Continuity Agreement: Kingdom of Morocco

Debate between Lord Patten and Lord Shipley

Monday 9th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, for tabling this regret Motion. He has raised some very important issues about the process for considering trade agreements with which we would concur.

I say at the outset that I have huge respect for the people of Morocco. Theirs is a wonderful country to visit and it feels very much a part of Europe. But with that international standing comes a responsibility to respect international legal judgments and to respect and promote democracy.

This year marks the 45th anniversary of the occupation of the Western Sahara by Morocco. I want to pay tribute to the work of the Earl of Winchilsea and Nottingham, who was a Back-Bench Liberal, and then Liberal Democrat, Peer for over 20 years until 1997, and who campaigned strongly to promote the interests of the Sahrawi people of the Western Sahara, many of whom became refugees.

As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said, in 1975 an International Court of Justice ruling recognised Western Sahara’s right to self-determination. In 1991, the United Nations promised a referendum for the people in Western Sahara to decide whether they wished to be an independent country or whether they preferred to become part of Morocco. That referendum—as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, pointed out—has never taken place.

Further, in its World Report 2020, Human Rights Watch stated:

“Moroccan authorities systematically prevent gatherings in the Western Sahara supporting Sahrawi self-determination, obstruct the work of some local human rights nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), including by blocking their legal registration”.


Could the Minister tell the House what discussions Her Majesty’s Government have had with Morocco regarding safeguarding the capacity of NGOs to work effectively in the Western Sahara?

The Court of Justice of the EU has ruled that Moroccan territorial jurisdiction does not extend to the territory of Western Sahara or to the territorial sea adjacent to Western Sahara. The consequence of that ruling seems to be that Defra could not lawfully grant fishing quotas to British fishing vessels in waters off Western Sahara. What consideration have Her Majesty’s Government given to this ruling? Will there be robust guarantees that all trade to and from Western Sahara is taking place only with the full consent of the people of the Western Sahara? The Minister will understand that the natural resources of Western Sahara are important in this respect. He will be aware that some 15% to 20% of Moroccan exports can be traced back to Western Sahara.

In the current EU-Morocco fisheries agreement, registered vessels, including some from the UK, are allowed to fish extensively off the coast of Western Sahara. For these access rights, I understand that the Moroccan Government receive a €30 million contribution over a four-year period. This is in clear violation of a 2002 UN opinion on the matter, which stated that any such activities must benefit the people of Western Sahara. Could the Minister tell the House what benefit the people of Western Sahara receive from these access rights?

The European Court of Justice, in a judgment of 21 December 2016, determined that the 2012 agreement between the EU and Morocco concerning reciprocal liberalisation measures on agricultural products and fishery products provided no legal basis for including Western Sahara within its territorial scope. This decision was confirmed by the UK High Court in April 2019, yet the UK Government are now seeking to roll over the EU-Morocco association agreement into UK legislation.

I hope the Minister will agree that the UK Government should now enforce the judgment of the High Court so that no goods should be imported into the UK from the Western Sahara under the presumption that they are from Morocco. Only once the people of Western Sahara have expressed their right to self-determination will the UK be able to trade legally in goods produced in the Western Sahara. The UK Government should now use that High Court judgment as a basis to support the UN supervised process of self-determination. I hope the Minister will agree.

[Lord Patten (Con)]

My Lords, I admired the stoicism of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, as he sat waiting for his eagerly awaited speech in your Lordships’ Chamber for such a long period, while what I can describe only as a lot of wet fish filibustering went on during the preceding proceedings. Then, lo and behold, the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, gets up and gives us another barrel of wet fish off the coast of Morocco.

All that said, while congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, on his interesting speech, I have decided to make myself his Official Opposition, as noble Lords can see in this crowded Chamber tonight. That is, I regret this regret Motion very much indeed, first, because of its lack of procedural timeliness and, secondly, in case perceived messages coming from your Lordships’ House during this debate harm Anglo-Moroccan relations and the perception of other countries on the north African-Mediterranean littoral which are vital to our security, such as Algeria and Tunisia.

