Net Zero (Industry and Regulators Committee)

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Friday 20th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the House of Lords Industry and Regulators Committee for its work and the noble Lord, Lord Hollick, for opening this debate so compellingly. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, who is seeking to make such a difference in this area as chair of the excellent Peers for the Planet.

It is excellent, of course, that the UK put in place the first Climate Change Act, committing Governments to change. That Act has been the model for elsewhere, and so has the Climate Change Committee, which scrutinises what the UK is doing and measures it against what needs to happen. The UK has made some impressive commitments, including ending the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030; ending the sale of gas boilers, theoretically, from 2035; and reaching net zero by 2050.

If there was one positive thing to come out of Liz Truss’s brief tenure in Downing Street, it was surely commissioning Chris Skidmore to review how we were doing in meeting those commitments. It is all very well having these ambitions, but are the “guard-rails” in place—as he puts it—to deliver this? This is where a far less positive theme emerges, and it is echoed throughout this paper. The Government do not seem to have an effective strategy for delivering what they promise, as all noble Lords have said. As the committee says:

“We are not persuaded that the necessary level of policy detail is in place to achieve these commitments.”


The committee goes on:

“Given the scale of change involved in transforming the energy system by 2035, the Government must act urgently to make the necessary decisions and set out the detailed policies and funding models to allow investment to flow into the sector.”


As the noble Lord, Lord Reay, emphasised, this requires a major increase in funding. As the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, said, it also requires a transformation in planning and strategy. The noble Lord, Lord Birt, aptly described the Government going “off to the pub” on this.

The noble Lord, Lord Hollick, laid out some specifics of what is required, including a transformation task force within government and amending Ofgem’s duties to include explicit reference to having due regard to the net-zero target—something which Chris Skidmore’s review also recommends. The noble Lord, Lord Burns, emphasised that financial and strategic commitment is vital if investment and development are to be stepped up. The noble Lord, Lord Birt, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and others emphasised that political leadership is vital.

As we have heard, the committee urged clarity and speed in a number of different areas, including long-term storage technologies; funding mechanisms for small modular reactors and carbon capture and storage; funding for energy efficiency and heat pumps; and that by the end of 2024 the Government should set out a road map of what they envisage the net-zero energy mix of the future to consist of. I am a member, as is the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, of the Environment and Climate Change Committee, which is looking at heat pumps. It is already very clear that ambition and reality are at huge variance.

This report was concluded almost a year ago. The Government published a weak response in 2022, mentioning reports that have not yet appeared. The committee followed up in December with a list of questions on specific areas which must be delivered at speed if net zero is to be realised and, as the noble Lord, Lord Hollick, mentioned, if we are not to fall behind the EU and the US. The collapse of Britishvolt does not augur well. The committee requested a response before this report was debated. As of yesterday when I looked, it was not forthcoming, so I gather it has not been produced. The noble Lord, Lord Hollick, told us that Davos intervened. The invasion of Ukraine might not have been anticipated, but Davos surely should have been.

There was a successful legal challenge to the Government over their not being on course to deliver net zero or their obligations under the Climate Change Act. The judge in that case required that the Government update their strategy by this spring. As the noble Lord, Lord Burns, said, it cannot be business as usual: strategy and commitment are urgently required, so the strategy had better not be warm words and plans alone. The committee’s report makes it clear that transformative actions are urgently required. I hope that the Minister will give some specific answers in his response; if he does not, it will further illustrate what the committee has been saying. I noticed that during the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Hollick, the Minister seemed to find either the speech or something else rather amusing. So, when the noble Lord, Lord Hollick, asks for a strategy—promised since 2014—I hope the answer will not be “soon” or “in due course”.

I might say this, might I not? But when Vince Cable put in place an industrial strategy which emphasised and, more to the point, supported the UK’s biomedical sector, having analysed the strengths and weaknesses of the UK’s industrial sector, it helped to lay the groundwork for our global position on vaccine development when the pandemic struck. It very much built on our academic strengths, to which the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, referred.

We are now facing an even bigger challenge. Do we have evidence of a strategic approach here? I am afraid that we do not. Maybe the Minister’s amusement, as also expressed during the speeches by the noble Lords, Lord Whitty and Lord Bilimoria, means that he will confound us when he replies with a solid strategy, backed by the Treasury, with specific answers to what this committee has rightly demanded. This is too important just to be met with warm words.

Covid-19: Vaccine Production

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, the intellectual property for the AstraZeneca vaccine, as is known, is actually owned by the University of Oxford. We will of course work with the companies and everyone possible to make sure that the third world is vaccinated, because that is in our interests. That is why we have contributed so much to the COVAX initiative.

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

Does the Minister agree that it was ODA funding to the Jenner Institute, for the Ebola crisis, that helped to underpin what it was later able to do in this pandemic? Has any new money been allocated by the UK to COVAX since the ODA cut last year?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

We have donated £548 million to the COVAX initiative, which has been match funded to a total of $1 billion.

National Security and Investment Bill

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard
Tuesday 2nd March 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Northover (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, laid out in her opening remarks the necessity for clarity about what risks this Bill seeks to address, arguing for a definition of national security in Amendment 13. There are indeed arguments for such a definition, as the Law Society of Scotland, and that for England and Wales, have laid out, lest the Government might, for example, respond to political, economic or electoral pressures to define risks which should not be brought within the scope of this Bill. Others see risks associated with such definitions and further legal minefields. However, the Law Society of England and Wales sees a risk in Amendment 2—that extending the scope of the clause to cover “public order and public safety” could give rise to similar concerns, unless these terms could be strictly defined so as not to include political motives. However, I hear what the noble Baroness says about her aim here, and about the risks to our democratic processes.

