not in the scope of the mutual recognition principle, unless they amount in practice to a total ban on a good being sold.”—[Official Report, Commons 29/9/2020; col. 189.]


While your Lordships may consider that this represents an improvement at face value, on closer inspection, it is a cause for considerable concern.

First, the Government’s decision to do this indicates that a thoroughly evidenced-based policy such as minimum unit pricing, which has steadily defeated challenge in the courts, might not have been possible if it were included within mutual recognition. That illustrates just how narrow the exclusions are to this principle.

Secondly, it demonstrates the risk that this Bill poses to future public health legislation. We know about minimum unit pricing, so we can modify the Bill to attempt to protect it, but it is not hard to imagine that we might in future see innovative and effective policy based on health labelling bans or content reformulation of alcohol, tobacco or food products. All these aspects would likely be subject to the rigid mutual recognition principle.

Lastly, regarding the amendments on the powers of the Secretary of State to amend the Bill through secondary legislation, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee concluded that the Government’s adoption in the Bill of wide-ranging Henry VIII powers, whereby:

“Any power to make regulations under this Act is exercisable by statutory instrument”


and includes the power

“to amend, repeal or otherwise modify legislation”

is completely inappropriate. In effect, it allows the removal or weakening by ministerial diktat of the limited public health protections currently included in the Bill.

At Second Reading, I discussed the importance of allowing the Governments of the four nations of the United Kingdom to protect the health of their populations and how that can lead to innovative policy solutions. The UK has been a leader in the past on tackling smoking, alcohol and sugary drinks. This legislation risks us being unable to embrace, let alone lead, key public health policies in years to come. Our amendments will protect the future of public health legislation, and I commend them to the Committee.

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

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, who, along with many other noble Lords in this group, focused on public health. Covid-19 has reminded us how unhealthy our society is and how inadequate current arrangements are.

Given that my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb has spoken with great power and eloquence in this group, I will be brief and address only Amendment 51 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, to which I attached my name. That amendment would provide public interest defences on trade restrictions; environmental standards and protection; animal welfare; consumer standards; employment rights; the health and life of humans, animals or plants; cultural expression; regional sociocultural characteristics; and equality entitlements, rights and protections. These describe what should be the goals of a decent Government aiming to deliver a healthy life for all their citizens and the sustainable development goals that they are signed up to.

The term “public interest” makes me think of public money for public goods. I am aware that “public goods” has a technical definition but the parallels with “public interest” in this amendment are obvious. I cannot, therefore, see how the Government can oppose it, given that they want to spend significant sums of public money for some of the same goals through the mechanisms of the Agriculture Bill and the Environment Bill, whereas here we are simply applying standards to deliver public goods. I am aware that some Members of your Lordships’ House believe that trade, and the greater volume of it, is a good in itself and should be our primary or sole aim, but we come back to the question: do we work for the economic system, or does it work for us?

Many of these discussions have a distinctly Groundhog Day feeling and the Government may respond by saying, “Our intentions are good and we are trying to deliver all these things”. I come back to the word “dictatorship”, my use of which the noble Lord, Lord True, objected to. I reserve my own right to judgment on that. In fact, I do not have to go that far for the purpose of arguing for this or other amendments. We know that Prime Ministers and Governments have not had a long shelf life in recent times, and who knows how long this one will last? We are creating a legal framework and the possibility for action by any future Government, whatever they might look like. Giving the right to all devolved Governments to act on behalf of their citizens to defend them against chlorinated chicken or fruits laced with dangerous pesticides can be the only basis for continuing in a democratic manner.

[Lord Teverson (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Nature Partnership. I wish to speak to Amendment 52, although I support a number of other amendments in this group. That amendment has been tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, who, in a topsy-turvy way, will follow me.

We have naturally and correctly been obsessed by the Covid-19 crisis, yet we still very much have the climate change issues—the loss of nature, the biodiversity challenge and a raft of other environmental issues of great importance, such as plastics, marine pollution and so on. Those challenges are not just global; they are national, as well as being regional and subnational. In the United Kingdom devolution is a fact of life and something that I certainly welcome. Those devolution principles allow the nations that make up the United Kingdom to be able to set their own standards in a number of areas. One key area where those standards can be different and which I believe has been particularly successful is the environmental area, and there is potential in climate change as well.

The history of devolution and different decision-making within the UK in the environmental area has been very positive. There has been almost a competition, if you like, to get ahead of other nations within the UK, and that way the bar has been raised in terms of environmental legislation and what we are trying to do. In fact, the word “experimentation” has been used previously. It is important to see what works in one part of the UK, as this is sometimes copied by others. The plastic bag policy in supermarkets, cotton buds, plastic straws—all are examples of one leading and others following. Indeed, as we have heard many times, even within the EU single market, member states have been allowed to have enhanced standards and have not been challenged.

The challenge is: how do we meet the environmental and climate crises that we have and still keep our internal market? To do that, we cannot rest on the status quo. We have to move forward on all those agendas, as indeed the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, will know well, being the Government’s climate change Minister. We cannot stay where we are and have business as usual.

We therefore need to keep these positive, competitive aspects of environmental and climate change legislation within our devolution in the United Kingdom while keeping that important single market. As has been said before in this debate, no one in this Chamber is looking to restrict that single market in any way in principle. But I believe that this Bill undermines our ability to meet our environmental objectives easily and quickly.

What does the blanket—as I see it—market access principle risk here? One thing we have is offshoring. We have been very good performers in the United Kingdom on our carbon footprint, but that is because a lot of manufacturing has perhaps gone to Asia. That is not the whole story, but it is some of it.

As the Bill stands, if we have stringent rules within one part of the UK, manufacturers would just move to another part of it and effectively import into those other regions or nations. That would be extremely negative. But one key thing would happen: rather than having a “raising the bar” competition between national authorities within the UK, we would risk moving the power to the corporate sector, which is more likely to look for efficiencies or the lowest standards in order to make sure that they can remain strong within the market. That would be a very undesirable outcome of this legislation, which is not the Government’s intention. We risk, potentially, more of a commercial race to the bottom. I have nothing against industry whatever—indeed, I wish to see it promoted—but this would change the power structure within the supply chain. It is as if the legislation were applying the harshest WTO rules internally to our own internal market.

