Free Trade Agreement: Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

I am not used to debates without speakers’ lists; I am a bit nervous about going first.

I thoroughly congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, on securing this debate before the expiry of the scrutiny deadline. As he noted, this is the first genuinely new post-Brexit free trade agreement, as opposed to a copy-and-paste of the agreements we enjoyed as an EU member state. As such, it has to be welcomed—but with some caveats. The committee notes that, although this is substantially a new trade agreement, there is a different government approach to parliamentary scrutiny for this one compared to others, such as the forthcoming Australia free trade agreement.

The committee says that government commitments on scrutiny have developed “iteratively”. A less diplomatic way of putting it might be that it is all over the place. Certainly, government commitments on consultation, publication of negotiating objectives, scrutiny of documents, briefings to the committees, access to the texts and so on have not been respected in the case of this agreement. My experience as a Member of the European Parliament was that if the negotiators—the Commission and the Council—took MEPs into their confidence early on, particularly through an approval of negotiating objectives, the further stages were much smoother. But of course, the European Parliament has much greater powers than the Westminster Parliament over trade agreements.

The committee called the layout of the parliamentary report, one of the explanatory materials, “hard-to-read”. It certainly is; I made the mistake of printing it out and it has the titchiest font that I think I have ever seen. The committee also said that the

“rationale for its production is unclear”

and that even the impact assessment was “less informative” than on previous occasions. I hope that this might get a commitment from the Minister to do better in future.

I am interested to note that this free trade agreement includes mutual recognition of professional qualifications, which the Government did not manage to secure in the trade and co-operation agreement with the EU, such that any UK qualified workers wishing to work in the EU have to meet the qualification requirements of each individual EU member state, such that host country rules apply. Can the Minister, as an off-shoot of the subject we are debating, tell us what progress has been reached in securing reciprocal arrangements with any EU member state on a sectoral basis for recognition of qualifications?

The committee notes that although the agreement applies differently in Northern Ireland compared with the rest of the UK, none of the explanatory materials—the explanatory memorandum, the impact assessment, the parliamentary report—makes any reference to that, which is quite strange. Northern Ireland officials advised the committee that

“there remain considerable complexities around how Northern Ireland will fully benefit from UK FTAs”,

and that the

“inability to fully comply with FTA measures for NI, where these conflict with … the Protocol”,

needs to be considered. Obviously, the protocol is much in our minds now—as ever. Can the Government provide the committee and the House with a full explanation of these difficulties—this interaction between the protocol and FTAs—and what they involve in terms of WTO transparency, potential trade dispute risks and any other factors?

The Northern Ireland Government apparently saw the detailed text of this agreement only shortly before the announcement that an agreement had been reached. The Scottish Government have complained that they did not have a full role and were not involved in any of the crucial detail on tariffs and goods access or consulted on significant aspects of the negotiations. Unlike some colleagues—I am sitting behind one—I am not well up on the role of the devolved Governments, but I am concerned if a professed unionist party that currently sits in government is failing to be inclusive in trade negotiations. Can the Minister explain the Government’s record in respect of this FTA and what they intend in the future?

As the committee notes, and as the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, repeated, this FTA is

“in part an exercise in damage limitation”.

We cannot get back, certainly via this FTA, to what we had as a member of the European Economic Area. I notice that the explanatory memorandum does not even mention the EEA in its background section; it has been airbrushed out of history. It compares this FTA only with the previous ones on goods only. A fair comparison would be what we had as all being members of the EEA. This reaches the same level of farce as “Don’t mention the war”—Captain Mainwaring style.

The impact assessment claims that the FTA

“delivers more opportunities across services and investment and a range of other areas including digital, procurement and telecoms.”