I speak here particularly to Amendment 83 in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayter and Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, which I have also signed. The amendment is extremely restrained. The Government have made much play of the importance of their proposed integrated review of security, defence, development and foreign policy. From time to time, these reviews are made. There was one after the general election of 2010, and another after the 2015 general election. Of course, that latter one included pandemic as a risk, and emphasised how important it was to the United Kingdom, economically and strategically, to be at the heart of the EU, through which, as it put it, we amplified our power and prosperity.

One might say that a new assessment is indeed desperately needed. It was due last year but was knocked off course by the pandemic, which did not stop the Government pre-empting its conclusions by merging DfID with the FCO and cutting aid, even though in 2015 this was seen as a mark of our global reach—global Britain, you might say. In addition, the Government announced spending levels for the MoD before Christmas, none of this waiting for a proper strategic review.

So now we have this Bill on threats to national security, without that review having been published. We hear that it is imminent. Could the noble Lord update us? Is it indeed being buried by the Budget coverage? We have certainly heard that it has got thinner and thinner, perhaps one-fifth the length of the 2015 one, and that it is large on rhetoric and small on how it is to be achieved. Nevertheless, this should be an important statement of what the UK identifies as threats and ambitions. Therefore, this should have preceded this Bill and underpinned what it was trying to do, if the Government are to be joined up.

Amendment 83 asks that, when the review is finally published, the Government publish a statement that outlines how provisions in the Act will align with the UK’s long-term security priorities and concerns as identified in the review. The amendment states that this should be

“As soon as reasonably practicable”,


a generous phrase that Baroness Hayter used in tabling this amendment, more generous than the one I would have used.

Perhaps, because there is little confidence in the review, as one would have thought these areas would definitely be covered, this statement should also include how the Bill will respond to emerging threats, new technology, biological weapons, cyber, misinformation and military developments by the UK’s adversaries. One of the successes of the 2015 review was certainly the emphasis on cyber and the subsequent and important expansion of UK capacity in this area. I am sure that this will not be neglected in the new review. The amendment asks the Secretary of State to lay a statement before Parliament. It is surely the least that the Government should do to try to ensure that the Bill is aligned with whatever comes forward in the strategic security review. The Government should be able to simply accept the amendment, and I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, at Second Reading, I said that I felt that a lack of definition for national security was a problem, and I still feel uneasy about that. I understand the need for flexibility to take account of how threats evolve over time. My noble friend the Minister said at Second Reading that national security was not defined in other legislation, but I am not sure that is quite good enough, given that this legislation will have a particularly big impact on commercial transactions, and what the business sector needs is certainty. Other uses of the term have not had that sort of impact on business transactions. I completely understand the difficulties of definition—problems of being too restrictive or insufficiently comprehensive. I think Amendment 13, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, is a better approach than Amendment 1 with its objective clause, but I am concerned that it may still carry some of the defects that I outlined when I spoke to Amendment 1.

The statement that the Secretary of State will make under Clause 3 will certainly help businesses and their advisers but, at the end of the day, national security is the big overarching concept in the Bill which is left without further detail. Several noble Lords have already referred to the letter from my noble friend the Minister to all Peers, which came out while he was speaking earlier. I have had an opportunity to have a quick look at it on my iPad, and I do not think that any Member of the Committee will find that it advances our consideration of the Bill this afternoon at all: it just says that there is a lot more work to do.

If there is no definition or further elaboration of what national security means in the context of the powers created in the Bill, the Government will be giving the courts a blank sheet of paper if, as is probably likely, at some stage a challenge to the use of the powers under the Bill is mounted in the courts. We must remember that we have an activist judiciary, especially over the road in the Supreme Court, and the Government really ought to be alert to that fact and try and proof legislation against what can be done there. I shall be listening very carefully to what my noble friend says are the reasons for leaving national security as such a completely open issue in the Bill, and I look forward to hearing his remarks.

National Security and Investment Bill

Baroness Northover Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 4th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the Bill addresses the real concern of the need to safeguard UK national security and reflects the changing nature of threats to that. Indeed, there is much concern now about the rise of China, as my noble friend Lord McNally has just noted. There are clearly both opportunities and threats here. The debate over Huawei reflected this concern, as did Chinese involvement in our energy infrastructure. The concern that our technology might be stolen is also a huge area.

Devising a legal structure that deals with these potential threats has clearly been a challenge. The Law Society of Scotland points out that:

“It is a complex task to create a system which will balance the need to maintain an open business environment and promote fair competition with the need to protect national security.”


There is a real risk that the Bill will constrain investment into the United Kingdom—as the noble Lords, Lord Leigh and Lord Bilimoria have just said—at a time when, post Brexit, that is necessary, or that the EU might regard us as protectionist and penalise us. Clarity and transparency are therefore clearly vital.

As my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans pointed out, national security is not defined, and this therefore leaves much in the hands of Ministers. Difficult as it will be, a definition is surely required. There is huge scope in the 17 sectors which fall under the Bill. Given all the other pressing matters that the Government will have to deal with post Brexit and post coronavirus, their unit is likely to be overwhelmed. On this point, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes—a rare event for me. Companies and their lawyers are indeed likely to err on the side of caution and refer themselves in. The Government have probably made a gross underestimate of the number of cases they will need to assess here. The Government have said that they will bring detail through secondary legislation, but that is itself concerning, as this is presented to Parliament on a “take it or leave it” basis.