We need to have sensible derogations that can avoid these downsides and outcomes. Amendment 52, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, is exactly what we need for the environment and climate change agenda and for the United Kingdom to stay ahead in this area, not just globally but nationally and regionally as well. Without such derogations, other environmental legislation at a devolved level becomes almost redundant, as it cannot be enforced because goods will come from elsewhere in the United Kingdom—or else devolution will become redundant in this area because, since England is the largest part of the market, Westminster will effectively decide the rules. That is why this amendment is vital.

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Moved by

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

79: Page 51, line 23, at end insert—

“Teaching Services

provision of teaching services in schools or colleges”

Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would add the profession of teacher and teaching services to the scope of the exclusions from the Bill, in the same way that the legal professions and legal services are excluded.

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

My Lords, I beg leave to move Amendment 79, and also to speak to Amendment 106, both of which appear in my name. I acknowledge support in preparing these amendments and presenting this information from the General Teaching Council for Scotland. I also draw on the submission of the Education Workforce Council of Wales to the UK Internal Market White Paper. The Welsh submission noted:

“There is no public register of schoolteachers in England. There are many aspects of the regulatory system in England that are different. For example, there is no requirement for employers to refer cases, and the teaching regulation authority has only one disciplinary sanction it may apply. The rest of the UK and Ireland have registration and regulatory arrangements.”


In its equivalent submission, the General Teaching Council for Scotland said that it

“does not consider that a system of mutual recognition can or should be applied to the teaching profession within the UK.”

It noted, as did the Education Workforce Council, that the systems are structured differently in England from the rest of the UK. The General Teaching Council continued:

“GTC Scotland is not prepared to lose this control over the standard of teachers entering the teaching profession in Scotland in this way and given the devolved education function within the UK, it does not believe that it would appropriate to do so.”


In Wales, the registration and regulatory arrangements were strengthened in 2015 with the reconfiguration of the General Teaching Council for Wales as the Education Workforce Council. That extended registration and regulation from just schoolteachers to include seven education professions. From 2022, Wales is introducing a new curriculum for initial teacher training relating to the specific circumstances of that nation and its systems. In Scotland, the teacher training system continues to be based on formal education, rather than the classroom-based learning that has been adopted as an alternative system in England, where unqualified teachers, who operate primarily in free schools, are allowed.

I am assured that almost all teachers coming from other parts of the UK who apply for registration in Scotland achieve it. This is not about discrimination, but keeping control and maintaining an existing and separate different system and rules, without seeing them swept aside by the Bill—or “bulldozed” in the powerful metaphor that my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb used with broader application earlier this evening.

In referring to Northern Ireland, I start with a very useful 16-page briefing paper from the Northern Ireland Assembly. It begins by noting that there is a “complex educational structure” there. It notes that the Assembly has overall responsibility for the education of the people of Northern Ireland and for effectively implementing educational policy. Northern Ireland’s General Teaching Council is an arm’s-length body for the Department of Education, responsible for registering all teachers in grant-aided schools and approving qualifications for the purposes of registration.

We have here four very different systems that have evolved in different ways, for different purposes and for different situations. Three have registration systems under local control. England does not. Forcing them into mutual recognition is, I argue, clearly inappropriate. That is why these two amendments together aim to add the profession of teacher and teaching services to the scope of the exclusions from the Bill, in the same way that the legal professions and legal services are excluded. Mutual recognition is in no way appropriate for this situation. It involves sweeping away established, working, respected different systems. That of course was the point of devolution generally: to allow the nations to head in different directions to fit their particular cultures, circumstances and needs.

I stress that the Bill already acknowledges the different legal systems and the need for these to be treated differently. My amendments are minimalist in that they simply mirror the different treatment of lawyers in the treatment of teachers. However, the issues that I raise may well extend beyond teaching, and certainly beyond Scotland—for example, regarding social work in Wales. The Government have a great deal of work to do before Report to disentangle these complications and possibly extend the amendments even beyond what I have presented here. But adopting my amendments, or something very like them, would at least, by aligning the different treatment of legal systems with teaching, solve one of the problems.

I will continue to pursue these issues to that stage if I need to, but I very much hope that the Government will acknowledge the clear issues raised here and find their own solution to allow the existing, working, devolved systems for the registration of teachers, and possibly other related professions, to operate in all the nations of the UK where that is relevant. If they do not, I hope that some of the noble, and noble and learned, Lords in your Lordships’ House, who I am sure welcome the exemption for the legal profession from the mutual recognition provisions, might be prepared to join in the work to assist another profession to keep independent control of its own activities, as befits professional organisations in the nations of the UK. I beg to move.

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[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I am not going to give the noble Lord a definitive answer now but I will write to him to make sure that we are clear about that issue.

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

I thank noble Lords who have contributed to the debate and the Minister for her response. The noble Lords, Lord German and Lord Purvis of Tweed, usefully added some pieces of history, particularly on Scotland and helped to identify that we are talking about long-separate and different systems. The noble Lord, Lord German, identified the way in which Wales has been heading in different directions. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, stressed my point that there is no reason why teaching services should not be treated in the Bill in the same way as legal services and the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, made an important point.

The Minister acknowledged the long-standing differences. I understood her to say that teaching would be automatically excluded without needing to be included in the Bill—at least in her initial remarks, but perhaps not so clearly in answer to the question she was asked. I know that that is not what was conveyed to the GTCS in previous discussions and that there is considerable public concern, particularly in Scotland, about these issues. I note the word that the Minister used in her comment that the nations “can” put in place alternative systems. The systems are already in place.

I will go away and look at Hansard, but I reserve the right to come back on Report. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 79 withdrawn.

