Trade Bill

Debate between Lord Bilimoria and Lord Lansley

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 6th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley]

I thoroughly agree with my noble friend Lord Hailsham in his argument. I will add one thing. The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association just a few weeks ago brought together people from across the Commonwealth to discuss a number of issues. The meeting I attended was a discussion on the ratification of treaties. It was clear that Australia and New Zealand—which of course have a long continuing history of negotiating their own trade agreements—still use the prerogative power as the basis on which the Executive enter into a trade agreement, but they do it in the context of continuing scrutiny, oversight and an approval process following implementation of legislation.

What I read in the White Paper last week went a long way towards replicating that in a very satisfactory way—that is, we would do those things in a similar way to Australia and New Zealand such as the outline approach being presented, reports on rounds and negotiations being reported back to Parliament and of course an approval process. It is perfectly reasonable to wait on the two Houses of Parliament to tell the Government what they think should be the committee processes by which these are considered. Australia, for example, has a joint standing committee on treaties, which looks at the way treaties are ratified. I do not think it is the case that mandates are being taken all over the world; some of the countries that have the greatest constitutional consistency with us do not have a mandate. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, was right about scrutiny and oversight, but he elided them with the necessity for Parliament to issue a mandate. Under our constitutional processes we should not be issuing a mandate, and the proposed new clause falls on that count.

[Lord Bilimoria]

My Lords, at the heart of this is Parliament taking control. What has been a problem for the past two and two-third years is that the Executive have continually tried to bypass and bully Parliament, whether with Article 50 or the statutory instruments that are going through now. This is really frightening. I am sorry to say to the noble Lords, Lord Lansley and Lord Hannay, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, but there is a big difference between Australia and New Zealand, and, for example, the United States of America. Not only does that country undertake a meaningful public consultation before negotiating, but it releases all the negotiating text to a large representative panel and subjects the deals to an affirmative vote by Congress, which is also entitled to amend deals unless it waives its right. That is Parliament having a say. That is transparency. The European Union, with its mostly mixed agreements, needs ratification by member states. It is crucial that we accept these amendments, to make sure, in the words of the Brexiteers, that we take back control.