On my first point, Labour did not, I think, at any stage in either place try to force a proper debate or find a way to get the issue raised during the objection period for this excellent UK-Morocco association agreement, which ended on 11 February. The simple facts on the ground are that the agreement, under our procedures, is now deemed to be ratified. The debate on the regret Motion is therefore no more than a bit of interesting virtue signalling and has absolutely no effect on what has happened with this excellent agreement. We must recognise the facts on the ground: the Moroccan Government are in charge of the Western Sahara and have been since the hopelessly failed decolonisation by the Spanish of the area in decades past. What a muddle the Spanish made of that whole process.

It is not just this House that wishes to have a trade association with Morocco; the EU—our neighbours and friends—has also canonised, recognised and re-recognised the reality on the ground in its recent agreements with Morocco. This is despite the fact that the Spanish—I should not have got myself going on the Spanish—still occupy two areas. I am not quite certain what they are properly described as. Enclaves? Exclaves? They are Spanish city states on the north African coast, on Moroccan territory, which Morocco wants back—and quite rightly too. They are called Ceuta and Melilla. The last of those two enclaves/exclaves/city states on the north African shore still has a statue of Generalissimo Franco standing. There is not one of those in Spain, but it certainly signifies the Spanish attitude and pinpoints the strangeness of their attitude to British Gibraltar in comparison.

Morocco says that the disputed territory belongs to it. I have had no connection at all on this with either the Moroccan Government or any special interest groups. The Polisario problem, which is real and which I do not dispute, will take decades, if not generations, to sort out. In the meantime, I do not wish to see our growing bilateral trade with Morocco suffer. It is fast approaching £3 billion a year in visibles, which is a very substantial amount of money, while in invisibles—I work in the City, although I have no interest to declare in this debate—we have excellent and growing links between the bourse in Casablanca, which is growing fast in north African terms, and the London Stock Exchange, which I wish to see flourish. I do not wish to put anything in the way of this growth. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, does not really wish to either.

Secondly, I regard Morocco and its neighbours, Algeria and Tunisia, to be not just important economic partners but also very important strategic partners in defeating terrorism along the north African littoral. Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia are, in their different ways, bastions against terrorism, whatever criticisms people wish to throw against their Governments. They should be much valued for that.

Rating (Property in Common Occupation) and Council Tax (Empty Dwellings) Bill

Debate between Lord Patten and Lord Shipley

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 4th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I remind the House that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. Like colleagues on these Benches, I welcome the Bill and the steps it takes, both the business rates element and the increased powers proposed for local authorities on the amount of council tax that they can levy on an empty dwelling. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Patten, who reminded us that the House of Commons did not propose any amendments to the Bill and that there was all-party agreement. Indeed, the Bill has benefited from the pre-legislative scrutiny that took place at that stage. It raised a number of issues, for example the potential financial loss for local billing authorities and whether rarely occupied second homes should be treated in the same way as empty homes. Given the role of this House as the scrutiny Chamber, I hope that it may be possible in Committee to look at a number of these issues. My noble friend Lady Thornhill talked about whether two years should be the limit or whether another figure might be appropriate, and whether the figure of 200%—that is, 100% plus 100%—is the maximum that a local authority could apply. There is a case for looking at whether the total might well be 300%. I look forward to that discussion in Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, made a very interesting point about the legal definition of a second home, should someone seek to transfer their primary home to become a second home. That is something that I would like to think about further.

As the Minister has explained, the basic aim of the Bill is to discourage home owners from leaving properties empty for long periods without penalising those who are unable to sell as a result of market conditions or who face genuine delays in probate. For that reason, it is welcome. As several noble Lords, including my noble friend Lady Pinnock and the noble Earls, Lord Lytton and Lord Listowel, have pointed out, the context is the state of local government finance, the future organisation of business rates, and funding local services. There are now clear difficulties in the retail sector over business rates. There is a fair funding review, and inevitably the Government are now reviewing the future of business rates. However, the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, pointed out that the system is not fleet of foot, and indeed it is not.