This again can be compared only to the previous 2019 and December 2020 agreements, which covered only goods. As the Law Society protested, this FTA comes

“nowhere close to replicating the level of market access members”—

that is, solicitors, the members of the Law Society—had “prior to Brexit”, when we were in the EU and the EEA, in the provisions giving complete freedom to provide services. That is what the comparison needs to be with. It is disingenuous of the Government not to mention and describe that, since we here are all going to know it. At least there are some mobility provisions in this FTA, unlike in the TCA with the EU, but they are only WTO mode 4, in the jargon, and thus more far more restrictive than the freedom of movement to work that we all had in the EEA.

A big gap is the failure to get diagonal cumulation on rules of origin. This is a subject for which I have always had to put a wet towel on my head, but what it means in practice is that while the UK, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein will be able to cumulate EU content, the EU has not reciprocated in the TCA. This means that Norwegian and Icelandic raw materials incorporated above a certain threshold into goods exported from the UK to the EU will attract tariffs as third-country content. Can the Minister give us any glimmer of hope of resolving that important issue in future?

The preamble reaffirms the commitment of all parties to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948. What about the European Convention on Human Rights? As far as I know, and indeed I do know, all the partners—Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein and, at least for now, the UK—are members of the ECHR. So why is the ECHR not cited and namechecked in the text while only the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is? Should I be worried about that?

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, speaking as a member of your Lordships’ European Affairs Committee, whose report we are debating, I welcome these three agreements. That may surprise the Minister, who has taken a certain amount of criticism on some of the other debates that we have had on trade agreements, but I do. It is important to avoid the legal and, potentially, practical hiatus in our trading relationship with those three countries that would have followed from our ceasing to be covered by the EEA at the beginning of 2021, this year. Now, as a result of those agreements, that will not happen, which is certainly good news.

However, I have to say to the Government that they would get more credit on an occasion like this if they did not claim, as official spokesmen have done, that these agreements were in some way a massive break- through, a first new-era post-Brexit set of free trade agreements. That is the sort of hyperbole that I am afraid, since it is not true, tends to discredit what is actually a perfectly well-done job. These are nothing of the sort. We have actually been in a free trade area relationship with these countries for many decades, since before we joined the European Community when we were part of EFTA with them. I have to admit—to my shame, because there is the problem of ageism—that I was part of the negotiations for the free trade agreement with Norway and the other members of EFTA when we joined the European Community.

Republic of Cameroon: Economic Partnership Agreement

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB) [V]]

My Lords, the two trade agreements we are debating today are with two very different countries: Ghana, a flourishing democracy with a robust and growing economy, and Cameroon—[Inaudible]—racked. Noble Lords have spoken so eloquently. They need, therefore, to be considered separately.

I believe we should give our full and unqualified backing to the agreement with Ghana, but I would be grateful if the Minister would give the House a progress report on the preparatory work his department has in hand for a full, new-style free trade agreement with Ghana and other African countries, not just the tread-water, rollover one of which the present agreement consists. In the case of Cameroon, it would be helpful if the Minister could say, quite clearly, whether the reported human rights abuses were raised in the negotiations. If so, what was the response of the Cameroon Government? If not, why not? Is it not the case that the EU’s Cotonou agreement, to which we were hitherto a party, does in fact provide scope for raising human rights abuses?

More widely, what are the Government doing, together with others including the African Union and the Commonwealth, to prevent the internal tensions between the anglophone and francophone communities in Cameroon sliding into a full-blown crisis, of which there are far too many in Africa?

When the Trade Bill was passing through this House, the Minister gave a number of assurances that human rights issues would be an integral part of the Government’s future trade policy. So, these questions are valid ones, and I hope he will be able to answer them. In April, we heard that there had been no discussion of human rights in the context of the UK-Turkey negotiations, despite the prevalence of such problems in that country. I will listen carefully to the Minister’s replies to this debate and, in the light of that, decide whether to support the Motion to Regret which I am minded to do.

Turkey: Free Trade Agreement

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Tuesday 27th April 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB) [V]]

My Lords, it is good that we have an opportunity to debate this trade agreement because that fulfils a commitment given by the Minister as the Trade Bill passed through this House, and more particularly because this agreement is a seriously disturbing one. I note, incidentally, that it was not the object of the surge of hyperbole from the Secretary of State for International Trade which usually greets the conclusion of an agreement; this is not surprising when you look at the content.