As for where we see security challenges, we have already seen concern during the pandemic about overreliance on China; for example, for PPE. Who would have thought that cotton could be seen as a national security question? We must add in the Foreign Secretary’s recent announcement that businesses must, rightly, examine their supply chains and not source from the labour camps of Xinjiang or other centres of human rights abuses. We cannot rely on such appalling sources. Given that much PPE may have originated there, the challenge becomes even clearer.

The integrated review of the defence and security of the United Kingdom should surely have preceded this legislation, so that we could see what the Government think are the major threats facing the country: whether cyber, pandemics or other threats. Will the noble Lord tell us when that review is now expected, so that we can look at it alongside the Bill? The pandemic and Brexit have indeed shown us the risks of outsourcing as much as we now do.

How does the Bill sit with any industrial strategy? As my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones noted, we need that too, to understand better the key areas in the UK economy and the threats to them. In 2012, when my right honourable friend Vince Cable drew up his industrial strategy, he emphasised the biosciences. Investment in the Crick Institute, Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, and elsewhere was increased, and that has paid off in spades in this pandemic, where we have led the world in genomics, vaccine research and much else.

We understand that the integrated review will also emphasise the UK as a science or bioscience power. Tackling climate change must also be part of that, for the UK but also globally. However, we also know that these are areas where China intends to excel, and surely has the resources to do so. China has disproportionate control, for example, over the minerals required for electric vehicle batteries and wind turbines. So, are these areas where our security is at risk? If so, how will the lines be drawn? How will our universities and research centres be impacted by the Bill, as others have asked? The Russell Group points out that they drew in investment worth over £1 billion in 2018-19, and they are concerned about the scope of the Bill, about uncertainty and delays.

This is a challenging area. There are, indeed, new threats to the UK that were not anticipated when the Enterprise Act was passed in 2002. The balance between encouraging investment and maintaining security needs to be carefully considered. As other speakers have said, there are questions here whether the structures proposed will manage adequately to support that investment while also defending national security. I therefore look forward to the Minister’s response.

Trade Bill

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Monday 7th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover (LD) [V]]

I thank noble Lords for putting down these amendments, which I wish to support. Noble Lords who have spoken have laid out clearly why the amendments are needed and how vital it is that we do not slip backwards with regard to human rights. As noble Lords have explained, Amendment 8 sets out three ways in which to ensure that in agreeing to potential trade deals we do not condone the abuse of human rights. Ministers must assess human rights in the country or countries in question before starting trade negotiations, present their conclusions for scrutiny by the relevant parliamentary committees, and reassess when the negotiations are complete. They must also present an annual report on the matter. The courts could play a role in those first two stages, ensuring that these are not empty gestures, for example to a Parliament with an overwhelming majority for the Government of the day.

The amendment’s definition of serious human rights violations includes genocide, torture, slavery and forced labour, complementing the amendment that we will consider in the next group. As noble Lords have said, the amendment reflects the language used by the Government in relation to the Magnitsky sanctions and arms export licensing. Of course, the FCDO produces an annual report on countries of concern with regard to their human rights.

The noble Lords, Lord Collins and Lord Alton, have laid out many instances of human rights abuses around the world, including genocide. Until now, we have made trade agreements as part of the EU, and as the noble Lord, Lord Collins, has explained, human rights conditions are now applied to all EU trade deals. Surely we do not intend to drop below those standards. However, I noted during scrutiny of a recent SI on conflict minerals that we have fully signed up so far only to what the EU is implementing for Northern Ireland—because of the Northern Ireland protocol. That does not reflect centrality for human rights. I realise that the FCDO has a huge amount on its plate, but EU agreements, with their human rights provisions, are scrutinised in the European Parliament. We have just passed an amendment that will, we hope, ensure that scrutiny by Parliament is part of our democratic future, just as it was when we were in the EU.

The Government have made it clear that high human rights standards and values will drive global Britain. Yet we hear that countries seek to exploit the fact that we are in a weaker position, as a nation of 67 million people, than the powerful economic bloc that is the EU. We can already see how the EU is, for example, seeking to drive up environmental standards using its muscle.

The Government indicated that we could simply roll over agreements with other countries—a somewhat peculiar thought, since it implied that there would be no advantages from leaving the EU. We have since discovered that other countries do not regard our market as being as significant as the EU’s, and, moreover, they want to see how useful we might be as a route into the EU. All this means that in future it is likely to be more difficult to make sure we build in human rights when seeking trade deals with other countries. It has been a feature of the whole Brexit process that things have been promised that turn out not to be easy to achieve after all.

Amendment 8 is totally in keeping with what the Government say they wish to do, so they should surely support it. If they do not, it becomes even clearer that we need this amendment.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Falkner of Margravine, has withdrawn, so I now call the noble Lord, Lord Curry of Kirkharle.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Northover (LD) [V]]

I thank the noble Lords who have brought forward this amendment. The House has heard the passion, as ever, of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on this terrible issue, and they have heard the arguments of the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, who has made the legal case with great authority.

