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

Debate between Lord Holmes of Richmond and Lord Triesman

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

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, this is a short piece of legislation but an incredibly significant one. That why I wanted to speak to this group of amendments.

Before going into the detail, I would like to make a general point to my noble and learned friend the Minister. Does he agree that the very nature of English law—how it has developed and how it is seen around the world—gives us huge potential post December as a tremendous export as it is respected and highly used across the globe, and we really should seek to maximise its positive impact to this respect?

I turn to the amendments. We see, as we have heard from other noble Lords, that it is envisaged that these powers would be used only infrequently—infrequently, yes, but with potentially extraordinarily huge impact for the individual. So, building on other noble Lords’ comments, my concluding question for my noble and learned friend the Minister is: as currently constructed without these amendments, how does he see the necessary level of scrutiny taking effect? What is his overall view of the coherent use of secondary powers and the coherent and sustainable way to legislate not just on matters such as these but across the piece?

[Lord Triesman (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am afraid I must start by disappointing the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier: I have not been discouraged from pursuing the point that a number of noble Lords have made in this debate. I strongly support my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer’s amendments. I do so for all the reasons that have been given about the need for scrutiny, questioning and elaboration. Because a number of other noble Lords have made those points, I will not make them again, other than to say that they seem to me to have considerable force.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Bhatia, I am not a lawyer, but I share with my noble friend Lord Hain the honour of having been a Foreign Office Minister. One of the things that was in my portfolio was the consular service. I know in practice from the responsibilities that the consular service laid on me that, particularly where there were criminal cases or the kinds of cases that the noble Lord, Lord Bhatia, has mentioned, which touch on people considerably because they have to do with marriage, children and so on, there was a huge expectation on the part of UK citizens that the Foreign Office would be able to offer them competent advice and help through the consular service. Frequently, in order to work out what was needed, we found that we also, although not lawyers, turned to the Lord Chancellor’s advisory committee. We tried to make sure that we had a very strong sense of what was and what was not possible, and from that we could work out what sort of help we could—or, sadly, on some occasions could not—provide to British citizens.

The biggest liability for British citizens was of course that, as in many cases in domestic law, they were not absolutely clear about what the law was or what it might imply for them. They could see nothing of considerable relevance to go back to in the debates there had been about it. Indeed, they probably did not even go back to those debates very frequently, but nor could we—the people who were trying to work out what should be provided through the service.