Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (EUC Report)

Lord Giddens Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Giddens (Lab)]

My Lords, like my noble friend Lord Liddle, I speak not as a member of the committee that produced this report but as an interested and motivated outsider. I commend the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, on his excellent introduction, and also congratulate the committee on its report, which is detailed and thorough and brings some fresh insights to the issues. That is not an easy task because the European Commission has already produced a large amount of documentation on TTIP, its prospects and problems. I should know, because I have waded through most of it.

Probably the most famous thing that has ever been said about TTIP is the observation that it should be achieved on “one tank of gas”—a now celebrated statement but something that, as other noble Lords have quite plainly shown, is not destined to come about. The reasons were given by my noble friend Lord Liddle and others: this is a far-reaching enterprise, and we have to be in it for the long haul. A range of problems and issues, including those mentioned by my noble friend, have been identified by other noble Lords, too.

There can be no doubt, however, about the potential benefits of a developed version of TTIP if it could be realised. The facts and figures that are bandied about are, as has been said by other noble Lords, estimates at best, although this is another area where the Commission has done a good deal of valuable and detailed work. Yet we all know that the potential positive effect on the EU and US economies is huge. We all know it is not a zero-sum game and that it will transfer to other countries in the world. I strongly support what the report says and other speakers have said about involving third countries in the enterprise. As the report quite properly points out, such an agreement could be a vanguard model for trade agreements elsewhere.

Just as important, as other noble Lords have already observed—I think noble Lords have said most, but not quite all, of the things I am going to say—it could breathe new life into the transatlantic relationship. Therefore this goes well beyond the purely economic level. We all know what is happening on the edge of Europe, in Ukraine. We can all see that we need, in some sense, to re-establish the West, and this could be a mechanism that will help us to do so.

For these reasons, it is worth keeping option C.2 in the Commission’s recent assessment report at the forefront. It is the most ambitious in the range of options analysed therein, but it provides an overall framework. We should certainly try for the low-hanging fruit but, at the same time, sustain an overall framework which supplies an overall approach. The Commission emphasises—and the report says this, too—that such an agreement would have to be of a “living” nature. Regulatory issues that could not be resolved early on should form part of a continuous dialogue that would evolve and deepen over time.

Other noble Lords raised issues of environmentalism and environmental protection. This is the nub of many of the objections that my noble friend Lord Liddle mentioned, some of them coming from Germany. I am an environmentalist. I have written extensively on climate change, but I am strongly positive towards TTIP precisely because it centres on regulatory issues. It enforces a dialogue that can be of value in Europe and the United States. I will give an example—an illustration—of the precautionary principle. This principle is very important in some contexts in Europe and is enshrined in European documentation, but it is a questionable idea. To me, the precautionary principle simply vocalises, when put in this way, one simple everyday saying: “Look before you leap”. Yet there is always an opposite to every saying, which in this case is: “He who hesitates is lost”.

What we need in Europe is a discussion of the scientific balance of risk and opportunity—and for me the balance always has to be assessed in a specific context. That is the reason why the kind of dialogue that is partly enforced by the progress of TTIP, if it is seen and brought to public attention in the right way, could be enormously fruitful rather than a barrier.

I will briefly follow up what noble Lords have said and ask the Minister three sets of questions to which he might consider responding. As other noble Lords have said, there has been a lot of discussion across Europe—again, some of it pretty hostile—about the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism. The problems, to my mind, are very well analysed in the report. Will the Government be reconsidering their position on this issue? If so, in what way? Does the Minister agree that this question especially needs to be given a full and open public hearing? If you look at it in some detail, it exemplifies just the issues that I was talking about. It is not, I think, purely a negative set of arrangements once it is unpicked, but it needs to be unpicked.

Secondly—other noble Lords have asked this—what is the Government’s view of the state of play on the key question of the inclusion of financial services in a trade deal? Can the Minister comment on newspaper reports that a “draft offer”, as it is has been put, of the EU’s proposals to the US has already been decided on that will omit reference to financial services? Is there any evidence that this is the case—because, as other noble Lords have quite properly remarked, the issues here are obviously huge? We all know about what the European view describes as American intransigence. I think it is more complex and interesting than that, although I recognise all the problems on Capitol Hill and the devolved nature of the United States that is crucial to all of this.

Thirdly, and finally, what further efforts should be made both in the UK and across the rest of Europe to bring TTIP to public attention? It was quite appropriate that the Chamber just emptied when the issue was mentioned. This is a gigantic scheme, after all. This is world historical. It is a very odd conjunction. This is one area where the Lords report is especially good. What it says, as everyone here who was on the committee will know, is that,

“insofar as a public debate on TTIP exists, EU member states are losing it”.

One of the main impulses, as has been said, of some of the populist parties in Europe is precisely a return to protectionism. A proper and detailed discussion in public of the benefits of TTIP could surely contribute positively to countering these isolationist tendencies and the resentments that fuel them—but how would such a debate get off the ground? How would it be organised, what role should the Government play and what role should civil society groups play? It would clearly have to go well beyond the purview of Governments themselves.