I feel that the noble Viscount has drawn the short straw in being expected to respond. Having been a Member of this House for a number of years and a Minister for most of the last decade, he will surely know to cross out of his speech all those statements that are put in as standard: that it is not necessary to have this on the face of the Bill, and that there are problems with the drafting of the amendment. He will know that what is critical is the essence of an amendment, and there cannot be anything more important than this. As the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has said, it is not enough to say “Never again”, as was said after the Nazi genocide: the 20th century saw other genocides and we still do, as the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, has said. I am sure that none of us would ever wish to have a trade agreement with a country that is practising genocide, but can we be sure?

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Baroness Northover Excerpts

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

[Baroness Clark of Kilwinning (Lab)]

I speak in favour of the amendments, particularly Amendment 10, and the principle that any changes to the devolution settlement should not be made without the consent of the devolved institutions themselves and that the UK exiting the EU should not be the basis on which it is determined whether a matter is reserved. I argue that this is not the time or the circumstances in which we should be considering taking powers away from devolved institutions and overriding their wishes.

The devolved institutions were not created equal to Westminster in the devolution settlement. It has been suggested on a number of occasions today that there should be that equality, and many Peers have spoken about the need for that relationship of equals. I believe that that is the direction in which we need to be going and today’s debate again highlights that that is definitely the kind of constitutional arrangement that people in Scotland are asking for, irrespective of where they stand on the independence issue.

The examples given in today’s debate in relation to Wales being able to legislate on the use of single-use plastic are good at showing why this legislation is unhelpful. It has been confirmed by the Government in documents that Wales’s plans to bring forward proposals to ban all nine types of single-use plastics referred to in the EU directive would not be possible if this Bill were to become law.

This Bill would affect the ability of the devolved institutions to regulate any goods because they would require goods manufactured in that particular country to comply in certain ways that would only be relevant for goods made in that country. Goods made in Scotland could be regulated by the Scottish Government and required to comply with regulations, but goods brought in from other countries in the UK would not be required to do so.

I listened with great interest to the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and I fully understand the principles that she was outlining, but that horse has bolted and that is not where we are in the 21st century in the United Kingdom. We have to recognise the very different political cultures that exist within the different nations that make up the UK, and it is in that context that we have to look at this legislation.

Will the Minister consider the specific example about public procurement regulations raised by UNISON? Would the rules on public procurement, which have been devolved to Scotland since 1998, be protected if this legislation were enacted? For social, employment and other reasons, procurement legislation introduced in the Scottish Parliament under Labour and the Liberal Democrats, as well as under the Scottish National Party, is different from that south of the border. There is a different culture in Scotland. Can the Minister outline whether those regulations would be impacted by this legislation? This is just one example of the many areas of legislation where a huge amount of work has taken place since devolution and which could be affected by the Bill. I understand that the Minister is here to represent the Government, although he will have his own views.

These proposals are cavalier and irresponsible. I ask the Government to look at these amendments and think again. This is not just about trade. It is about the way in which we in the four nations of this country relate to each other. If we do not have the support of the devolved institutions for this approach, I respectfully suggest that this is the wrong way forward.

[Baroness Northover (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I support Amendment 10 and other amendments in this group. Powerful arguments have been made this afternoon about devolution. Common frameworks must continue to allow divergences within the devolved Administrations and between them and England. The Bill must not undermine this. The amendment relating to that, in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, was passed overwhelmingly.

At Second Reading the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, introduced his regret amendment by expressing shock at the Government’s plans to break international law. At the end of the debate he concluded that, stunned as he had been by these proposals, he had perhaps overlooked the extent to which the Bill also undermined devolution.

In this group we flag up some of the areas in which the devolved Administrations currently have flexibility. The Bill could prevent this, as my noble friend Lady Bowles and others have pointed out. As the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, said, these differences exist in the EU, even with its powerful single market. I am not sure how deliberate the removal of the existing flexibilities has been, or whether this simply reflects that devolution is not in this Government’s DNA.

I agree with what has been said about the environment. I want, briefly, to flag up public health, as did the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham. In the middle of a pandemic, this Bill potentially undermines our ability to move forward in this area. We see variations in public health which may well have played a part in encouraging the devolved Administrations to take more ambitious actions. The rates of alcohol-related deaths are more than 60% higher in the most deprived areas than in the least deprived. The highest rates of smoking are consistently found among the most disadvantaged. Scotland has the highest rate of alcohol-related deaths in the United Kingdom. Its Government have introduced a range of policies to address this. The Welsh Government have said that they will do more to extend non-smoking areas. This is also welcome.

These amendments seek to ensure that, when one devolved Administration move ahead of another, they can do so. We hope that they may be able to pull the others along with them. Undermining devolution is clearly one of the fundamental problems with this Bill.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I respect the views of the noble Baroness who has just spoken, but I have to say that there is little in what she said that I agree with. Amendments 21, 48 and 49 are quite different from Amendments 10 and 11. They go, in my judgment, way beyond what is necessary for a successful free trade market. Really they amount to micromanaging, and on the whole Her Majesty’s Government in any form, whether it be devolved or central, certainly are not terribly good at managing commercial activities. So I suggest that those amendments are unacceptable.

Amendment 11 is one that I warm to because the environment is absolutely crucial. In that context we include climate change, which we know is affecting every nation in the world, so that is a very serious area. Whether this amendment is the right one or not is almost for the Government to decide. I care deeply about the environment. I am privileged to live outside London. I shall drive home tonight, 50 miles to Bedfordshire, and it is a very nice environment there. It is essentially a horticultural one, which brings me to the point that horticulture is changing, not least because we are looking to achieve a fair degree of import substitution. All sorts of new challenges arise from that. We virtually gave up in the glasshouse world, losing out to Holland. There is all sorts of experimentation going on—growing vegetables just in water and so on—but this is not the time to go into that.

