Trade Agreement between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Swiss Confederation

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, on tabling this Motion and providing a mechanism for the House to discuss these very important issues. I sit on the EU Select Committee and its EU Justice Sub-Committee. The reason for my mentioning the latter committee will become clearer later in my short remarks.

The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, made a good case about the size of the trading relationship between Switzerland and the UK, and a good summary of that is laid out in the Select Committee’s report of 12 March—HL Paper 315. In that summary, there is evidence of an important thing to remember in trade, and that is that services and goods are now interlinked. When you sell a good, you often have a service alongside it. Evidence of that is immediately visible because so much of the goods traded in Switzerland is precious metals, and of course a lot of that is really evidence of the physical delivery of an underlying metal trading mechanism that is going on. Therefore, any damage one does to the ability to trade services will inevitably impact on the ability to trade goods. It is incredibly important to make sure that those two things are in alignment. It is mutually beneficial to have clear arrangements for the trading of both goods and services.

I shall make only two points. My first point concerns complexity. The Swiss ambassador told us in mid-November that he had had a hand in handling more than 100 bilateral agreements that Switzerland has with the European Union, and he explained to us the sheer complexity of that beast. There is one piece of good news about that beast—I am looking at the Minister—and that is that, although the tentacles on the top of the beast are complicated, underneath the surface of the beast is a joint committee which has access to various processes and remedies which are common among the 100 or so agreements. So there is complexity on the top and simplicity on the bottom, but it is very important to marry up the goods and the services.

The complexity that we are already developing has been listed. We have the scheduled air services agreement, the carriage of passengers and goods agreement, the non-life direct insurance agreement, the trade agreement and the citizens’ rights agreement, which I shall come to in a second because the EU Justice Sub-Committee examined it. The complexities were acknowledged to us in a generous and helpful letter from the Minister to the Select Committee on 20 March. Perhaps I may take a brief loop here and say how helpful the officials in the department have been to our colleagues in the European Union Committee and how much we value the quality of that relationship. We are drinking from a firehose in learning how to scrutinise these things, and the officials are being most helpful.

Turning to the citizens’ rights agreement, as the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, has pointed out, the trade agreement contains nothing on services—there are no services provisions at all—and so far we have had two of the five agreements which contain a bit on services. We have my own home territory—non-life insurance—and I can confirm that that agreement, although I was not a scrutineer of it but it did come through the main Select Committee, is word for word the same as the successful agreement that exists between Switzerland and the EU. It is an important piece of the interconnectivity and mutualisation of insurance across Europe that has gone on for many years.

The fifth of the agreements to appear was the citizens’ rights agreement, which includes a big hunk of the freedom of movement agreement within it. Unlike the other four agreements, it is not a rollover, as the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, pointed out; in fact, it is a sort of orderly winding down of the various rights. There is a protection of the rights of the 14,000 Swiss citizens living in this country and the 14,000 British citizens living in Switzerland, and the protection of the rights of about 2,500 border officials. One of its key benefits, as was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, is the 90-day services provision rules, which allow me to go to Switzerland lawfully and talk about insurance with a view to selling a service and to do so for 90 days in a year. It is enormously helpful, both for Swiss people to come here and for us to go there. Suddenly to find that, in this thing that is working so well, there is a sunset clause five years out—a cliff edge—is very disappointing. It would be interesting to hear the logic for having inserted that because, if it was not needed by the EU, I do not see why we need to have one now.

We discussed with officials how Parliament might scrutinise what will be a very important decision of the joint committee to extend that five-year period. It will be an extremely important decision both for Switzerland and for the United Kingdom. They said—I shall quote from our report:

“In response, officials advised that no decisions had yet been taken on scrutiny arrangements for such a decision, given that it would not take place until five years after the specified date”.


It would be very helpful if the Minister could commit to the House that at least there will be a scrutiny mechanism, albeit that I realise that she cannot say at the moment what it would be.

Finally, I feel I must come back to the point on complexity. My mind goes back to the very interesting hour and a half we had with the Swiss ambassador who talked about complexity. It would be enormously helpful if the Minister could commit to provide consolidated guidance on the eventual list of agreements between the UK and Switzerland and to place that on the GOV.UK website. Then British businesses—and, indeed, Swiss businesses—that want to know what the deal really is will not have to look at a lot of different bits of guidance but can look in one consolidated place. That single thing would help trade between our two old and very friendly countries a lot.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, we are indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and to the other committees that have done such forensic scrutiny on this agreement for highlighting so many constructive areas for questioning by the noble Earl and the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. I have two or three questions to add and I shall emphasise a couple of points.

What we are debating today is a clear example of how it was never going to be simply a “cut and paste” or “merely technical” exercise to roll over existing agreements. Their breadth and complexity are now clear to see, especially in the context that our trading relationship and wider relationship over people, goods and services is included in 140 agreements between the EU and Switzerland, while this agreement covers only eight of them.

It is also worth noting that we have an opportunity to debate this significant measure because of the Motion tabled by the noble Lord. Before the Recess, I tabled similar amendments in relation to the three previous agreements. It surely cannot be the way forward for the only way for us to have parliamentary debate on these agreements and treaties in this House to be for Members from opposition parties to move regret Motions and amendments. There has to be a more constructive way for the Government to bring forward proposals for Parliament to have an opportunity to debate them. We made this case during the Trade Bill, and we are waiting to see whether it comes back to this House after consideration of Lords’ amendments by the other place. Some of those amendments were to try to ensure a greater degree of parliamentary scrutiny throughout the process, from the start of negotiations right through to the end and the approval of the negotiations. We took in good faith the intention expressed in the Government’s Statement about an enhanced parliamentary role in scrutiny, but that will be tested when the Government have an opportunity to consider the amendments that this House made to the Trade Bill. We are waiting to see what they will do.

