Agricultural Exports from Australia: Tariffs

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Department for International Trade (Lord Grimstone of Boscobel) (Con)]

The noble Lord has made a number of points, but I will deal with the most significant. On the TAC, both the Agriculture Act and the Trade Act require the trade and agriculture commission to be in operation before the FTA is implemented. It is currently being established and expressions of interest to assemble the commission are out, so it will be able to report on the Australia free trade deal if it comes into effect. That report will be made available to the House. On safeguards, of course we recognise the need to reassure farmers and rural stakeholders that our market access proposals will not threaten sensitive sectors. The deal will include safeguards to defend the industry against import surges and the precise details of these are still being negotiated.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

ONS data from two weeks ago showed that the UK lost £1 billion in goods exports in just one month in January to our nearest trading partner, Ireland. This is more than the entire £900 million gain the Government are forecasting over 15 years for their agreement with Australia. The Government’s own scoping document stated:

“A trade agreement with Australia could increase UK GDP in the long run by around 0.01% or 0.02%”.


The EU scoping exercise for its own agreement with Australia in 2018 suggested 0.01% to 0.02%. Can the Minister explain why the Government are failing to secure any increase on their agreement with Australia than the UK would have had before Brexit? Why has there been such a collapse in trade with our nearest neighbour and trading partner, Ireland?

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

With due respect, I do not think January can be taken as a representative month. I do not think any trends are yet fully established. As noble Lords know, there was some stopping beforehand and there was particular disruption as people got used to the new system. With regard to the Australia free trade agreement, we intend to secure reductions in tariffs on UK exports to Australia, which will save UK businesses millions of pounds. The deal will support over 15,300 business which already export goods to Australia, and I am sure the noble Lord would like to welcome this.

Professional Qualifications Bill [HL]

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 25th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, to her position on the Labour Front Bench and look forward to working with her in her new role. She has already demonstrated a grasp of this issue and I am sure that her role in offering scrutiny to the Bill will enhance our proceedings. I warn her that whenever the Government say that a trade Bill or a Bill associated with trade is merely a technical measure, framework or tidying-up, we are here for quite a long time. However, she will add to that. The Minister, as ever, is open and in advance of this legislation he has been receptive to those who have wished to engage with him. I know that that will carry on. His record until now has demonstrated that.

I wish to apologise to noble Lords. The European Affairs Select Committee on which I serve is currently taking evidence on UK citizens’ rights in Europe and European citizens’ rights here, and I will have to leave the debate for a short period in order to question some of our witnesses. However, that is linked to some of the considerations in the Bill. I mean no discourtesy to the House.

My noble friends will raise many issues that have been outlined by the Minister. I will focus on some of trade elements, some of the underlying reasons why the Bill is necessary, some aspects of devolution and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, indicated, concerns regarding the wide-ranging nature of some of the regulatory powers, including the Henry VIII powers included in the Bill.

The Minister’s signature is on the front page of the impact assessment on the Bill. It states that the best estimate of the Bill’s costs are an additional £18.2 million but possibly a staggering £42.82 million. I have to say to the Government that their slashing of ODA to the world’s poorest while being happy to find up to £43 million for new bureaucracy shows that their priorities are all wrong. The Minister’s introduction goes on to state that the net long-term negative social value of the Bill is £11 million. I am pleased that the Government have at last recognised that the cost of the lack of an agreement in the TCA on mutual recognition of professional qualifications is going to cost us a great deal—a net negative value of £11 million, just with the Bill alone.

I turn first to the trade impacts. Paragraph 92 of the impact assessment contains curious language. It states:

“Professional qualification recognition requirements can act as a non-tariff barrier to services trade. If UK professionals’ qualifications are recognised in European countries this could be an enabler in bidding for, winning and providing traded services by regulated professionals.”


That is a good thing. However, bizarrely, the Government think that erecting new service trade barriers is a good thing. The paragraph continues:

“By ending unilateral recognition for certain professions, UK regulators may be in a better position to negotiate mutually beneficial and reciprocal recognition arrangements with our EU counterparts.”


Using the EU regulated professions database cited by the Government in their papers associated with the Bill and the impact assessment, in 2019-20, the UK had 6,093 citizens’ qualifications recognised automatically by EU member states for work. We recognised 9,436. If one takes out the seasonal recognition of workers from Spain, the figures are broadly similar. Now we have to get agreements separately on a new application process for each country, with no real negotiating strength. I am not sure about the basis of the assumption that that is good for services trade.

This is for each country and each profession. The maths can be quite straightforward using the figures in the impact assessment but, if the current trend for the recognition of qualifications carries on, next year we will require more agreements by our regulators of other European regulators than we will for the people we actually regulate for the certification of qualifications. That is why the cost—of up to £42 million—is ridiculous, given the fact that this will require more agreements than the people whose qualifications it is meant to recognise.