I do worry that there are products at the margin, where there is always somebody lobbying against them. Smoking has been mentioned. I have never smoked, but I accept the current situation in which people have the right to smoke if they wish to, and there are clear frameworks in which they can follow that. Pesticides are important in the horticultural world because they affect yields; again, that is a controversial area. So I will listen to my noble friend, particularly on Amendment 11, about which I have a reasonably open mind. I know that the environment is absolutely crucial, but I do not want to see areas of our society and our market squeezed out because of some heavy lobbying from one particular group who do not like the particular industry involved.

Trade Bill

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th October 2020 Lords Chamber

It is important that we accept this modest amendment, to ensure that the UK is never seen to condone acts of genocide and crimes against humanity. We must establish a precedent, which must be built on, as there is nothing currently in UK legislation to ensure that trading is aligned with obligations on the prevention or punishment of genocide.

[Baroness Northover (LD) [V]]

My Lords, this has been a passionate debate on an appalling subject: the brutality of man against man. It should be a given that we do not have a trade deal with a country that is responsible for genocide, but pressure can be irresistible and there will be little scrutiny of new trade deals going forward. As ever, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for ensuring that human rights are always at the forefront. I do not know how he can sleep, with all that he knows threading itself around his mind. Not everyone can do what he does. It is easier to turn aside, but we cannot and must not do so with this Bill.

We discussed this issue, as the noble Lord explained, at an earlier stage of the Bill. The Minister argued then that the Bill deals with continuity agreements and that they do not involve trading partners who might be implicated here. In the light of that earlier discussion, the movers recast Amendment 68 so that culpable regimes are more easily identified, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said. He also makes the point that the purpose of the Bill is drawn more widely than simply continuity agreements, including making

“provision about the implementation of international trade agreements”

and similar wider definitions. That is why Amendment 76A is within scope.

The United Kingdom is a signatory to the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which was established after the Nazi genocide. Many said then, “Never again”, but as the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, powerfully said, those are often empty words. As a signatory, we are required to prevent, protect and punish. The legal definition and threshold are set very high, as others have said. We know the difficulty of seeking international agreement that genocide has been carried out. After much delay and prevarication, a genocide was declared in Rwanda. However, even the Human Rights Council, set up to try to ensure that those whose record means that they should not qualify to be on it, now has its hands tied by those elected to be its members, including, of course, those Security Council vetoers, Russia and China.

The International Court of Justice has determined that the actions of Myanmar in relation to the Rohingya Muslims are genocide, but the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, has pointed to the limits of the ICJ. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, has cited the conclusions of the China Tribunal, headed by Sir Geoffrey Nice, whose work in the Balkans war crimes trials gives him the most terrible background to lead this, with crimes against humanity proved beyond all doubt. However, we also know that the scales are tipped when it comes to holding China to account. My noble friend Lady Smith of Newnham makes clear the hurdles for holding anyone to account on genocide.

Given the difficulty of establishing this internationally, the amendment proposes that the High Court should be asked to make a determination. I agree with my noble friend Lady Smith and the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, that that is an astute way to do this. If the court believed that the threshold of the 1948 genocide convention had been reached, trade arrangements with the offending country would be nullified. We need various means, including some of those mentioned by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. I am struck by the noble and learned Lord’s conclusion on the rule of law here and the strength that that brings to this issue. The arrangement proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, is in keeping with those that some key American lawyers are now arguing should be applied to the UN Security Council, which could itself be taken to the ICJ if it is not addressing genocide, given the responsibility of each country to adhere to the convention.

One would hope that amendments such as these were not required and no doubt the Minister will say so, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. However, we know that genocide continues to take place and we must face that. It is easier to turn away and that is why we must put this protection in the Bill.

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

My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for his amendment and his excellent speech, which said everything that needs to be said around this very difficult area, with considerable skill and a huge amount of information that we will need time to absorb.

The House seems united in the view that this is a serious issue that has a lot of support and needs to be implemented. I will be interested to hear how the Minister responds to it. What is most attractive about the amendment is the innovative use of the courts as a way of trying to give a point of factual accuracy around which decisions can be taken. I have not seen this before; it is not something that we have ever had proposed and it is worthy of further consideration. Indeed, it may have wider applications.

That puts the House in a bit of a spot. If it is clear that there is a way of checking, in a way that is respected in the use of our courts, to assess whether or not an action needs to be taken, are we not put on notice to live up to our responsibilities as signatories to this convention to prevent, protect and punish? Indeed, if we care about our moral values as a nation, we should have no grounds not to support the amendment.

Having said that, I wonder whether it is worth picking up one or two points that suggest that a bit more work on the amendment might make it achieve even more. Others have picked up on the question of why it is applied only to rollover agreements when it has the capacity to deal with all free trade agreements. Although this is a terrible thing to say, why stop at the issue of genocide? Are there not other egregious issues that would need to be considered in the same class as genocide? As my noble and learned kinsman Lord Hope said, the torture convention may well be an opportunity for further thinking around this area.