As the committee indicted, this agreement raises constitutional implications about scrutiny, not only of the merits of the agreement itself but of the mechanism for amending it, about how the joint committee will operate and the noble Lord’s significant point about MoUs. There is quite a lot of leeway for the Government to have trade agreements through memoranda of understanding if domestic legislation does not need to be amended, but it could be very broad leeway when it comes to trading policy, and if it were a means of bypassing Parliament, that would be very regrettable. The single aviation market and the open skies agreement between the EU and the US are very good examples of where proper scrutiny rather than simply an executive-to-executive arrangement is required.

However, we are where we are. This agreement was perhaps started in a very false political context and through a rather unseemly political process to try to get agreements in place before what would have been Brexit day. I hope that this slight window of opportunity allows us to take some deep breaths. What had seemed to be rollover agreements could well now be seen in their proper context of an ongoing permanent trading relationship with those countries, should we leave the European Union. However, as with the earlier rather tortuous Private Notice Question about ferry contracts, it begs the question of what will happen in six months’ time if we are in the same situation as we were before 29 March. The clock is ticking towards another situation—there are about six months to go—and there seems little clarity about our preparedness for it.

I turn to the agreement itself. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and the noble Earl talked about the scale of our trading relationship with Switzerland, which is very large. I noted a comment online from a professor at Geneva University which summed up that this is not simply about the UK’s trading relationship with Switzerland; it is also about the UK, Swiss and EU relationship. Going forward we simply cannot separate out those three, as I think is recognised by both Houses. The professor said of the Swiss relationship with the European Union:

“It’s like the moon around the Earth: The force of attraction of the European Union is such that you can’t have all the autonomy that you want”.


Therefore, even in the context of Brexit, we will still have a bilateral relationship which, in many respects, will be dominated by the relationship with the European Union. Brexit will not mean that we are immune from the laws of trading gravity.

The Government’s report on the agreement clearly shows that some of the most crucial elements of the trading relationship, such as customs facilitation and security, or animal and plant health requirements, will still depend on the positon that the EU takes and then the position that we take in our relationship with the EU. Many noble Lords have been aware of this. Some countries were simply not in a position to sign a rollover agreement before Brexit because, justifiably, they were waiting to see what the future relationship would be. Therefore, it is little surprise that, of the 140 agreements with the EU, only eight have been able to be rolled over in this agreement. Even within some of those eight, as the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said, some key components have had to be disapplied as we wait to see what our future relationship and agreement with the EU is. By definition, in a no-deal scenario much of our relationship would be at risk in six months’ time.

With regard to the agreement itself, I have a number of questions arising from the very thorough contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. As he indicated, only three of the 20 sectors of the EU-Swiss mutual recognition agreement are covered by this treaty. Of those, as the agreement states, we are waiting on the recognition of equivalence of rules between Switzerland and the EU. When do the Government estimate that we will reach a position of clarity on that? Elsewhere, it is indicated that the Government are looking for “simplified arrangements”. What is being considered as far as mutual recognition agreements and simplified arrangements are concerned, and when are they likely to be brought forward?

On agricultural products and those significant areas that have been disapplied, including sanitary and phytosanitary measures for plant health, animal feed, seeds and the trade in animal products, the Government indicated in their report that there were,

“requirements for equivalence or harmonisation with EU law and systems”.

What is the Government’s intention with regard to those in a no-deal scenario, when there would be no move towards agreement on equivalence or harmonisation? What is the Government’s intention with regard to how those harmonisation elements would be brought about?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Purvis of Tweed]

I am anxious that, because she is running out of time, the Minister may not be able to cover the point that I and the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, raised about consulting and involving the devolved Administrations throughout these processes and discussions. Exports from the Scottish economy to the Swiss market are worth about £800 million; this is major for that economy, and has implications for the Welsh economy also. What level of consultation and involvement was there with the devolved Administrations?

[Baroness Fairhead]

I am happy to deal with that. I was given the wrong information that I had two minutes left in which to sum up. I apologise: I rushed through, rather.

We share the text when it is in a stable form; it goes to the devolved Administrations at the same time as it goes to Ministers. We realise that we have to work with the devolved Administrations. We offer briefing sessions on the continuity agreements, and I believe there is ongoing dialogue at official level. For future trade agreements, we are working with the devolved Administrations on a concordat, and that is, I think, progressing.

I can now say what I was going to say to the noble Baronesses, Lady Armstrong and Lady Donaghy, about the need for any future agreements to take into account civic society, trade unions, businesses and consumers. That is part of the consultation process. We also have the strategic trade advisory group. We are trying to make sure that there is a broader discussion on future trade agreements.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed]

I promise I will not take up the Minister’s extra time with other interventions, but I would like some clarity. She referred to ongoing and future consultation on agreements, but the questions asked were about this agreement and this treaty. What was the extent of the consultation with the devolved Administrations on this treaty?

[Baroness Fairhead]

My understanding is that there were conversations at official level. After the debate in this House, we made a change and shared the full text of the agreement. For all agreements in place from 20 March, they will get the full text of the treaty. Prior to that, we gave them the text when it was initialled in draft form. We are learning as we go through this process, and fully understand the importance of that involvement.