Paragraph 84 of the impact assessment states that Home Office modelling on the new skilled worker visa system could result in a 70% reduction in EEA long-term worker inflows—70% less is not exactly a negotiating incentive for Europe. It is not just a poor negotiating hand; we have chopped it off entirely. The number of people whose qualifications have been recognised has already fallen by nearly 50% since 2018, so we are in a situation of serious concern for professional labour shortages, which I will turn to in a moment.

I had to read this next paragraph twice, as I could not quite believe it. I am glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, is in her place, because I am sure that she will be interested to learn of this too. It states that:

“A reduction in the recruitment of EEA and Swiss-qualified professionals could reduce competition in the market for services, to the benefit of UK-qualified professionals in the UK. EEA firms may be less able to provide services involving regulated professions to UK customers, which may benefit UK businesses.”


I think I read in the press at the weekend that this is a free-trade Government: that is quite extraordinary—I must have been mistaken. The reason we have this Bill, as the Minister said, is to make it easier for foreign workers to be recognised because we have shortages. But the impact assessment says that the very fact that we have shortages is a good thing for UK businesses. Which is it, Minister?

What of the shortages and demand—the central element of Clauses 1 and 2? We were told that there would not be shortages in qualified workers because of Brexit, but the Government have deliberately refused to carry out an impact assessment of the TCA, so we must use this one instead. If it is not all about deemed shortages, what is it about?

This morning, I reviewed the Government’s list of shortages in skilled professions. The list, which is on GOV.UK, was updated on 6 April, and it is worrying, as the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, said. It is no surprise that it includes all musicians, all artists and all choreographers, proving the point that my noble friends on these Benches have been raising about this sector as a result of the TCA. The list also includes “Veterinarians —all jobs”, “Mechanical engineers—all jobs”, “Electrical engineers—all jobs” and all jobs in health and social care. I have quoted from one list but there is a separate list for health and education. Similarly worryingly, all business analyst and web designer jobs are included. This list is depressing for our economy. In one of the areas where we had relied heavily on highly skilled EEA workers, a

“70% reduction in EEA long-term worker inflows”

will have an additional impact on such services. Will this Bill help? Its bureaucracy and costs simply will not.

One reason the Bill will not help is the lack of interaction with this Government’s immigration and skilled workers policy. Look at the starting salaries of these so-called high-skilled workers, I wonder whether they meet the threshold of the immigration laws. Even if these workers coming from abroad—from outside the EEA, of course—have their professional qualifications fast-tracked or with less fees attached as a result of this Bill, their starting salaries do not match even the lowest threshold of the skilled worker points system, which has been set at £25,600. The Minister talked about looking at opening up opportunities. If you are in an FTA with a newly qualified midwife on a fast-track, low-fee application, recognised through the regulations in this Bill, the salary starts at £24,907. It does not meet the immigration points system threshold anyway. A registered teacher in England and Wales starts at £18,169; a Scottish social work graduate can expect an average starting salary of £23,000. Even with the shortage list and the points system, there is no proper interaction with what the regulations in this legislation will outline.

That is one issue with it, but noble Lords must read paragraph 86 of the impact assessment, which says that

“62 of the 88 professions likely to be included in the new framework are associated with occupations on the Shortage Occupation List.”

This new sledgehammer of a Bill seems to crack only two-thirds of the nuts. What about the remaining 26 professions?

The Minister said that this legislation is empowering. Well, paragraph 68 states that 90 regulators that regulate 140 professions are not included in the new frame- work, but can offer preferential access anyway. Do the Government feel that they will be allowed to do that? The Minister said that this is an enabling Bill. Will he insist on the independence of the regulators for those remaining 50 professions?

There are two final areas: interaction with the common travel area with Ireland, and devolution and trade agreements. The December 2020 guidance on the common travel area with Ireland makes specific reference to the route to work for service providers from Switzerland. In essence, to paraphrase, service providers from Switzerland can allow, for the purposes of that agreement, a Swiss national effectively to be considered a UK national for work in Ireland. This is intended to carry on until 2025. Is it the Government’s intention that it will do so? Will it allow for the other 50 of the 140 professions that I mentioned?

Is it the Government’s intention in future agreements to replicate our agreement with Switzerland to bypass the common travel area, effectively creating a route to work in the European Union via the common travel area? The last thing we need is yet another area of concern involving a professional barrier or border in the Irish Sea. I hope that the Minister can offer reassurance on that point.