Trade Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 15th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, this group covers a lot of ground, including some more discussion on the Trade Remedies Authority, on Board of Trade appointments and on trade advisory groups. In rising—not literally—to move Amendment 81, I shall speak also to the other amendments in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Bassam.

I think that we were all surprised and somewhat shocked at recent appointments to the Board of Trade, but the key issue here is accountability and transparency around appointments to such important bodies. Amendment 81 seeks to establish a public process for board of trade appointments, including advisers to the board. When the Minister comes to respond, I would like him to explain why such appointments do not follow the recruitment processes set out in the Governance Code for Public Appointments, why they are not made under the supervision of the Commissioner for Public Appointments and why prospective appointees —and certainly the senior ones—do not appear in front of the International Trade Select Committee.

Amendments 83 and 106 seek to broaden representation on the trade advisory groups and the TRA. Over the summer, the Government, rather surprisingly, cancelled all their previous arrangements for discussion about trade and launched 11 new trade advisory groups

“to support the UK’s ambitious trade negotiations.”

Apart from the agri-food trade advisory group, there is a considerable lack of wide representation, particularly for the trade unions, which Amendment 83 seeks to address.

Amendment 83 also refers to NDAs—non-disclosure agreements. In June, the Government requested that members of the expert trade advisory groups sign an NDA for seven years to be able to see confidential material relating to trade negotiations. One appreciates that there will be confidential material, but seven years seems out of proportion. Many groups, including the TUC, said that they simply could not sign such an NDA because it would limit their ability to consult their members. That is an important point to bear in mind. The sharing of documents is obviously not to be encouraged while trade negotiations are continuing, but can the Minister say when he comes to respond that the process of reviewing the NDA will end, why seven years was selected and why he thinks it so important that it should be in place?

In previous debates, I have said that Labour is also worried about the Trade Remedies Authority lacking effective stakeholder engagement across sectors and regions. Therefore, Amendment 106 would:

“ensure that the Trade Remedies Authority includes, among its non-executive members, representatives”

of

“producers … trade unions … consumers, and … each of the United Kingdom devolved administrations.”

On the TRA, the TUC has said that without trade union representation

“There is no guarantee provided that the non-executive members will represent the interests of workers in manufacturing sectors who will be severely affected by the dumping of cheap goods such as steel, tyres and ceramics.”


Such dumping has already happened recently. Amendment 108 would also ensure five-year terms for members of the TRA, renewable for a further term, to ensure a reasonable turnover.

Ultimately, we need to ensure a degree of transparency and accountability for trade advisers and trade negotiations. The Government insist on trying to hold these away from public scrutiny. These bodies are part of the process and they could, with advantage, listen to these arguments and open them up to a wider group of people. I hope the Minister will view these amendments as proportionate and see them as offering solutions that actually strengthen the Government’s hand in negotiations. I beg to move.

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

My Lords, I shall speak primarily to Amendment 81, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, ably if very restrainedly just set out by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and to which I attached my name, as did the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. Since we have yet to hear the explanations for Amendments 83, 106, 108 and 113, I will simply say that I offer the Green group’s support to all of them to increase the transparency and representativeness of advice to the Government. I particularly note the strong cross-party support for Amendment 106 and look forward to hearing the explanations for Amendments 110 to 112.

However, I turn to Amendment 81, which is about Board of Trade appointments—or, to give it its full title, the Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of all matters relating to Trade and Foreign Plantations. As an aside, I think that the Government might use this legislative opportunity to bring our constitutional arrangements out of the 17th century, at least in a small way, by modernising the name.

However, Board of Trade appointments might normally be considered a rather arcane matter and something that would be of little public interest, although there would probably be a general assumption, if you were to be brave enough to survey 100 members of the public in the street, that such important roles would, of course, be filled by a fair, competitive and transparent procedure.

Then, of course, we come to Tony Abbott. Should my accent have yet to do so, I remind everyone that I maintain a residual interest in Australian politics. Your Lordships’ House has a tradition of politeness and a different kind of language to that often used in the other place. Normally, I do not find that a constraint; today, I do. Therefore, I will simply produce a factual list: there is clear evidence of misogyny, homophobia, climate change denial, a lack of trade expertise and a clear conflict of interest. The Government really could not have done a better job of highlighting the importance of the amendment. They might have intended the appointment as a blow in the culture war—it is hard to think of another explanation—but they set out their position of intending to use an important technical role for a clearly political purpose. I say very seriously to the Committee that your Lordship’s House has a major constitutional responsibility in ensuring that this amendment is sent to the other place. Defending the Nolan principles should not be necessary, but it clearly is.

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I will say a few brief words on Amendment 81, to which I attach my name. It would strengthen the individuals concerned when they have been through quite a rigorous public process for appointment. It would legitimise them and give them greater confidence and an assuredness in dealing with outsiders. If they have been slipped in under the net there is always that residual feeling that, from their point of view, they know that they are there illegitimately.

I speak from personal experience because I have appeared in front of a House of Commons committee. Paragraph (c) does not say that the appointment has to be approved by the House of Commons Select Committee; it just says “appeared”. There have been occasions where people have appeared and there has been a majority against, but the Government still carried on and appointed, which is within the law; they are perfectly entitled to do so.

Those House of Commons hearings are not perfect. I appeared, as an ex-Minister, as the putative chair of the Food Standards Agency. It is true to say—as the record shows—that I was asked more questions in the session about my previous role as Housing and Planning Minister, dealing with some of the constituency matters of the members, than about food standards. It was a bit frustrating, but, nevertheless, they are the ones who ask the questions, and that is what they chose to do.

However, the fact of the matter is that it gives you a greater degree of legitimacy if you have gone through a process. If there has not been one and it has been a ringing-up by chums or a tap on the shoulder, you do not seem legitimate. In the end, it shows. Therefore, I strongly advise the Government to beef up the public appointments process. There may be other ways of doing it, but the fact is that we have some tried and tested systems in this country for public appointments. We have been able to lead in some areas, and this is one where we should not be backsliding; we should use the most rigorous public appointments process that we have because it legitimises those so appointed.