Why so? Many recent trade agreements fall into the category that I would describe as running to stand still: they just roll over the trade access which the UK already had as an EU member state. But this agreement does not clear even that low bar. The new requirements for rules of origin checks and the absence of cumulation provisions with other countries in the region will in fact leave British exporters to Turkey worse off than they were when we were inside the EU-Turkey customs union, and therefore at a competitive disadvantage to EU exporters to Turkey with which they were previously on a level playing field. Will the Minister confirm that that is in fact the case and say where the UK will be left if and when the negotiations between the EU and Turkey to strengthen and possibly expand their customs union, which are, I understand, likely to begin soon, lead to agreement?

The other equally if not more disturbing feature is the absence of any provisions covering human rights. Did we seek such provisions? There can be few countries in the world with which we are currently seeking to conclude a preferential trade agreement in which some provisions on human rights are more necessary. I recall the Minister’s eloquence about such provisions in trade agreements when we debated the Trade Bill. Here is a country which is locking up journalists, members of parliament and academics, all with scant or no due process, and we have no locus for raising these matters. Will the Minister at least give an assurance that human rights issues will be raised when the two-year review of this agreement falls due, and that the UK will press in those negotiations for this lacuna to be filled?

As a final thought, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, will send a copy of his contribution to this debate to President Trump in Mar-a-Lago. It is fortunate, perhaps, that Mr Trump has had his Twitter account cut off because the response might be a little startling.

Economic Partnership Agreement: Kenya

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I too welcome the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord McDonald of Salford, and in doing so express my sadness that his late father-in-law, Lord Wright of Richmond, was not here to see him make it. I worked once for someone who said he was a founder member of the son-in-law club. He was a former Leader of this House, Lord Soames, and his father-in-law was Winston Churchill, of course. He always used to say, “the son- in-law also rises.”

In so far as the UK-Kenya agreement we are debating is one of the category that the Government call continuity agreements—perhaps more clearly described as rollover agreements of the terms which already existed between the UK and Kenya when we were a member of the EU or in transition out of it—there is probably no need to go into too much detail, which is fortunate since, as usual, we have no time to do so.

Perhaps when the Minister replies to the debate he can identify any elements in the agreement which provide better access to our market than Kenyan exporters already had, or provide our exporters of goods or services with better access to the Kenyan market than they already had. What we are talking about, therefore, is running to stand still. I am not denigrating that; it is certainly better than nothing and better than regressing to straightforward third-country treatment of each other. But it is still light years removed from what was promised by the promoters of Brexit once we had shaken off what they described as the “shackles” of EU membership.

That brings me to a wider point, which was raised forcefully in the report of your Lordships’ International Relations and Defence Committee on the UK’s relations with sub-Saharan Africa—a report published last July and still languishing undebated. It is now nearing five years since the Department for International Trade was set up in the aftermath of the 2016 referendum to establish the outlines of the UK’s new independent trade policy, yet to this day not a word has been revealed about what that policy should be towards Africa —a substantial proportion of the world’s population, containing many rapidly growing markets. Not one word has been said about those African countries’ improved access to our market, which must surely be an integral part of any serious partnership between the UK and Africa.

This failure to identify and to promote the countries of Africa as a priority part of our new trade policy is surely a lamentable one which must be remedied. However, the Government’s written replies to our report’s recommendations—two attempts were needed—were vapid and imprecise, and contained no sense of urgency. Clearly, pursuit of the mirage of a UK-US agreement and that of an agreement with the Pacific grouping, with seven of whose 11 members we already have free trade agreements, were crowding out any consideration of Africa. I hope that the Minister can say that this will not continue to be the case and give us chapter and verse on how that lacuna will be filled, at the latest when the report on sub-Saharan Africa is finally debated.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

I call the next speaker, the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft. I beg your pardon, the next speaker is the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 19th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I regret that our virtual proceedings mean that one can no longer welcome maiden speeches across the Chamber but has to do so remotely. I do that now, both to the one already made and to those that are coming.