What about future trade agreements? We were told repeatedly during the passage of the then Trade Bill that, for new trade agreements, if there were gaps in legislation, primary legislation would fill them. The Minister’s predecessor said that on a number of occasions. It now seems not to be true. The Government want to use the regulation-making powers in this Bill to implement key elements of FTAs. For example, if mutual recognition has been part of the EU-India trade discussions that are now under way, this should be done through primary legislation, not regulation now.

It is interesting that the justification for the use of delegated powers in this area is in paragraph 30 of the delegated powers memorandum, which states:

“The power is necessary to ensure commitments made by the UK under international agreements can be met. Since the power will be available in relation to international agreements concluded in the future, and the terms of those agreements are not known, it is not possible to deliver the necessary changes on the face of the Bill.”


Well, that is blindingly obvious—it is why we have legislation when we require it, and why we do not give the Government full-scale powers now to implement any agreement under any circumstances in future. That is an explanation of the use of delegated powers, not a justification for it.

On devolution, there is concern about the use of concurrent powers. In effect, the Government are saying, “If the devolved countries do not use the powers, we will”. I hope that the Minister can give us the up-to-date position on consultation, the request for legislative consent memorandums and implementation.

Finally, after stating categorically that this Bill protects the autonomy and independence of regulators, the Minister helpfully indicated half way through his speech that the Government will bring forward an amendment to do exactly that. Why is an amendment to protect the autonomy and flexibility of health regulators necessary before we have even started Committee stage? However, it is welcome, and I hope that the Government’s approach to the sensible amendments that will no doubt be brought forward by my noble friends on these Benches will be equally as receptive as their approach to the health professions. As the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, indicated, we will do our work to strengthen this Bill and improve it.

Turkey: Free Trade Agreement

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Tuesday 27th April 2021 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Purvis of Tweed]

That the Grand Committee takes note of the Free Trade Agreement between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Republic of Turkey, laid before the House on 24 February.

Relevant documents: 8th Report from the International Agreements Committee (special attention drawn to the agreement)

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to move this take-note Motion on the UK-Turkey trade agreement, and in so doing I thank the Members who will participate in today’s debate. I note the breadth of experience that they bring on trade issues. I am also grateful to the committee for its report. The International Agreements Committee is one of the most valuable in the House at the moment, and it is serving a great role in drawing to our attention issues that we should debate. It is my pleasure to move this debate in accordance with the committee’s recommendation that we take note of the agreement.

I am also grateful to the Minister for keeping to his word in emailing me and keeping me informed of developments in his department, and I am grateful to his office, and to the noble Lord, Lord Ashton, and the Government Whips’ Office for facilitating the debate in such good time. I am not used to that happening, and it will not go to my head—I reassure the Minister that I will not expect the Government to allow debate on any Motion within a week.

The agreement is now ratified. It was agreed on 29 December, so businesses did not have sight of it before it was operational two days later. This continuity agreement is unlike others in that it is temporary and the parties are committed to review it no later than two years after it enters into force—effectively 18 months from now—with the aim for an enhanced agreement covering services, agricultural goods, investment, subsidies, labour, sustainable development and climate. Given that the average time that it took the Government to make continuity agreements was over two years, it would be helpful to know what timescale they are working to for a full permanent agreement with Turkey.

The agreement also covers goods. Turkey is a relatively small but important trading partner with us. ONS data published on 13 April shows that, in 2020, we exported £4.8 billion of goods to Turkey, down from £5.4 billion in 2019, and imported £8.2 billion, down from £9 billion. In 2020, trading goods with Turkey represented 1.75% of all goods trade for the UK. As the Committee can see from the figures, we operate a considerable trade deficit with Turkey, so the motivation for the agreement was from Turkey and thus leverage was with us. We chose not to use that leverage.

Our trading relationship with Turkey is unique, owing to its membership since 1996 of a partial customs union with us, which reduced barriers to trade. That has now ended and those barriers have been re-erected. Therefore, downgrading to a lesser FTA arrangement has meant businesses now needing to adjust to higher import and export administration costs, more bureaucracy, slower port of entry and exit procedures, and complex rules of origin requirements.

This latter point, which the committee picked up specifically, is of great significance given the categories of imports and exports and the fact that the largest elements—vehicles, machinery and engineering—are all part of complex supply chains with EU manufacturers. The fact that we have only a temporary allowance on rules of origin, because of our failure to secure this in the TCA, will mean that there is a stage 2 level of greater burden coming with our trade with Turkey in the permanent relationships.

There is a great line in paragraph 2 of the Government’s parliamentary report:

“It is in no one’s interests to disrupt existing trade flows.”