Trade Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th October 2020 Lords Chamber

The main point is that logistics people will do what they are asked to do, but it is up to the Government to make proper arrangements. If these are inadequate, both physically and operationally, it is unacceptable for the Government to try to lay the blame not on themselves, having not prepared the ground properly, but on the operators—they are often very low-level employees—who are bound to carry it out. There was some talk in the press this week of fining the National Health Service because it is falling behind in routine operations. If that is the way the Government are going to treat the logistics industry, we are in for a very rough ride.

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

My Lords, I speak to offer the Green group’s support for Amendment 46 and closely associate myself with the remarks of the noble Lords presenting it, particularly the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bull.

I was going to be brief but I really want to respond to what the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, said. She suggested that the amendment seeks to recreate what was lost. No, it is trying to save what is threatened: the businesses, livelihoods and professional lives of people who have, as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, alluded to, spent many years studying—and invested their time, energy and finances—to develop lives that are now under serious threat.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bull, in her useful setting out of the different ways in which the exchange has happened, spoke about where services are an integral component of a good being sold. We think of companies that have offered long-term service contracts for goods sold into the EU and EEA and the difficulties that they might experience in continuing those service contracts unless we have the kind of mobility framework offered here. We are now on a rescue mission.

I do not think anyone else has referred to this in detail but we have to go back to what we will be missing if we do not have the opportunity for EU/EEA citizens to come into the UK under this kind of mobility framework. There is the important area of language studies. Sadly, we have seen some documentation since the vote in 2016 showing that interest in language study, at least in our schools, has actually fallen. If we are to continue to operate in this world, where we are going to have much more complex relationships with other countries in Europe than we do now, we will desperately need those language skills. The reciprocal side of this is of course that Britons have the very valuable skill of being native English speakers that they can take around the continent and beyond.

We need to have quality of language teaching and development of language skills in the UK. Most of the teaching assistants in our schools are native speakers from other parts of Europe. These are crucial issues, so I commend the amendment to the House.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I too support the amendment. It is very important, and noble Lords who have spoken have made some very good arguments in favour of it. As we all know, free movement within the EU has been very important for education, services and other businesses as well as for people getting to know each other. It could easily and should still happen after Brexit, but that needs the Government to support the idea positively and proactively even after we have left.

Transport is of course part of mobility. It must be cheap, reliable and accessible. Although Covid-19 has caused a massive reduction in demand, it is still there and it still needs to be there. However, the situation regarding the Government’s support is still very confusing and uncertain for services and their users. I have been trying to get answers from the Government for several months on how much in loans, guarantees or grants they have given to each of the international transport sectors, by which I mean air, sea, road and rail. I have had two Written Answers saying that that information per sector is commercially confidential. Surprisingly, maybe, I got a letter from the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, this morning saying that providers have many options as to how to find money, but with no comparators.

I can see why the noble Baroness could not see tell me about comparators. If one digs a little deeper, one finds that in the maritime sector—ferries—the Public Accounts Committee recently reported that the Government had written off £85 million for cancelled ferry contracts, which included a settlement with Eurotunnel of £33 million because apparently the Government had forgotten that Eurotunnel took the same kind of traffic that the ferries do. Noble Lords will remember that the Government spent £14 million on a company called Seaborne Freight, which owned a non-existent ferry and whose terms and conditions of carriage on its website appeared to have been copied from an online takeaway.

In the air sector, airlines have had soft loans to keep them alive. The noble Baroness said in a Written Answer that the Government were

“working closely with the aviation sector to support it to ensure there is sufficient capacity”.

They have spent £3 billion on keeping the franchise railways going, and that is good, but for cross-channel rail there is not a penny to ensure sufficient capacity. According to a presentation by the High Speed 1 chief executive Dyan Crowther to the all-party rail group last week, Eurostar has received no government guarantees or support and is likely to reduce the number of trains a day that it operates, possibly to between three and five or even fewer in order to survive. These are of course low-emission services, and I remind Ministers that, according to Eurostar, if all the passengers who took Eurostar in the last few years were to transfer to air, the increase in emissions would be equivalent to 40 new Luton Airports. We love Luton Airport but the emissions from 40 of them is hard to imagine.

Is there a solution? I suggest there are many that the Government ought to adopt. The European Union Council has adopted emergency measures to give member states the opportunity to reduce infrastructure charges to zero for trains. Italy and France are thinking about it, Austria has done it and the UK could do the same; it would be nothing to do with Europe but they could do it for HS1 to reduce the track access charges to just the direct costs. That might cost HS1 about £100 million but let us not forget that the Government made about £2 billion selling HS1 to the private sector, so they could afford to do this through HS1. It would mean that all train operators got the same benefit on that loan.

I hope the Minister can provide some comfort that Eurostar services can survive, providing the availability of a cost-effective and environmentally friendly transport service for those who want to work, live or study for the purpose of trade and goods. It would be a disaster if it were forced to close.

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[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, I wish to speak only to Amendment 82 in this group. I generally try not to speak on matters about Northern Ireland, because life is too short.

I completely agree with what my noble friend Lord Lansley said on the trader support service. In particular, I am sure that, if there were a need for further support at the end of the two years, any responsible Government would ensure that such support was available. I remind noble Lords that it is a temporary facility in order to help traders become accustomed to the new arrangements, whatever they finally turn out to be. It includes training. It is not to take over from the traders handling the paperwork; it is to train them so that it becomes part of their everyday activities. In that context, two years may well still be enough, although I accept that there is uncertainty at the moment.

The amendment says that the service can be accessed at no cost—that is, of course, no cost to the trader, but there will be a cost to the public purse. I just say to noble Lords that, if they pass the amendment, they are walking straight into financial privilege.