While I support what has been said today about the proposal and I want to give whatever assistance we can to the movers of the amendment, I suggest that maybe there should be other discussions before we reach Report, because what is said in the amendment goes with the grain of so many other amendments that we have looked at around the question of human rights that it would be good to see if we could find something that brought them all together. We need something that is helpful to the broader causes that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, espouses but is capable of bringing in other issues that other Members of the House also care about.

Trade Bill

Baroness Northover Excerpts

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

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB) [V]]

My Lords, first, I apologise as for various reasons this is the first time I have been able to speak on the Bill or this series of amendments. I speak now strongly to support the two amendments before us. I am grateful for all the powerful reasons that have been put forward beforehand, particularly by the proposer, the noble Lord, Lord Purvis.

Briefly, there are three reasons why I support both these amendments. The first is that, in policy matters, it is always important to think holistically, and the Bill gives us an opportunity to do so on one of the most crucial areas of human endeavour, which is trading. The danger of not thinking holistically is that one aspect of policy may be prioritised above all others, causing an imbalance and consequent diminution of other worthwhile goals. To maximise trade deals with other countries, at all costs, would seriously harm other goods that we greatly cherish. The Bill therefore has many amendments to ensure, quite rightly, that issues of the environment, human rights, labour relations and so on are properly protected and safeguarded.

Secondly, as part of our holistic thinking, it is right to consider the effect of trade deals on the UN sustainable development goals, to which, as we know, the UK is committed and to which we are fully committed as a member of the European Union. We have promised that. As other noble Lords have reminded us, there will be continuity with those commitments. We hardly need reminding that the need is still desperate. While good progress has been made on some goals, for example on primary education, others, such as reduction of extreme poverty, will go in the other direction by 2030 unless present policies change. One in 10 of the world’s population still lives on less than $1.25 a day. Malnourishment, leading to millions of deaths, especially among children, is stark: 3.1 million children a year still die of malnutrition.

Thirdly, despite recent reactions against globalisation, it is simply a fact of life. We are bound up with one another, economically and socially. Trade deals in one area can have effects worldwide, so we have to watch that the desperate search for trade deals, now that we have left the EU, does not damage the developing world, especially the poorest countries. We need safeguards in law to ensure this. As the apostle of the free market famously proffered:

“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”


These amendments give Parliament a watching brief that the new trade deals do not result, however inadvertently, in a conspiracy against the most vulnerable people on earth.

[Baroness Northover (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am pleased to speak in support of Amendments 39 and 97 in the names of my noble friend Lord Purvis of Tweed and others. Clearly, any trade deals that we agree must be in keeping with our international commitment to the sustainable development goals. We keep our agreements, do we not?

The MDGs agreed in 2000 pledged to halve extreme poverty by 2015. We know that economic development and trade played a major part in that being achieved. The SDGs were put in place in 2015, building on the previous period, and pledged to eliminate extreme poverty by 2030, at the same time leaving no one behind—so you were not dealing with averages. As my noble friend Lord Chidgey has just pointed out, the SDGs recognise that ending poverty must go along with human development through improving health and education, reducing inequality and increasing economic participation, while tackling climate change.

My noble friend Lady Sheehan pointed out that we in the UK led on this. Indeed, Andrew Mitchell, as Secretary of State, worked very hard to ensure that Prime Minister David Cameron led on this internationally. Much of the framing of the SDGs was carried out by DfID, in particular by one of its directors. I had the privilege to be a DfID Minister in the coalition during this period, and was the Minister in the Lords when my noble friend Lord Purvis took through the 0.7% Bill as the last piece of legislation by the coalition.

There have been long years of engagement by the EU on trade agreements with developing countries. There was an important shift in the realisation of how the EU, as a major economic power and the biggest aid giver in the world, could either damage the poorest around the world or assist them. Major engagement now goes into seeking to benefit developing countries and if we are to have continuity, we have to have continuity here too.

As we seek to agree trade deals with such countries, the UK must address the SDGs too. They apply in the United Kingdom, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, has pointed out, as well as internationally. We know that this is right, and that it is in our interests. Can the Minister say, for example, which African countries have yet to agree rollover arrangements and what the sticking points are? What happens if these are not agreed by the end of this year? Will the Government guarantee existing market access for developing countries and undertake thorough and timely assessments of the impact of any changes, looking at this through a development lens?

The Government have said that any trade deals with developing countries will be in keeping with our commitments to the SDGs. I expect the Minister to reiterate this. The safest and easiest thing to do would therefore be to put this commitment in the Bill. I look forward to hearing what the Minister says.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, for giving me the opportunity to press the Minister on a couple of issues in the context of these amendments. Amendment 39, which relates to the sustainable development goals, is presumably a bit like motherhood and apple pie—something we would all wish to sign up to. Equally, Amendment 97, which calls on the Minister

“to report annually on the impact of trade agreements to which the UK is party on the world’s least developed countries”

will strike a chord with the Minister—my noble friend Lord Younger—regarding his remarks to me on day two of Committee that we want to avoid the unintended consequences of free trade agreements with these countries.

My specific question follows on from the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, who expressed her wish to have expedited rollover agreements with African countries. I would like to press my noble friend on this. This seems bizarre. The United Kingdom was at the forefront, since so many of our Commonwealth countries were involved, in negotiating agreements with African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. These agreements, I understand, have now been rolled over into—I forget the exact term—European partnership agreements. Will my noble friend take this opportunity to set out which ones have been rolled over, what the timetable is, and why we seem to be dragging our feet on them when it surely must be a political priority, given our historic relationship with so many of these countries?