I make no apologies for concentrating my remarks in this Second Reading exclusively on Part 5 of the Bill and its Clauses 44, 45 and 47. Other parts of the Bill certainly require the customary careful scrutiny, and very possibly the amendment, that we normally give to legislation, but this section is unprecedented—indeed, unique—and requires more drastic treatment. Why so? Because never before in Britain’s modern history have a Government brought forward a Bill giving them the authority to unilaterally break international law and override our treaty obligations—in this case, obligations entered into less than a year ago and legitimised by legislation passed by this Parliament following last December’s election. There is no doubt about that, because the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland stood at the Dispatch Box in the other place and told us quite explicitly that it was so.

Does that have implications going far beyond the subject matter covered by this Bill? Indeed it does. This country has prided itself that its word was its deed. In the 20th century, we twice went to war—to world war—in 1914 and 1939, to uphold our treaty obligations, but apparently our word will no longer be our deed if these provisions become law. Moreover, it is the Government’s view—which I happen to share—frequently put forward at our own Dispatch Box, that it is in Britain’s national interest to sustain and strengthen the rules-based international order. That order is currently under severe strain. How much credibility will our advocacy of that order have if we start picking and choosing which bits of it we intend to apply and which ones we intend to ride roughshod over? Very little, I suggest. I can just visualise the justifications that the representatives of Presidents Putin and Xi will put forward next time they wish to break international law and their international obligations; they will be identical to the arguments being used by the Government to defend the measures brought forward to us today.

I insist that this is not a matter of which side of the Brexit argument you are on. That matter was settled last January when this House endorsed the deal that the Prime Minister struck with the EU—the very same deal that we are now being invited to override—and it was settled when we left the EU at the end of January. That is demonstrated by the fact that critics of these measures are drawn from both sides of that Brexit argument. What really is relevant is the risk to the Northern Ireland peace process if the Government persist in the course that they have set out on. The Government’s protests to the contrary ring quite hollow to me. The balance of analyses points to a real, genuine, serious risk to that process.

Those are the reasons why I believe the principled course of action is to remove those parts that I have referred to from the Bill. There is just one word that I can find to describe them: an aberration. That is why I shall vote with the Motion in the name of my noble and learned friend Lord Judge.

Nissan in Sunderland

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate for asking that question and for underlining the obvious concerns of all people living in Sunderland, Durham and the wider north-east, including the 7,000 workers at Nissan and the 35,000 people supported in the supply chain. We will continue to talk to all concerned; we want to allay those fears. We are very grateful that Nissan continues to be committed to that site. It has made enormous investments there over the last 30-plus years. As the right reverend Prelate stressed, we will also continue to make investments in R&D and new technologies in other fields. The automotive industry is changing, and what we have all been saying about diesel holds true. There will be a decline in diesel sales, but we hope to see a greater take-up in others.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister not recognise that the real story here is that the Government—perhaps understandably—in 2016 gave an undertaking to Nissan that there would be no deterioration in its access to the European market, which they have proved unable to deliver? That is the real story, is it not?

The Minister referred to Baroness Thatcher and the role she played in getting Nissan established. I fundamentally and absolutely agree with that. I was the British Permanent Representative at the time. We had a lot of trouble because the French Government wanted origin rules to be applied to the production in Sunderland, which would have destroyed the case for investment there. Thanks largely to the late Lord Cockfield, that attempt was defeated. How sure is the Minister that, if we leave the European Union, the issue of origin rules will not arise again and affect the capacity of foreign investors in this country to export cars to the European Union?

[Lord Henley]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, for paying tribute to the late Lady Thatcher and for reminding us of the work of the late Lord Cockfield, whom many of us remember. As regards what will happen to the rules for the future, that will depend very much on negotiations. Those negotiations will continue. I very much hope that we get a deal that is suitable to make sure that this company can continue to flourish. I am sure that it will continue to flourish, and will continue to flourish in Sunderland, irrespective of what happens.