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

My Lords, I will be brief. The noble Lord, Lord Hain, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, have outlined clearly the sad and urgent need for these amendments. I particularly commend the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, speaking from the heart from a lifetime of experience on the ground. Lives and businesses have been peacefully and productively intertwined between Northern Ireland and Ireland and must not be torn asunder.

It is a year since I came into your Lordships’ House. I did not appreciate then—although, in retrospect, perhaps I should have, given that it was just after the unlawful Prorogation of the other place—that in 12 months’ time I would have to join a broad coalition of fellow Peers speaking up simply for the rule of law, the Government having explicitly disavowed adherence to it.

We are daily reminded of the fragility, instability and weakness of our current institutional arrangements and the pressing need to make the UK a modern, functional democracy. I go back to a paper from the Constitution Society in 2019, which noted:

“We have long assumed that those who rise to high office will be ‘good chaps’”.


The gendered nature of that phrase is telling but not my main point. The paper concludes that general standards of good behaviour among senior UK politicians can no longer be taken for granted.

Reflecting on the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, that these amendments are unnecessary because they are already covered, my response would be that, on an issue of this importance, we need to seek every possible protective mechanism in these circumstances. That is the context in which these amendments come before us. The practical reality is that they create laws that then may well have to be enforced on the Government. I urge the proponents to pursue them to the utmost.

[Baroness Suttie (LD) [V]]

My Lords, in his eloquent speech, the noble Lord, Lord Hain, set out the background and the history to this important group of amendments on Northern Ireland. I am pleased to have been able to add my name to the amendments. I am also delighted to have received the support of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, on Amendment 58, although I felt that there were perhaps some contradictions in his argumentation. I look forward to seeing him in our Division Lobbies when we come to vote on this on Report.

We heard some extremely passionate speeches from other noble Lords, in particular from the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, who has also signed these amendments and who spoke so movingly about the realities and threats that we face on the ground in Northern Ireland. I shall limit my remarks to Amendments 58 and 59.

As the noble Lord, Lord Hain, said, if a year ago there was already a strong case for these amendments, since the introduction of the internal market Bill they have become ever more important to safeguarding the Good Friday/Belfast agreement. I hope that these amendments, or similar, will be retabled on Report, so that we can test the opinion of the House.

It is worth briefly recalling how the Government have taken us to this point. We are in this situation because from the outset the Government have promised a series of incompatible things, namely that the whole of the UK would leave the customs union and the single market, that special status for Northern Ireland was ruled out and that there should remain no border on the island of Ireland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I rise as someone with many years of experience in supply chains, including just-in-time supply chains. This area is often a problem in trade agreements, and indeed in the operation of such free trade agreements. I remember all the difficulties affecting our shoppers when quotas and rows between the EU and China held up bras and shoes on the high seas—not perishable, but as important as chicken for many of us. Food is trickier than goods, as noble Lords will remember from strikes affecting Channel crossings and the Icelandic ash cloud.

The point I want to make is that EU exit, or any continuity or future trade agreements, are likely to lead to changes in supply chains. We should embrace this, and I am afraid that I am not convinced that we need Amendments 70 and 95.

My own view is that the combination of more border checks, whether we agree a deal on trade with the EU and EEA or not—that is the reality—will change trade flows. New FTAs will bring changes in tariff schedules, rules of origin and perhaps new provisions on standards. This could be a huge opportunity at home for British industries and parts of British agriculture, as buyers turn to home production to avoid the complexities. Of course, they will also face competition, but I know from experience as a business executive that competition makes business sharper and better.

There may be a need for some transitional arrangements in EU or other FTAs—fisheries is an obvious area—and even help for small firms wrestling with new checks. But we should not seek an additional transition period with the EU, as my noble friend Lady Noakes has just said. We should not try to preserve existing systems in aspic, however good the intentions of those debating this Bill today. We will do much better if we lead the way in embracing the opportunities of EU exit and of new trade agreements.

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

My Lords, I shall speak first, briefly, to linked Amendments 70 and 95, in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. I note that a Member of your Lordships’ House, the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, today found himself getting some attention for a claim that traders were taking a “head-in-the-sand” approach to trade post Brexit. I do not think that I could do better in response than quote the chief operating officer of the Food and Drink Federation:

“If any traders have their head in the sand it’s because, after many frustrating months awaiting critical answers, they probably think it’s more likely they’ll find those answers in the sand than they will from the Government.”


That was coming from an organisation which is not, I think it would be fair to say, a natural critic of the Government. I hope that the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, do not accurately reflect the view of the Government, and in particular that they do not indicate that they do not understand the extremely difficult position of small businesses, with so much else to deal with at the moment. We do not want to risk seeing them battered further on an uneven playing field by larger firms that are more likely to have the resources to react—something to which the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, just alluded.

I want to speak mostly to Amendment 93, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. I appreciate the chance to support an amendment in his name, since we have had some disagreement on other elements of this Bill. I think that this is the first time that the issue of free zones has come up in this Committee, and I want to express the Green group’s strong opposition to the whole concept, noting that there were seven free ports in the UK at various points between 1984 and 2012 and that they were seen to have failed. Going back to the 1980s is surely not the answer for today.

I also note that the European Greens have been strong in their opposition, highlighting the links of free ports and free enterprise zones to tax avoidance, as exposed in the Madeira papers. To quote the historian, Quinn Slobodian, what they do is

“splinter the world into jurisdictions engaged in a constant competition to attract multinational companies, locking nations into a global ‘place war’ to offer businesses the most enticing incentives and the lowest labour costs.”

However, today we are mostly focusing not on the principle but on what the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has created in his amendment, which is at least the chance of some democratic oversight and, crucially, a commitment to some local consultation. I would like to see in this amendment both a stronger position on local consultation and national oversight, noting that the impact is not only in the immediate area but in other economically similar areas, which are likely to see a loss of business and jobs to new zones. However, I hope we can return to that on Report. I will be very interested to hear the Minister’s response and perhaps what plans the Government have, particularly on local consultation and oversight, if they wish to push ahead with this revival of an old, neoliberal failure.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, when I saw this grouping, I hoped that these speeches would identify the golden thread that linked them together. There is not one, so I will speak to them separately. I will talk to Amendment 93, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, before coming to the other two.