Trade Bill

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 1st October 2020 Grand Committee

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I understand the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, and the other noble Lords who have signed his Amendment 12. As the Committee should be aware, the United Kingdom has been a leader in standing up internationally for high environmental standards around the world. As the Minister made clear at Second Reading, all the continuity agreements that we have been and are negotiating are fully compliant with our international obligations, including the Paris Agreement on climate change. It is unnecessary to constrain the Government’s freedom in negotiating trade agreements with countries, including developing countries which may not have adopted the same environmental standards as we have, because that might have unintended consequences. Furthermore, the Paris Agreement targets only carbon reduction, but does not fully address the equally great national security challenge of providing clean energy for the whole planet, particularly in a world that needs more energy, not less.

As for Amendment 14 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, and my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering, I am not quite sure what its purpose is. As I understand it, it would prohibit the application of the powers created in this clause for the purposes of an enhanced continuity trade agreement such as that which we have agreed with Japan. Why would the noble Lord and my noble friend wish unduly to restrict the freedom of our negotiators to take any available opportunity to include enhancements to any continuity agreement?

As for Amendment 21 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Oates, I oppose it for the reason suggested by my noble friend Lord Lansley. It seems to me that it is designed to prevent a trade agreement with the United States, and that would have a negative effect on the economy and deny opportunities to British exporters and food producers.

Amendment 40, also in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Oates, is similarly unnecessary. In any case, your Lordships have received repeated assurances that none of our continuity agreements will deviate from the high standards that we apply to environmental issues, similar to human rights, as debated in a previous group. The Minister has already reassured the Committee that the Government will continue to publish parliamentary reports with each continuity agreement.

It will not surprise my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering to hear that I do not support her Amendment 69. It is clear that the Food Standards Agency has the powers to permit, or not, the sale of any foods which might be imported under FTAs. The amendment also seeks to require alignment of our agricultural marketing standards with those of the EU, which we have left. I agree with my noble friend that high animal welfare standards are a laudable objective, and we have done relatively well in this country in this area. However, I think she is incorrect to argue that animal welfare is exactly the same as animal health and hygiene. We will be free to set our own regulations after the end of the transition period. I earnestly trust that we will move quickly to adopt standards that are WTO compliant, unlike those of the EU, which in certain respects conflict with the WTO’s SPS agreement.

As my noble friend the Minister said at Second Reading, it is not within the gift of the UK Parliament to legislate on animal welfare standards for overseas countries. The Government have been clear that we have no intention of lowering standards, and we have fulfilled this commitment through our deeds. None of the 20 agreements already signed has reduced standards in any area. As the Minister said at Second Reading, it will be the job of the food standards agencies to ensure that all food imports comply with the UK’s high safety standards and that consumers are protected from unsafe food that does not meet those standards. Decisions on those standards are a matter solely for the UK and are made separately from any trade agreements. I ask the Minister to confirm that that remains the Government’s position.

For similar reasons, I am also opposed to Amendments 73 and 74 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. In any case, does my noble friend the Minister not agree that the Government would obviously not seek to enter into an international trade agreement without any merit with any nation? Neither should we expect only to enter into agreements which share precisely our positions on all multilateral environmental agreements.

[Baroness Northover (LD) [V]]

My Lords, there is surely nothing more important than addressing climate change, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and others have made clear. It is difficult to see that any trade agreement could possibly be justified if it is in contradiction to what must be an overriding national and international aim. Trade agreements must at the very least be consistent with our climate goals, and certainly must not undermine those commitments. I am sure that the noble Viscount will note the cross-party nature of many of these amendments.

My noble friend Lord Oates is very sorry that he cannot be here today, as he is attending a funeral. Amendment 12 in the name of Lord Grantchester and others, including my noble friend Lord Oates, means that any trade agreement we make must be consistent with our commitments under the Paris climate change agreement, CITES and the Convention on Biological Diversity. That is surely a given, and yet we know that this does not mean that such aims are built into trade deals. In Amendment 21, my noble friend Lord Oates and others make the case here stronger still: that trade deals can be made only with those who have signed up to the Paris Agreement, or not served notice that they intend to leave.

If after the debate we heard in the United States this week the American people decide that they wish to have Mr Trump as President for the next four years, then no trade deal could be undertaken with the United States, which will have pulled out of the Paris Agreement by then, having given the necessary three years’ notice and a fourth year to implement that—the four-year provision that President Obama very sensibly put into the Paris Agreement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I will intervene only briefly, initially to support my noble friend Lord Bassam in some of the examples he gave. Dispute settlement in trade deals is pretty important as is what is put into the deal. I am not clear about—but I hope I am—whether “public services” includes critical infrastructure. As far as I am concerned, the two go together. I would cite energy, for a start, because one can see the problems we are going to have with energy in this country with the collapse of the nuclear deal. We must have a mix. There is a good chance that the lights and the gas may go out and the Government may want to move at some point to take monopoly control of the service. They ought to be able to do that, but there are too many sticky fingers for my liking in the issues involved and therefore I think the idea behind the amendment by my noble friend Lord Bassam is very good.