Ffos-y-Fran Opencast Coal Mine

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I do not think that I can take the noble Baroness any further. This is a devolved matter. It is a matter for the Welsh Government, who have responded to the special rapporteur’s report.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, will the Minister explain to the House how the UK Government fulfil their obligations to the United Nations if they cease to have any obligation for matters that have been devolved? Surely the responsibility of the British Government in the UN is to fulfil obligations they enter into. How are they going to do so?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, the UK Government have responded to this report. The Question relates to one part of the report relating to the Ffos-y-Fran opencast coal mine. As I have made clear, that is a devolved matter and a matter for the Welsh Government, and the Welsh Government have responded to the UN rapporteur’s report.

Brexit: Galileo Space Project

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, given our history, I find the lack of trust very confusing, but certainly we can look at other options. We have made it clear in a letter that my right honourable friend has sent to all appropriate Ministers in the other 27 countries that we wish to continue to participate in this programme. So far, we have had only a letter from the Commission itself setting out its view that we should not take part. In our view, that would be folly of the worst sort: it would increase costs for the whole programme by €1 billion and possibly delay it for three years.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, have negotiations begun on the Prime Minister’s proposals for a security treaty with the European Union? If they have begun or are about to begin, will they cover the security aspects of the Galileo programme and perhaps provide a way of avoiding what can be described only as mutually assured damage?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am not aware of whether they have begun but certainly they would provide a way to deal with this matter. The noble Lord is right to stress that there would be mutually assured damage if the Commission was to continue with its suggestion that we should not participate in this programme.

Brexit: Consumer Rights Policy

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, the noble Baroness raises an interesting point. It is going to be difficult. I cannot foresee the outcome of the negotiations; all I can say is that we understand the issue she raises. We have already demonstrated through our support for the alternative disputes resolution and the extra money we are putting into the Chartered Trading Standards Institute that this is an issue that we take very seriously.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, will the Minister say when he will share with the House what is practicable to be included in the great repeal Bill and what is not? Will he also share the result of the inquiries that he says the department has been conducting about the value of this, and has he, by any chance, read the previous Government’s balance of competences review, which went into great detail on this sector?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

The noble Lord asks when we will share the issues around practicalities. That will emerge during the negotiations.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 30th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 488, which has in a way been trailed already in its substance by the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, who raised but did not get a response about the absence in the Bill of any serious reference to continuing co-operation overseas, and also by the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, who pointed out that there is a quite a lot of cross-coverage in what he is putting forward as probing amendments and what I am putting forward as a substantive amendment.

Amendment 488 is very simple, merely adding a further task for the UKRI in the list given in this clause. It says that,

“UKRI shall take every possible opportunity to encourage and facilitate the maximum co-operation between British higher education and research establishments and those based outside the UK, and in particular with projects and programmes funded by the European Union”.

The wording does not limit this to the EU. Although it is to some extent Brexit-related, it looks much wider than that. Clearly, it will not in itself provide the legal or policy framework for co-operation between the UK and EU when we are outside, because that will be laid down by the Government in their Brexit negotiations. I very much welcome the fact that the Prime Minister in her Lancaster House speech explicitly mentioned this as one of the areas where Britain will want to go on co-operating as closely as possible. The amendment does not provide for that. It is a task merely for UKRI, and UKRI will have to operate within the scope of whatever arrangements the Government may negotiate with the EU—on money, legal base, and all that sort of stuff.

The EU dimension is, however, very significant. The noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, mentioned it briefly. Since the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme began in 2014, the UK has provided 5,428 participants—more than any other member state. The UK co-ordinates around 20% of the projects. We have received 16.4% of the funding, adding up to something like £2.63 billion.

Turning to the separate European Research Council programmes, here I mention the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, whose name is on the amendment, because he was very much instrumental in setting up the European Research Council many years ago when he was working at the Commission. It is a brilliant organisation, much less bureaucratic than some of the other aspects of the European Union. In the ERC programmes, we have 699 grant-holders and are the most successful member state.