I, too, agree with the noble Lord’s conjecture that there should be some parliamentary process that brings these free zones into being. I am not a fan of them, and I do not think our party is either. We think that they tend to move activity around rather than create new or larger activity, but that is not the point that we are here to debate, which is how these things are brought about and approved. I do not know about your Lordships, but I have been involved in a hell of a lot of statutory instruments in the past while, and they seem to be on some very big issues and some very trivial issues. It seems that there is no allergy in your Lordships’ House to taking on statutory instruments and trying to make decisions. Therefore to add a few more—I guess there would be a few free zones—does not seem a hugely controversial issue.

On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, about applications coming in that had not had any form of local consultation, I can give him one idea of where people might object. There will almost certainly be planning things that will happen subsequent to the creation of a free zone, unless it is already an industrial zone. If you look at the sprawl outside airports, you start to see distribution centres and warehousing and all sorts of planning things. If I was a local resident living on the edge of or just outside somewhere that wanted to be a free zone, I would start to worry about some of those kinds of issues. So traditional planning issues would come forward—some would call them nimby and others straightforward—which would create problems, and do so for local politicians if not national ones. I am therefore very supportive of Amendment 93.

On Amendments 70 and 95, the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, said that it would not work, and the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, said that manufacturers and so on need to embrace change. They may be right in both those instances, but I should caution a little compassion for the individuals concerned who are trying to make a business work. They are trying to do so when they still do not know what the rules are and in the face of all sorts of other pressures, not least Covid but also, as the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, said, immense international pressure and price pressure on what they are trying to do. Therefore, while the noble Baronesses might be right, I ask them, and in particular the Minister, to approach this with some compassion. Change is easy enough for some people. My father milked cows. You do not suddenly go from producing milk to producing pork pies overnight. Those kinds of changes can and do happen, but they do not happen at the turn of the year, when, eventually, the rules emerge.

I have one final point. Perhaps all of us could spend some time reading the latest edition of the GB-EU border operating model. I think my colleague my noble friend Lord Purvis, has mentioned it before. It should be compulsory reading for everyone working on this Bill. It is 138 pages, and every page has a list of at least 10 to 20 things that have either been changed or inserted in the latest edition, which was published last week. These are the things these people who have to change or get on with it have to embrace. It is hugely difficult to understand; it is a massive issue. So, the helpful slogan

“The UK’s new start: let’s get going”


is somewhat missing the point.

There is a huge amount to be done between now and the turn of the year, and the Government and the people in this Chamber need to have some air of understanding the extent to which it is threatening people’s livelihoods and putting them under pressure. These amendments are just two ways of trying to alleviate that. Overall, there has to be a wider understanding of the role of government in getting businesses past this huge change which is happening.

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Obligations of Hospitality Undertakings) (England) Regulations 2020

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Friday 9th October 2020 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, I have two related questions for the Minister. I understand that they may not fall under his departmental responsibilities, but I would appreciate an answer at some time.

We seem to have heard less of the term “world-leading” from the Government recently, at least in regard to Covid-19, but are we learning from the rest of the world and following best global practice closely? Last month, the World Health Organization produced a report on pandemic fatigue. It advised presenting evidence clearly to the public, acknowledging the difficulties that rules present and making it clear that the Government are letting people live their lives with as much freedom as possible. On 5 October, the World Health Organization Insights Unit had a high-level meeting related to that. Did the UK have a representative at that meeting?

Secondly, the Minister may be aware of the Australian state of Victoria, which, through intensive contact tracing—

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

May I ask the noble Baroness to address the issues in question in this debate?

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

Victoria appears to be close to getting a grip on the so-called second wave. I will get to businesses in a second.

If the Minister is not, I suggest he reads an account of the outbreak at the Butcher Club in Chadstone shopping centre; it is of particular relevance to today’s debate in that the businesses in the case seem to have done everything right, yet they were still at the centre of contagion. In the accounts, it is almost possible to trace every step of the virus around the shopping centre and across the streets. My understanding is that some of the scores of local test and trace units around the country could operate in such a way, but it is clear that our national, privatised, chaotic system cannot. What justification do the Government have for continuing with the failing system, as a number of other noble Lords have asked?

We hope to see soon, as the amendment calls for, extra support for businesses—and, I would add, individuals. The Victoria outbreak was traced to a cleaner in a business who went to work ill out of economic necessity. We hope that such things do not happen in the UK, but the Government are not doing anything like enough to save people from that extremely difficult position.

Trade Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 8th October 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Suttie (LD) [V]]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, and the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, both of whom always speak with such passion and conviction, particularly on these matters. This group of amendments, including Amendments 61and 62, to which I have added my name, is about establishing the principle of the need for consultation and consent with the devolved authorities and legislatures, and about laying down some markers for how we can establish open and effective methods for dispute resolution in our unwritten constitution.

As the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, has said, more than 20 years on since the various devolution settlements were agreed, the stresses and strains of our uncodified system are in danger of being tested to breaking point as a result of Brexit. Future United Kingdom trade deals risk highlighting these stresses and strains yet further, which is why it is so important to test the Government’s responses to many of these issues as we debate these amendments this afternoon.

Twenty years ago, when the devolution settlements were being devised, there were fewer party-political stresses on the system, as Labour was in power—in coalition or otherwise—in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Westminster. Clearly, now that we have an SNP Government in Edinburgh, a Labour-led Administration in Wales and a re-established power-sharing Executive in Belfast, as well as a fairly nationalist Conservative Government in Westminster, our mechanisms of consent and trust are being tested to the limit.