I agree. This was also highlighted in paragraph 10 of the committee’s report, quoting from the parliamentary report:

“HM Government has worked closely with Turkey to ensure that customs processes are as simple, clear, and predictable as possible, and that any changes do not affect current trade flows.”


They demonstrably have. The ONS data released on 13 April has the latest figures showing the disruption. UK imports of goods from Turkey fell 27% from December 2020 to January 2021, down from 967 million to 714 million, and they fell further in February. Exports in the same period fell 8%, before picking up again in February, and this is on top of the year-on-year falls I cited earlier. For Turkey, we have a double- stage downgrading of free trade. The committee’s recommendation in paragraph 6 for wide consultation is very important.

The Government, in their response, said that they would consult stakeholders, but if it is simply stakeholders, that is limited. They also said that they would consult in a similar approach to the US proposed trade agreement. That had a wide consultation open to the public; I even went on to it and submitted a response. Will the Minister clarify what level of consultation there will be for the permanent trade agreement, with not just trade stakeholders to be included, but all those with an interest in the wider aspects? This is to be a comprehensive trade agreement, so as wide a consultation as possible will be necessary. I also fully endorse the recommendation in paragraph 16 of the report calling for a full impact assessment. We need to know which of the effects that we have witnessed are likely to be temporary effects, and which are systemic, because of the new barriers in perpetuity. That needs to inform differing policy responses.

The two major areas, as the committee pointed out, are short-term disruptions and long-term increased barriers. I am afraid that the Minister completely ignored that recommendation in his letter to the committee, so if he can respond to it today it would be helpful. Given the evidence that the committee received from manufacturers and those in supply chains, the Government owe the committee a response.

Given that businesses that have traded with the EU can access some form of support package and lending to tackle the Government’s new barriers with EU trade, these are the same kinds of barriers that businesses will now see for trade with Turkey, so will businesses be able to access those trade support areas too—for example, the SME Brexit Support Fund? That is contracted out to PricewaterhouseCoopers. I emailed three weeks ago, on its online inquiry form, asking for details of the fund, how PwC was being paid and how it was being administered. I have received no reply. I hope that businesses are faring better at getting a response from PwC than I have. I would be grateful if the Minister would write to me to say how much the Government are paying it for the administration of this fund.

Critically for this debate, are this scheme and the others open to businesses which trade with Turkey and which have new barriers as a direct result of the TCA with the EU? Also, there is continuing guidance now being issued to businesses exporting to the EU. Will there be the same guidance to businesses exporting to Turkey? For example, HMRC outlined, in an email to me and all others who have registered for its updates, on 1 April:

“When exporting goods from a roll-on roll-off port or any other listed locations, you, or the person submitting your customs declaration, must submit your declaration as ‘arrived’. The declaration must be submitted as ‘arrived’ in order to finalise the declaration process before your goods reach border locations, where customs controls are being staged in. If the declaration isn’t ‘arrived’,


customs

“will not recognise that the goods have left the country.”

I have to admit that I thought this was HMRC’s April fool’s joke but it seems as if, unbelievably, if we are exporting now to the EU, we have to declare that the goods have arrived before they have left the country. Can the Minister confirm that? Is the same approach being taken for goods exported to Turkey?

Another area where the Government need to provide more information is on rules of origin. The committee has picked this up and has done us a service for analysing it carefully. The system for pan-Euro-Mediterranean cumulation of origin allows for the application of diagonal cumulation between the EU, EFTA states, Turkey, the countries that signed the Barcelona declaration, the western Balkans and the Faroe Islands. That free trade measure has now been ended for UK trade. The committee is right in paragraph 22 to call for comprehensive and detailed guidance on any new arrangements, but what is the impact assessment on trade with the other countries with which we can no longer have diagonal cumulation with the EU?

I mentioned the trade deficit that we currently have with Turkey. We operate a wide trade deficit with many other countries too, and there will of course be some areas where a deficit is not a major worry, such as in certain areas where the UK does not or cannot produce. In other areas, however, it is a concern. The answer is not in protection measures, but in securing better terms for UK exporters to market access in those countries, often through them levelling up on standards. So far in the Japan agreement, worth £15 billion, the Government say that only £2 billion of that is widening UK market access to Japan, while £13 billion is for Japanese access. The Minister replied that it was good for the UK because it allows for cheaper imports; this is in line with what was repeated by Liz Truss on Sunday when she was asked to comment on the Australian trade deficit as well.