Clause 1 relates to the rating of property in common occupation. It rightly corrects the problems caused by the 2015 judgment, which has cost some businesses not only a backdated increase in their bills but, in some cases, the loss of their small business rate relief. The Bill is the correct response to that judgment. Put simply, contiguous hereditaments should be counted as a single hereditament.

I join the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, in saying that it is a trifle unreasonable—I think those were his words—for the Government to assume that building authorities have put away shedloads of money, given the 2015 judgment. He is right; I am sure they have not been putting away shedloads of money. However, there is a discussion to have about this issue, and it was raised several times during the passage of the Bill in the other place, not least at Third Reading. I hope very much that the Government will be able to come forward, perhaps in Committee, with a greater clarification that local building authorities are not going to suffer from the Bill becoming law.

I have four very brief points towards the conclusion on the council tax issue. First, I think it is right to raise the maximum premium on council tax that can be levied by a local authority to 100%, making 200% in total, where a property has been empty for two years or more. I want to associate myself at least with the definition of “long-term” as two years or more. If we get agreed definitions like that, it makes our discussions much easier.

My noble friends Lady Pinnock and Lady Thornhill both said the Bill would probably not make a great deal of difference in terms of council tax. I want to agree with them but I also want to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Patten, who was right when he said that this is a big incremental step. The sense of direction is the right one and a clear message is being sent. In future, therefore, there may need to be further fine-tuning of the law. However, the principle that the Government are trying to get across is important. It is not just that empty properties need services—they do; they need policing and they may need fire services if they are empty—but they can also cause a nuisance to neighbouring properties, so the steps taken since 2013, in the days of the coalition Government and after, to introduce both the 100% charge and the principle of a premium on properties that are unoccupied and substantially unfurnished, have been the correct ones.

The Minister reminded us about the total number of homes empty for over six months, which is not long-term. Six months is a comparatively short period in reality. I associate myself again with the comments of the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, when he said that we need to be a bit clearer about what the problem is that we are trying to solve with regard to empty properties. The figure of 205,000 is a comparatively low percentage, at around 1% of the 20 million-odd properties in the country. It is the case that since 2010 the total number of homes—

[Lord Patten]

I am so sorry to interrupt, particularly as the noble Lord has just been so charming about me. It may be a very small percentage of houses that are vacant but the number of 205,000 or so is what we are struggling to build in England in any one year, so it is a year’s worth of new homes.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I would like to agree with the noble Lord: it is. However, that is still only 1% and the figure is for six months, not two years. In my view, the real problem is not the six months, which can often be the consequence of genuine delays of probate. The important thing is that the sense of direction is right. We need to end the scandal of empty homes deliberately left empty when they could be occupied by someone. Often, that relates to the buy-to-leave-empty market.

Does the Minister have figures—if not now, perhaps later in writing—for the breakdown of the reduction by 90,000 or so empty homes from 300,000 in 2010 to 205,000 in 2017? How many of those are in social housing, where empty homes are often referred to as voids; how many of them are owner occupied; how many are in the private rented sector; and how many are in the buy-to-leave-empty sector? That is important because when we consider whether there should be a rate of 300%, not just 200%, I would be thinking of those who have bought to leave empty as an investment to attract a higher level of taxation. I hope that we can discuss that in Committee.

Finally, I hope that we shall have a discussion on second homes in Committee. We have been reminded of the difficulty of identifying what is an empty home and what is a second home. If people do not tell you which they are, it is hard to find out. We need to explore in greater detail how the Government might manage to do that. As the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, pointed out, this is a resource-intensive exercise and we need to know better why the empty dwelling management orders do not work as well as we thought they would when they were introduced.

Despite these caveats, which I hope that we can discuss in Committee, the Bill should command the support of your Lordships’ House, and I hope that it gets a fair wind, and quickly.