I want to make a brief point about Amendment 51 on the health service. I thought the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, was devastating with its list of companies. Do not get me wrong, I have no objection to the NHS or other public services using the best available management tools, techniques and individuals to provide services but making use of them is not the same as handing over ownership. That is where one has to draw the line. The noble Lord, Lord Patel, made a very fair point. The public do not care who is providing the service as long as it is there when they need it, free at the point of use. He went on to say that they will care when their taxes go up. That point is when someone, such as the Prime Minister, will say, “You can avoid that by buying some insurance.” It is the slippery road to push us down the insurance route. I know we are all nice people in the Lords but frankly I do not trust the Prime Minister.

[Baroness Northover (LD) [V]]

My Lords, many of the debates here take me back to 2012, and I look forward to the contribution from my former boss, the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. I want to speak in support of Amendment 75 in the name of my noble friend Lady Sheehan. She has laid the amendment out effectively and comprehensively. There has long been tension between those marketing and those purchasing proprietary medicines and generics. Clearly, where pharmaceutical companies invest in research and development they should be rewarded for that, but we also know how expert the industry is at claiming R&D when that is beyond what they have actually done.

This issue plays out in the NHS but also internationally, particularly in developing countries where basic medicines may not be affordable and dependence on generics is vital. As the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said, the pandemic has shown how important this is. It reinforces that we are all interlinked. An infection that affects the community in one part of the world is within days potentially spread worldwide. It is in all our interests that disease is countered everywhere, as well as that being the right thing to do.

As my noble friend Lady Sheehan said, Amendment 75 affirms the Government’s right to use internationally agreed safeguards to protect public health, including securing access to more affordable generic medicines. As she said, earlier FTAs often focused on tariffs and trade in goods, while in the past couple of decades FTAs have become more comprehensive. Of course, many such developments are welcome in terms of ensuring standards, as we have been discussing, but provisions can also inappropriately protect monopolistic business. As I have said, genuinely innovative companies have a case, but their role can be exploited. In recognition of this, the WTO’s TRIPS agreement included public health safeguards. These were reaffirmed in the 2001 Doha declaration. Protecting genuine innovation has therefore already been addressed by the WTO, and it is important that these proposals are taken forward. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

Trade Bill

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 29th September 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner of Margravine, because I think I can follow up precisely the point she made. I think that the debate we have had is an important and interesting one, but the amendments before us do not have the effect that they are intended to by those who are proposing them.

The amendments are in scope of the Bill because they relate to the regulations being made under Clause 2(1), but the regulations made under Clause 2(1), by virtue of the rest of that clause, relate to continuity trade agreements and not to future trade agreements. With respect to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, everything he said about China is, to that extent, not relevant. It is relevant to future trade issues, but it is not relevant to the Bill as it stands.

Amendments 11, 18 and 33 are in scope because they relate to continuity agreements, but I am afraid that we have to assess their impact in relation to the existing agreements with the European Union which we are rolling over. That is the hard graft which the movers of the amendments need to do. If they want to do this thing and impact on those regulations, they have to look at those agreements.

My personal view, which was reflected earlier in the debate, is that the European Union has to a large extent done that work, as will have the European Parliament. We do not necessarily need to do it. However, the breadth of the issues—for example, in Amendment 33 —is such as to beg the question: is this really what the movers of the amendment are asking for? For example, the non-democratic provisions would imply that the agreement with Egypt would not be rolled over. That job has not been done and these amendments have not been exposed to that kind of scrutiny. I do not think that the movers of the amendments, or those who spoke in support of them, realise that they do not relate to future trade agreements but only to continuity agreements and so most of the arguments presented in their support have not been justified.

However, Amendment 45 is included in this group. Whether or not it is the right way of doing it, it raises a perfectly reasonable question that we should consider. When we come to exercise the scrutiny of trade agreements under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, should we have a specific statutory requirement to assess the human rights and equalities impacts? There is a good argument for that. This may not be the way to do it at this stage, but we may need to return to that. Otherwise, I am afraid that, sympathetic as I am with all the arguments put for the other amendments, they do not do the job that is claimed for them.

[Baroness Northover (LD) [V]]

My Lords, in this group of amendments we are once more addressing standards. Amendment 11, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and other noble Lords, rightly states that international trade agreements must not conflict with the provisions of international treaties ratified by the United Kingdom. One wonders quite how the Government will steer through any agreement with the EU if our Government are threatening at the same time to break international law in the treaty they have just agreed in relation to Northern Ireland. This amendment should not be needed but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, said, it seems that it is.

The amendment also states that such agreements must be consistent with the SDGs, which aim to eliminate extreme poverty by 2030, leaving no one behind. They are wide ranging, covering women’s rights, health, education, the environment and much else. The UK has signed up to deliver them, not only internationally but domestically. In a later group, we will come back to amendments specifically on the environment, but that is central to the SDGs. Given that we have signed up to the SDGs, the Minister should simply be able to accept this provision.

The amendment also references international human rights law and international humanitarian law. The Minister will have noted the very powerful cross-party support for such an approach, and strong support in the Lords for the defence of human rights globally. I am sure that his Bill team will have correctly written “human rights” in the column that means that this issue will need to be addressed.

In Amendment 45, my noble friends Lord Purvis and Lady Kramer seek to make it a duty to bring human rights and equalities impact assessments of all trade deals before and after implementation. As my noble friend Lady Kramer pointed out, this is now routine within trade agreements. Clearly, this is a sine qua non and the Government should simply accept this amendment. I note the support of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, for this.

Amendment 33, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and others, protects against, for example, making a damaging trade deal with China. Parliamentary approval would be required if a trade deal were to be made with a signatory that was non-democratic and the trade deal affected critical infrastructure, as outlined here.