Private International Law (Implementation of Agreements) Bill [HL]

Lord Hain Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 3rd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, Amendment 19 is a very important amendment to probe the Government on what they anticipate the application of Clause 2 will be. I very much enjoyed some of the other contributions today, particular that of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, which was particularly scathing and deserves to be in a newspaper somewhere. I loathe the Government trying to make these power grabs. The idea that they can just extend the concept of a crime is inherently damaging to democracy.

In particular, the key question that I need the Minister to address is in what circumstances he foresees a private international law agreement creating or amending criminal offences. As I understand it, the Bill and the agreements that it seeks to implement are entirely focused on the resolution of disputes between individual people or companies. Can he tell us what situations would give rise to any criminal liability, as opposed to civil liability? Does he anticipate that we will attach criminal fines and imprisonment to civil disputes? If there are not any good examples, why is this provision contained in the Bill and should your Lordships’ House not amend the Bill exactly in the way proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton?

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 20 to Schedule 6 in the name of my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer on the matter of proper consultation, which it would require. As a former Secretary of State for Wales and still living here, I am aware that no legislative consent Motion is required for this Brexit-consequential Bill and that the Welsh Government appear to seem at least content with it. But, as my noble friend Lady Kennedy highlighted, there are real concerns about the delegated powers to join future private international law agreements.

I understand that the UK Government have provided assurances to the devolved Administrations that, first, there are not any agreements in view at the moment that touch on matters within devolved competences and that, secondly, if any such agreement emerges the UK Government will guarantee to consult the Welsh Government, and presumably the Northern Ireland Executive and the Scottish Government. I would be grateful if the Minister specifically confirms this when he replies. I ask because, for nearly four years, Conservative Governments have had a sorry record of failing properly to enable devolved Governments to participate in framing a series of European Union withdrawal and Brexit-related Bills. Consequently, UK Ministers were regularly accused, as noble Lords might recall, of a power grab—of using the transfer of functions from Brussels back to the UK to recover to Whitehall previously devolved powers.

The First Ministers of Wales and Scotland both repeatedly complained about a failure of Whitehall Ministers to consult. Indeed, I have argued exactly that in your Lordships’ House on several occasions. There were also refusals to grant legislative consent Motions in Wales and Scotland until a satisfactory series of outcomes were belatedly conceded by the UK Government. This is not a good advertisement for the unity of the UK when it is under greater threat than ever.

I will put on record some specific examples of a failure to build consent, as Amendment 20 implies must be the case, because these must not be repeated. The 2017 EU withdrawal Bill, as originally drafted, represented a major assault on devolved competence. It was only as a result of very strong cross-party support in your Lordships’ House that the Government were forced to agree to a default position that all powers vested in the EU on matters of devolved competence would revert to the devolved institutions when we left the EU. This has led to a more consensual approach to the work of developing common frameworks where all four Governments agree that there needs to be a shared understanding and approach across the UK.