Trade Bill

Debate between Baroness Young of Old Scone and Baroness Hooper

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansarad): House of Lords
Monday 21st January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hooper (Con)]

My Lords, both these amendments provide us with a useful opportunity for discussion on important areas of trade, but both are without a doubt, to my mind, without the Bill. If we approach them in this spirit I think we can accept them as a useful addition for the future. I support my noble friend Lord Lansley’s Amendment 5 and will concentrate upon it because there is always a lot of rhetoric about SMEs and the need to encourage and support them, particularly in this context of increasing and developing international trade and their trading opportunities, and especially in this brave new world that awaits us after Brexit. Therefore, to have a specific quota for procurement is a very good way of drawing attention to the needs of small businesses and to encourage them to come forward when the time comes. Because it is not just a question of legislation: with all trade, it is a question of getting people out and about in the countries where we hope that they will find trading opportunities.

When we talk about international trade, of course there is much more to it than that. There is the whole issue of language skills and specialised negotiating skills which, by their very nature, small and medium-sized businesses may not be able to cope with. They are not likely to have the specialised staff or even the budgets to deal with this. I think that for the future we can certainly build on this amendment and the intention behind it, but as I said at the outset, not in this Bill. I trust that my noble friend the Minister will be able to reassure us that these interventions are not wasted but will be of great use when we come to deal with individual trade Bills in the future.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 4 in the name of my noble friend. I declare an interest as president of the Woodland Trust and as president or vice-president of a range of environmental organisations.

The noble Lord, Lord Fox, was absolutely right when he said that these would be the “continuity” four days. I will make that point shortly with regard to what we are trying to do with this amendment. It is important that we ensure that our joining of the GPA as an independent entity maintains all sorts of standards: employment and human rights equalities, SME targets, other government national priorities and, in particular, on the environment. I therefore support Amendment 4 to enable conditions to be applied to tenders for services.

I will say more about the importance of maintaining environmental standards when we come to the group starting with Amendment 8. However, on Amendment 4 I will simply say that it is a very different thing to operate as one of the EU 28. It was pretty easy to have high environmental ambition when we were sailing as a pack, as it were. It will be very different when we are negotiating as an isolated country, either with the World Trade Organization or in bilateral agreements. I therefore do not believe that the Bill can be just about continuity, because continuity is not an option; in the future we will be operating in a very different environment in all our trade arrangements. It is important to ensure that standards—in my case, particularly environmental standards—are reinforced in all the trade mechanisms we are putting in place as part of a Brexit mechanism.

I therefore very much support Amendment 4 with regard to our changed membership of the GPA and subsequent tenders and contracts, which are an important part of that wider trade system that we are now entering into—which is not an issue of continuity.

Trade Bill

Debate between Baroness Young of Old Scone and Baroness Hooper

Monday 21st January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hooper (Con)]

My Lords, I fully accept the Government’s assurances in relation to this group of amendments that there is absolutely no intention to lower standards and that the existing protections for consumers will be preserved. However, as has been shown in the discussions so far, there is a cause for concern. While the British Government intend to roll over the agreements without making any change, there is some uncertainty about whether the other parties with which we will be negotiating have the same point of view. The issues have been discussed sufficiently for me not to repeat what has been said, but I suggest that there are a couple of safeguards which have not been mentioned.

The global demand for British goods is based on our high standards. People buy British goods not because they are cheap but because of their high quality. Therefore, to disregard food standards would undermine any possibilities in that area. I understand that the EU withdrawal Act ensures that all existing EU environmental law will continue to operate in UK law. That again provides businesses and stakeholders with certainty.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. We have stressed throughout the debates about Brexit how important European law has been in driving UK environmental law. However, there are still whole swathes of environmental law in the UK which were actually invented by us. They are not yet safeguarded and could be undermined by trade deals.

[Baroness Hooper]

I bow to the superior knowledge of the noble Baroness in this area and I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to reply.