Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (IAC Report)
Lord Goldsmith Excerpts(9 months ago)
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Lord Goldsmith (Lab)
My Lords, as this debate has moved rather faster than I anticipated, I beg leave to speak very briefly on one point in the gap. I thank noble Lords who have commented on this report and my noble friend Lady Hayter for introducing it. She raised the interest that Parliament has in treaties—not just trade treaties but all treaties—which I want to underline.
My noble friend made the point, and I entirely agree, that Parliament has limited levers to deal with treaties which the Government have entered into. The CRaG process provides some of those levers but they are limited, and if, for example, the Government do not play ball, they do not work. For example, only the House of Commons has the ability actually to delay the ratification of the treaty, but in order to do that it needs a debate, and to have a debate it needs to have the leave of business managers in the Commons to find the time for that. A debate has been refused in the Commons in relation to the Rwanda treaty, so that is not taking place.
For our own part, we were fortunate to have a debate on Rwanda—and everyone knows what result that reached—but we have not had a response to the resolution from this House during the time that is required. I got a letter from the Home Secretary, plainly written by his officials, who put it in terms that it was my expectation that he would respond to that report by 17 March. It was not my expectation; it is the rule of this House that, when committees make reports, they are responded to by the Government in a certain amount of time. It is unfortunate that that still has not happened. I have written to him again and asked for a response. I do not think there is going to be one; the Rwanda treaty will obviously now be swept up with the Bill.
I believe it is important that Parliament has an interest in treaties, expresses its view and scrutinises those treaties. To do that, it needs to be allowed to use the levers which Parliament itself has created. That is the only point I wanted to make, and I thank the House for listening to me.