I should perhaps declare an interest as a Scot with an Irish passport currently living in the county of Kent. Those of us who are not nationalists have a collective interest in ensuring that we find ways to make our future constitutional settlement and trading relationships work effectively throughout the whole United Kingdom. I therefore hope that the Minister agrees that providing the necessary information to the devolved legislatures to allow scrutiny of any future trade agreement—as set down in Amendment 62—is the very least that can be expected and is surely in everyone’s best interests. Providing the text at least two months before the agreement and inviting comment from the devolved legislatures would provide the kind of buy-in and involvement that will assist in developing coherence in policy-making across the United Kingdom.

We should remember that this should always be a two-way flow of information. The UK’s devolved legislatures are often in a stronger position to understand the impact of new trade deals on local businesses and communities. Obviously, this is particularly true in the case of Northern Ireland, where the impact on SMEs could be very significant, not least because of the complex supply lines. Does the Minister acknowledge that free trade agreements will have a direct impact on the effectiveness and scope of devolved policy-making and legislation? Does he also accept that consent mechanisms with the devolved Governments are vital to maintaining the coherence of our United Kingdom?

I will turn now to a very specific FTA: that of Japan. Can the Minister say to what degree the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly were kept informed during the negotiations, given the very particular set of circumstances faced by Northern Ireland resulting from the Northern Ireland protocol? Does he accept the analysis of a Stormont official who said the week before last:

“Some Japanese goods sold in Britain as part of a new trade agreement may not be available in Northern Ireland due to the Brexit deal”?


Turning to the future role of the Joint Ministerial Committee—covered in Amendments 50 and 76—it should be noted in passing that, despite his new title of Minister for the Union, the Prime Minister has not yet presided over a plenary session of the JMC, as far as I am aware. The JMC has until now been a consultative rather than a decision-making body but, given the likely increase in tensions, surely it makes sense to increase both the frequency of meetings and their capacity for decision-making.

As Professor Nicola McEwen said in her evidence to the Lords Constitution Committee a couple of weeks ago, the JMC on EU negotiations is currently the best-functioning of the JMCs, but is likely to cease to exist at the end of transition period and, as yet, there are no clear indications of how it will be replaced. Can the Minister say whether there are plans to ensure that the JMC meets more frequently? What plans are there to replace the JMC on European negotiations from 1 January next year? Does the Minister agree that it is increasingly vital to have regular meetings of the JMC, so that we can have greater consultation and co-ordination? Can he also say whether thought has been given to establishing additional sub-committees within the JMC framework to discuss such issues as international trade and international relations?

No doubt the Minister will say in his reply that all sorts of assurances on consent and consultation have already been given, but, for those kinds of assurances to carry weight, there has to be a significant level of trust. Tragically, that trust has been eroded throughout the whole Brexit experience, which has led to the very real need for the amendments we are discussing, and the need to put mechanisms for both consultation and consent in the Bill.

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

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the three noble Lords who have opened our session and to express my broad agreement with the direction of everything they said.

I have attached my name to Amendment 31 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. I do not intend to go through each amendment in this group one by one, except perhaps to note that Amendment 61 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, and Amendment 76 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, seem to be the strongest and to address the key issues. But all the amendments address issues of concern and at least seek to prevent what we could describe as a dictatorship from Westminster.

On the broad picture of what is happening with this group of amendments, as we have said again and again during our discussions on the Bill, trade is now understood to be a far more complex matter than it was thought to be decades ago when your Lordships’ House and the other place last considered it. Occasionally we hear from a small rearguard, saying that trade has nothing to do with the environment or labour standards or considerations beyond the narrowly neoliberal economic —indeed, that such issues should not be raised at all here. But that argument is clearly well past its sell-by date.

Carbon emissions from the products we consider trading have an impact on us all, as does the environmental destruction associated with them. If we think about the origins of the current pandemic, we see that the destruction of nature anywhere in the world has an impact on us all. The impact is also very directly onshore. If we think about the exposure of the situation of the garment industry in England, particularly in Leicester, the nature of trade and the failure of regulation—indeed, the failure to have the will to regulate—are part of that story. And, of course, bringing junk products in produces waste that must be dealt with.

That brings me to devolution. The aim of devolution —the direction of travel—is to allow nations to choose their own routes and, for example, set higher environmental, labour and food standards, as we have sadly seen happen for England. We will look at that a great deal more when we come to the Internal Market Bill, but in this context we are talking about foreign trade. Whatever Westminster might seek to inflict on England in the form of free trade zones or the destruction of standards by bringing in inferior, damaging, disastrous products, the whole point of devolution is that nations can make their own democratic choices in systems far more democratic than in Westminster, and not see them undermined by an influx of low-standard foreign goods or services. They must be able to say no to these goods and services in their trade. In these amendments, we seek to ensure that that possibility is there. It is a democratic essential.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I refer Members to my entry in the register of interests. It is a pleasure to follow the preceding noble Lords, who have made particular cases in respect of several amendments. I will address Amendment 61 in my name—to which the noble Baronesses, Lady Suttie and Lady Altmann, and the noble Lord, Lord Hain, have added their names—and Amendment 62 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, to which I and the noble Baronesses have added our names.

Before I explain the need for proper consent and scrutiny arrangements with the devolved Administrations, it is important to note that those two amendments deal specifically with Northern Ireland. Although there have been devolved settlements in the regions of the United Kingdom over the past 20 years, we in Northern Ireland have been subjected to in-and-out periods of devolution. We have sometimes had periods of direct rule, although the last time the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly were not sitting and we did not have the other infrastructure associated with the Good Friday agreement, basically Westminster made some decisions, but it was not a form of direct rule because amendments to the then Northern Ireland Executive Bill addressed those particular issues.

Because of the sensitivities of dealing with the devolved arrangements in Northern Ireland, and because of their intricate nature, it is important that the relationships that were manifest in the Good Friday agreement—relationships between unionists and nationalists in the north, between the north and south of Ireland and between Ireland and Britain—are nurtured and not set aside or fractured in any way. Yesterday, the good bishops of the Catholic Church in Ireland stressed the importance of underscoring that shared space. Their fear was that Covid, Brexit, all these trading arrangements, the Trade Bill and the Internal Market Bill could fracture those relationships in a very unnecessary way.