Free trade in the 21st century should be fair trade, too. When it comes to the UK negotiating FTAs, we should do it for the benefit of UK exporters and consumers. If not, what was the point of Brexit? So far, the agreements reached by this Government will see competitive trade advantage decline as deficits grow. As an example of this agreement’s lack of using leverage, we are abolishing in it the long-standing entry-price system, designed to prevent seasonal low-cost fruit and vegetables below an agreed floor price from flooding the UK market, rendering domestic soft fruit and vegetable producers uncompetitive. Given that we have sought to have higher standards of seasonal agricultural workers’ conditions than, say, Turkey, this is important. What was the response by the soft fruit producers in Scotland and across the UK to this? Also, the EPS allows for a competitive playing field to the least developed countries, which already benefited from preferential access. What was the Government’s modelling for the impact on this? The Government have failed in this and other areas in seeking reciprocity on competitiveness. On subsidy control and others, we see Turkey having an advantage, and are yet to see what the Government are signalling to the benefit of UK exporters.

Finally, on human rights, last week the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, said that we had values-based trade. The Minister has repeatedly said that trade is not at the cost of human rights. The Government have promised draft human rights clauses on trade and human rights approaches. If any agreement requires this, it is the permanent Turkey agreement. If the Minister can respond to these points and others that will be raised in this debate, I will be most grateful.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the Minister’s final comment. He always honours his commitment to follow up things in writing, and I am sure that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, and his committee will reflect on his closing remarks.

I wish to reflect briefly on two points made in the debate. First, of course, it was a delight to have the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, reference Adam Smith in a trade debate. I think that Adam Smith totally nailed it on consumption—I am a free trader—but he was weak on diagonal rules of origin cumulation, regulatory equivalence and supply chain standards, which is the realm of trade in which we now have to operate. Of course Smith said that

“Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production”,


but not all production is fairly competitive in terms of subsidy control—as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, referred to—labour rights, environmental standards and supply chain human rights approaches, which have all been addressed in contributions throughout the debate. I live in the Scottish Borders and have close links with the textile industry there. We know that approximately 60% of workers in the garments industry in Turkey are unregistered. We wish to see improvements in the production of Turkish garments so that our consumers can make informed choices.

Even if the purpose of the FTA is to seek continuity, my noble friend Lord Foster and other noble Lords indicated that we wish to see further improvements. It is right to ask what the Government’s intentions are for supporting UK exporters as well as UK consumers. If we are to have a fair approach on subsidy control, as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, indicated, it is of great importance that we have more information from the Government. It is of interest to me that, under the United Kingdom Internal Market Act, there are now greater strictures on subsidy notification and control for a business in Scotland selling to a consumer in England than there is for a Turkish business selling to a consumer in England. That cannot be sustainable if we have a trade policy that is looking for subsidy control to be equitable internally and externally.

It was not entirely convincing for the Minister to say that the Government had a limited mandate for some of these decisions. The Government set their own mandate, which was different from the one that they had for the discussions with Japan, so I think it was valid to highlight how the Japan agreement included elements which are not in the Turkey agreement.

Those two points having been made, and given the Minister’s commitment that he will come back to address some of the other points, I close by mentioning the valid request made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith. I welcome the Government’s intention to publish negotiating objectives and that they will have a discussion with the committee about parliamentary scrutiny of those. I think that there is great interest not only in the House but among the public about our trading relationship with Turkey, and I hope that, if the committee calls for a debate on those mandates, we will have a full debate in the House on what should be a good deal for the UK and for Turkey. The Minister is right on that point: we will be returning to this topic.

Motion agreed.

Trade Bill

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments & Lords Hansard
Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Alderdice) (LD)]

Before I call the winding-up speakers, does anyone else in the Chamber wish to speak? No? Then I call the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness and endorse the points that she made. This may be the final debate on this issue for the moment, but it has nevertheless been a strong one.

In my mind, the noble Lords, Lord Lansley and Lord Adonis, got to the nub of the issue: the dilemma that we face when we seek to trade with countries that move away from the human rights standards that we seek. However, that dilemma is not new; what is perhaps new is the scale of it over the past few years. I remember clearly when, as a Member of the Scottish Parliament, I and a number of committee members shook hands with the Dalai Lama on a visit to Edinburgh. An official Government of China communiqué said that the economy of Scotland would be harmed as a result of this handshake. This was 15 years ago, so there is no new element of the line—as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, put it—that the Foreign Office has trodden for a great number of years, in raising human rights aspects but also seeking to increase trade with the largest trading country in future.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, indicated that it is not just FTAs that cover this gamut. I am interested to know whether the Minister at the Dispatch Box can confirm that the Office for Investment, set up and chaired by the Prime Minister, is not proactively seeking investment agreements with China at the moment. If the Minister can confirm that, that would be reassuring, because it would be a live-time example of whether or not a government office chaired by a trade Minister is seeking new financial trading relationships on a preferential basis with China. If the Minister could confirm that in his winding-up speech, I would be grateful.