There is a lot at stake here. In addition, something like 46% of UK research involves some overseas partners. That surely demonstrates how important a part of UKRI’s work will involve this international dimension. I very much hope that the Minister will feel able, even today, to say simply that he accepts the amendment. I cannot believe that it cuts across or does anything other than complement the Government’s own objectives. So I will listen with great care when the Minister responds to this debate and I will hope to be delighted to hear that he thinks this is a jolly good amendment.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, we have Amendment 490 in this group. I echo what has been said by other noble Lords about the paramount importance of international—particularly EU—academics, scientists and researchers employed in the UK.

The Government’s own industrial strategy highlights the importance of continued investment in science and R&D, noting that the UK spends 1.7% of GDP on public and private R&D, compared with an OECD average of 2.4%. Presumably that is why the Government have committed to substantial new investment in R&D, including an extra £4.7 billion by 2020-21—a 20% increase in spending, which must be welcomed. However, the ability of this investment to pay dividends depends on ensuring that world-class people come here to carry out that research. It is no good finding the extra money if you do not have the people. Without ensuring that the best and the brightest are working here, throwing money at research will not help and will not enable UKRI to reach its strategic goals.

The curtailment of freedom of movement, coupled with an already complex visa regime for non-EU workers, threatens to undermine our scientific research base. Indeed, just the uncertainty over Brexit is already having an effect. As Dr Jo Beall, director of education and society for the British Council, told the Education Select Committee on 25 January, the UK is already losing out on vital research as academics pull out of research bids or choose not to take up posts in the UK as a result of uncertainty over their long-term future. The uncertainty over Brexit means that the viability of scientific projects that could take 20 to 30 years cannot be guaranteed, either in funding terms or, crucially, even whether the academics who start such projects will be able to live in the UK throughout that time or recruit the others they need to make a success of the projects.

The amendment does not seek to force the Government into maintaining freedom of movement, although of course this is an approach that my party favours. Instead, it seeks to ensure that the effect of such a change on the viability of world-leading science and research is recorded and understood so that it might influence government decision-making. The amendment would therefore require an annual report by UKRI on the impact of scientific academics and researchers, employed either directly through UKRI or through higher education institutions. Should the report identify a fall in the number of international researchers and academics in the UK, the amendment would require the Secretary of State to assess the impact of such a reduction on the ability of UKRI to deliver its functions.

The intention of the amendment is to give the Secretary of State the responsibility of understanding that failure to protect the free movement of academics and researchers risks undermining the Government’s aim of being a world leader in R&D. The very viability of this goal, identified in the Government’s own industrial strategy, depends on having such an assessment and not simply assuming that relying purely on home-grown scientists will provide the capacity or diversity needed to compete in a globally competitive field.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

It does not do anything of the sort. The Minister has told us that the Government agree with the sentiments in the amendment, but he has not said that they accept the amendment. That is what matters. The Minister does not need to worry about whether anybody reads Hansard tomorrow. If the Government accept the amendment, it will be in the Bill, and people will not have to read Hansard. I seriously do not know why the Government cannot simply accept that amendment or, at the very least, why the Minister cannot say that he will go away and study it and reflect upon it before Report, rather than excluding accepting it. It is, quite honestly, absurd. I ask the Minister to think very carefully before he sits down after this short debate.

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

The noble Lord stopped me in full flow. I was just getting to a point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, regarding visa applications. As the research councils do now, we expect UKRI, as an employer, to have a role in sponsoring visa applications for international staff on its own payroll and, in some circumstances, for particular individuals with agreed posts in universities. However, it would not be practical to make UKRI responsible for visa sponsorship for the whole sector. I think we will probably have to come back later to discuss that issue in more detail. The Government do not agree—this, I am afraid, goes to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay—that the Bill should be amended as suggested, as UKRI will be an outward-looking organisation and will build on our current excellence. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.