--- Later in debate ---

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

My Lords, I will speak first to Amendment 97, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, and the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, to which I have attached my name. It is a pleasure to follow both the noble Lords. I particularly associate myself with the comments on ending fossil fuel subsidies made by the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan.

Since they have already amply explained the amendment, I will simply note that we are coming out of an arrangement as an EU member where there was—as I was frequently forced to repeat during the Brexit debate—the generalised scheme of preferences, which meant that there were no tariffs and no quotas on goods from the least developed countries, except on arms and ammunition. Some of my reservations about the role of trade have already been expressed and will be extended in my comments on Amendment 39. We often hear words about development aims from the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, in your Lordships’ House. We can only hope that we will not be damaging the least developed countries with our trade policies. A regular report would be a way of checking on that. This is a modest amendment with which I hope the Government will agree. They could use it to display the progress on one of their avowed policy aims.

I also support Amendment 39, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, and the noble Lord, McConnell of Glenscorrodale. As I am a regular proponent of the sustainable development goals as a way of bringing systems thinking and understanding of planetary limits into our policies and plans, this will probably come as no surprise to this Committee. I confess—and I acknowledge in advance—that the other proponents may not thank me for my support. I go back to the words of the amendment:

“Any future international trade agreement ... shall only be eligible for signature or ratification ... if the provisions ... do not conflict with, and are consistent with, the provisions of the Sustainable Development Goals”.


I remind the Committee that the United Kingdom is not on track to meet one of those goals—to which we are of course a signatory. Business as usual will not do it, for us or for the rest of the world. Globalisation and trade have done great damage to the social, environmental and economic fabric of our world.

I have already referred to the trade and investment requirements of the Zero Carbon report by the Green House think tank. Any agreement meeting the sustainable goals or any such trade would require a total transformation of our current system. If passed, the amendment would do nothing less than ensure a peaceful economic revolution—one that could greatly boost the national steel industry and the growing of fruit and vegetables. It would utterly transform our economy, very much in line with Green Party policy for one-planet living. But that is—perhaps I do the signatories to the amendment a disservice—something more than they intended.

There is no justification for the fact that salmon accounts for 74% of our fish-trade carbon footprint. In 2019, we exported 125,000 tonnes of salmon—48,000 tonnes of it by air—over half of which was flown to the US and China. We also imported almost the same amount—101,000 tonnes. The air-freighted salmon we exported was 64 times more carbon-intensive than the almost identical, if cheaper, salmon that we imported. No trade deal aligning with the sustainable development goals could allow that.

In 2019, just 16% of the fruit and 54% of the vegetables we consumed in the UK were grown here. We have a climate which is ideal for growing apples and pears yet, in 2019, we imported 438,000 tonnes more than we exported. The greatest carbon impact came from those imported from furthest away—South Africa and New Zealand.

Then there is the massive water footprint of the flowers, fruit and vegetables we bring from around the world, and the human misery—literally blood, sweat and tears—in the seams of fast fashion. A trade deal aligned with the sustainable development goals could not allow this to continue, for of course it would be about delivering the sustainable development goals for other nations, as well as for ourselves.

Two-thirds of the 2 million tonnes of higher-grade steel used in UK car manufacturing is imported, yet we currently export four-fifths of our scrap steel, which could be an important resource for making new steel through renewables-driven arc furnaces. This is a sustainable development goals approach that would reshape and largely end both directions of trade.

Trade policy and trade deals currently lock in harms, encourage and support the production of dirty products and fill our shores with rubbish. A lot of it is utterly pointless. We export 1.25 million tonnes of ice cream every year and import 3 million tonnes. Those figures have both doubled in the past decade. Let us think of the waste and pointlessness of such exchange and acknowledge that in a sustainable world, one meeting people’s needs and not trashing the planet—a world achieving the balance of economic, social and environmental goals that are the sustainable development goals—the trade landscape would look very different. I commend the amendment to the Committee and urge everyone to back it.

[Lord Judd (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am glad to see this important clause being proposed as an addition to the Bill. I am also glad to see that Amendment 97 is before us. Sustainable development requires a global response and the commitment of all those who have signed up to the development goals. Either we take the development goals seriously or we do not. It is no good joining the world in saying that we are determined to establish these goals and work towards them and then, by something we do in the sphere of trade, undermining the very principles on which they are based. If the Government are serious in their commitment, as given to the international community at the UN, this clause should be totally acceptable. I really cannot see any reason why it would not be.

Amendment 97 is very important. Having spent much of my life working on the issues of the third world, it can be very sad to see how trade arrangements can undermine years of effort towards development and progress in some of the poorest parts of the world. We know that the world is not a level playing field. I have often heard it said by different Governments that one must ensure that developing countries have a level playing field, but it is not quite as simple as that because many of them are not fit to play on that level playing field. There has to be a situation in which they can be brought to be active players on it.

This is rather like what I was saying on the proposed new clause: either we are serious in our commitment or we are not. We have now had set up by the Government this great new department, which brings so many aspects of our international relations together, including overseas development and what used to be the responsibility of a special ministry. We are constantly assured, and reassured, that things are going to be better on the front of commitment to the third world than before because all these different elements are working together.

This is a test of how serious we are and how far those new arrangements are really working for a better lot for the third world. Again, as I said on the new clause, this amendment should be totally acceptable to the Government if they are serious about their commitment to the goals that they have undertaken. The Government tell us with great passion that, in our efforts to determine our post-EU role, we are going to be positive, constructive and key players in the international community. Well, if we want to be that, we must not just pass airy-fairy resolutions and make airy-fairy statements. We actually have to deliver in the nuts and bolts of the world the policies that are necessary—and nothing is more important in the nuts and bolts than the trade arrangements.