Perhaps it is different now because the tightrope—as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, called it—is impossible to straddle because of, as the Foreign Secretary said, the

“industrial-scale human rights abuses.”—[Official Report, Commons, 22/3/21; col. 622.]

The question is what consequences there are in our trading relationships with preferential trade. Sir Geoffrey Nice, who is held in very high regard in this area, communicated with me and my noble friend Lady Northover today. He said something in his email which I asked his permission to quote as it really struck me. He reflected on the fact that, in my opinion, somewhere in the last two generations we have lost something. He said that we should understand and recognise that human rights exist for and should be honoured by

“every citizen of the world for every other citizen of the world, not just sometimes by some governments when it suits them.”

Some people argue that trading relationships are between businesses and people and treaty-making and diplomacy are Government-to-Government, but now, in this very interconnected and complex trading world in which we live, with comprehensive trading agreements, investment partnerships and strategic alliances, there is a wide gamut of preferential terms of access to the UK financial sector, the UK market or areas where we have sought the competitive advantage of China’s massive industrial and commercial manufacturing base.

It is the moral ambiguity that my noble friend Lord Fox and others have indicated at the heart of this Government’s policy that we have been highlighting. I would go further and say that there is a degree of intransigence and contradiction at the centre of the Government’s policy in this area. One contradiction is that the very approach outlined by the Minister today at the Dispatch Box and in his letter this afternoon, in which he describes the process now going forward, is against the mechanism that he and the Government have indicated for other trading agreements, and parliamentary approval is against UK constitutional approaches with regard to scrutiny. We cannot have both, so I hope that the Government will see that opening up scrutiny and allowing greater parliamentary say, as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, indicated, is of benefit, not against UK constitutional approaches. In my view it should be one of the core elements of the UK constitutional approach that Parliament has a key role in these areas.

I share, as have others, my noble friend’s perseverance on this issue and that of those on the Government Benches in the Commons who have consistently told the Government to think again. On our Benches, Alistair Carmichael and Layla Moran were part of a wide coalition that will not now go away. The debate that has been started—the persistence and the perseverance —indicates that there will need to be much greater comprehensive elements in the Government’s approach to trade and human rights. We have said repeatedly that there should be a trade and human rights policy that outlines the Government’s policy, with triggering mechanisms that will suspend bilateral agreements, not just FTAs, when there are significant human rights concerns.

There needs to be a triggering mechanism, because we know that the nuclear option of cancelling all trade with a country should be reserved for the most grotesque situations, as we have been debating. However, there are other situations where we wish to use UK preferential market access as a lever around the world. It is a contradiction because we have moved away from an approach, which we were party to in recent years as part of the EU, of having triggering mechanisms to suspend bilateral agreements when countries are in breach because of significant human rights concerns. Indeed, there is a contradiction at the heart of what the Government are currently doing by reinstating preferential terms for Cambodia while the EU had withdrawn them because of human rights concerns. This Government have reinstated them without any indication of why.

When it comes to wider aspects of the partnership agreements, strategic alliances and other preferential areas, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, in response to the Statement earlier today, I asked the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, whether any of our current preferential trading agreements with China have been suspended as a result of the alleged genocide against the Uighur community in China. It is quite clear that the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, did not have an answer in his briefing pack—if he had, he would have said so—so I hope that the Minister for Trade will give an indication of whether we have indicated that any preferential trade agreements with China are now open for suspension.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, indicated, it is now time to open the debate about moving some of these decisions away from Governments. If this Government are refusing to, or perhaps any Government cannot, tread the line the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, indicated, of making decisions about suspending trading relations or preferential trading relations when there are gross human rights abuses, now is the time to start debating whether the UK should have an independent trade and human rights commission, not only for the sanctions regime but for other areas of new trading relationships.

When the noble Lord, Lord Alton, was a very young MP for Liverpool—I hope he will not mind me saying so since it was his birthday recently—he was a street campaigner and coined one of things that every Liberal campaigner, including me, has copied since, which was a slogan on the focus leaflets: “A record of action, a promise of more”. We have seen his record on this issue. I know there is a promise of more. As a veteran of three trade Bills in three years, I will not say goodbye to this issue but “Au revoir” until the next one. Inevitably there will be one. These issues—the contradictions at play and the moral ambiguities—need to be ironed out. This House and many others will do our best to do so.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, this is the last round on the Trade Bill—for the moment, as has just been said—and, as my right honourable friend the shadow Secretary of State said in the other place, it has taken

“three years, two months and two weeks”—[Official Report, Commons, 22/3/21; col. 668.]

to get to where we are today, which is quite a record and may indeed be worthy of the Guinness Book of Records. Given the length of time we have been involved in this, it is appropriate to thank all involved in this parliamentary marathon, not least both Ministers, the noble Baroness, Lady Fairhead, and the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone. Of my colleagues, I make special mention of my noble friends Lord Grantchester, Lord Bassam and Lord Lennie and, in particular, my noble friend Lord Collins, who has been taking the weight over the past few weeks while we have been discussing this issue and hoping for a better resolution than we have got.

I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, for his work in trying to forge an amendment on scrutiny issues that we could persuade the Government to accept. As he said, we have not got there yet, but it is a work in progress and I am sure we will get there eventually. The noble Baronesses, Lady McIntosh of Pickering and Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, were instrumental in keeping the pressure on in relation to non-regression of standards. I pay tribute to them for their tireless work on that, and I pay particular tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, who has been much in our thoughts in the past few weeks, particularly today. He again made a wonderful speech and covered the ground so carefully and so well that we cannot forget the issues that we have in front of us.

In almost three and a quarter years, trade policy has been transformed from being a largely commercial issue handled at arm’s length, because it was dealt with in policy terms by the EU, to being a central policy driver as important to the people of this country as every other mainstream policy—arguably more so, because trade deals that we sign in the future will shape who we are as a nation and how we will be regarded as a partner, even though we have made a bit of a bad start on that.

In some senses, the narrow issue which, sadly, is being determined today in favour of the Government, against the strong wishes of your Lordships’ House over three successive ping-pongs, is a measure of how much further we need to go to complete the work of creating an appropriate structure for the determination of trade policy in this country in the future. I think the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, pointed out rather effectively the gaps that already exist in the new arrangements; they are not as comprehensive, and certainly not as complete, as we would wish. But he also urged us, rightly, to make the new system work and to learn the lessons from the activity in the committees and in Parliament when we are able to do so, which will allow us to inform future debates and discussions.

National Security and Investment Bill

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, this first group consists of two amendments, both in my name and both relating to the interaction of the export control regime with the investment screening regime. Amendment 39 would insert into Clause 11, which relates to the exceptions to the general definition of the control of assets, a power for the Secretary of State by regulation to prescribe where the control of a qualifying asset is not to be regarded as controlled under this regime. It would give the Secretary of State freedom to define circumstances where assets that are to be exported and are controlled by the export control regime would not be regarded as controlled for these purposes.

Amendment 87 is a bit more straightforward in that it would introduce a new clause requiring the Secretary of State when making final orders under the Act to take account of the effects of the Export Control Act and related provisions on that qualifying asset. Your Lordships will note in the Bill an interaction with the Competition and Markets Authority regime, but no similar provision is made for the interaction of the export control regime with this regime.

The Bill offers no substantive recognition of the interaction between the export control regime and assets under this regime. That is surprising, because paragraphs 3.85 and 3.86 of 2018 White Paper state—please forgive me, it is a fairly long quote:

“After the introduction of the reforms described in this White Paper, the export control regime will remain the key means of restricting trade in strategic goods where this might raise national security risks … The Government wishes to ensure that the new reforms are as proportionate as possible, and are not used instead of other, more targeted or proportionate policy levers. As such, where national security concerns relate solely or primarily to the export of goods, the Government expects that the export control regime would remain the primary means of protecting national security.”


The purpose of these amendments is to ask whether that is still the Government’s policy. If it is, why is it not reflected in the structure of the powers? Should it not be included in the Bill to make that clear?

The Minister may say that since the export control regime is under the control of Ministers, they have all the administrative means at their disposal to bring the two regimes together, whereas there is a separate statutory and independent agency in the Competition and Markets Authority. But that would not be transparent to those affected. I know from talking to people who would be affected that there is a long-standing relationship with the export control unit of the department and an understanding of how its powers are used. To the extent that that transparency and predictability are maintained explicitly, I think it would greatly assist those who are to be affected by these powers.

It is surely the case that Ministers, when making a final order, will take account of where qualifying assets are the subject of an export control order. That being so, I am looking not only for an assurance from the Minister that it is the Government’s intention to use the export control regime as the principal means by which the export of qualifying assets is controlled but for a recognition of this in some form in the legislation, to enable all those affected to be aware of the relationship between these two regimes and for it to be transparent. I therefore urge my noble friend to consider the merits of Amendment 87, which would introduce a new clause that simply did that without placing any constraint on Ministers. I beg to move.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for bringing forward these questions in such a characteristically forensic manner. The Committee will be aware that I have not participated in it so far, and I therefore intend to be brief and shall raise only a small number of questions seeking clarification from the Minister on the interaction with the Export Control Act 2002 and on an associated issue.

It has been fascinating listening to the contributions in Committee up to this point about some of the opacity in the interaction with the other legislation and, indeed, how the investment security unit will operate within the department that will cover export control licence applications, which will also make considerations on national security grounds and how they interact. It was interesting to note that in the House of Commons, on the Prime Minister’s Statement on the integrated review, Julian Lewis, the chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, criticised the Prime Minister for not allowing there to be full scrutiny of how the investment security unit will operate. I know that my noble friend Lord Fox will raise this later and will lead on it.

How will that interaction be on the export licence regime? One area where there have been calls for the Government to have annual reports on the operation of this legislation was interesting, given the fact that under the Export Control Act 2002 there are annual reports, and there is clarity as to how many applications and the various different criteria for refusal or putting on hold applications. An interesting aspect of the Export Control Act 2002—and I reread the Explanatory Notes to the legislation after seeing the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley—is that, on one reading of the Act, which does not go into the same level of detail for defining companies as this legislation, it refers to people being part of the licence, for them and their knowledge and for their providing technical assistance. There certainly can be companies that operate almost exclusively on providing technical assistance, in the technical services industry in particular; they are covered by the Export Control Act for their work that they will then carry out, and the Government take a view as to whether that is something that should be considered as an export.

Secondly, there are companies that operate within hybrid technologies, as the Export Control Act indicated, for technologies and technical assistance, and controls can be imposed for the transfer of technology from the UK and by UK persons, anywhere and by any means. It is interesting that Section 4 of the 2002 Act says that,

“‘trade controls’ …means the prohibition or regulation of … their acquisition or disposal … their movement”,

and associated activities of any goods. The Minister may say that that means specific items, goods or technologies of a company but not the company itself—therefore, this legislation covers the company. It would be helpful if the Minister could indicate something about the interaction.

It struck me that, if any Government indicated that a certain technology or good required prohibition from being exported or their trade in that to be regulated, that would be considered under criterion 5 for national security grounds. What if the interaction of that company is then the subject of a review under this legislation, or indeed that parent company is taken over, or there are shares that meet the trigger requirement? What is the status of the export licences that that company has—because the Government have already indicated that they have sought and maybe made a decision on national security grounds? It is worth pointing out that we know from the annual report that last year there were 80 refusals on national security grounds under criterion 5 in the UK—it indicates for the national security grounds of the UK, the EU and other friendly countries. In the last set of discussions, it was interesting to hear about the interactions with decisions that other friendly countries make. The Export Control Act makes determinations for that.

Economic Partnership Agreement: Kenya

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the committee for its Motion allowing us to debate this agreement and for its work under the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith. I am also grateful for the opportunity to have heard the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord McDonald, who gave evidence to the committee that I sat on in this House. He should feel fully liberated after 38 years. We have the evidence of his two amigos as former Permanent Secretaries who are hardly inhibited in providing their views to the House—so we look forward to the noble Lord doing exactly the same, because he will have much to offer. He will find, as I have over the seven years I have been here, that this House is great for making you feel perpetually young.

I welcome this first application of the Grimstone rule—that we will not ratify agreements before they have been debated if a committee has asked for that debate to take place. I welcome the fact that the Government has ensured that this debate has indeed taken place, as my noble friend Lord Oates highlighted in his remarks. He also referred to the tension there now is within the EAC over the moves to have a bilateral agreement, and I will refer to that.

We know that the European EPA has not yet been ratified by all members of the EAC, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, said. But, importantly, he highlighted that there are other elements of preferential relationships, and the partnership mechanisms of Aid for Trade and economic development in that EPA, for which we have not provided any continuity with Kenya. Now that this is the mechanism which the Government have said that other countries will be invited to accede to, they will not be acceding to any continuity that had been in existence in the European agreement.

So what is the Government’s intention? Is this an agreement which other countries will be invited to accede to? Or, if a country chooses to enter into an agreement with the UK, within the aegis of the EAC, will we reopen negotiations with those other countries to afford them all of the different partnership and trade for development policies? The MoU that accompanies the agreement will give Kenya and the UK a much greater say than other countries in the EAC acceding to this agreement. It is almost insulting to other members of that community to say that if they wish to have the same arrangements with the UK that they had previously within the EU, they will have to join this agreement. Why was the previously discussed bridging mechanism for Kenya rejected? This was not clear in the Government’s evidence to the committee.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, I am pleased that the final agreement for Ghana has now been agreed, after two months of applying tariffs to Ghanaian products. As we have heard, the concern of farmers and the rural community in Kenya, who are now seeking legal remedy from their own Government over this agreement, shows that there are deep consequences of our arrangements with these two countries.

With regard to the Kenya agreement, the wider partnership elements are the essence of these agreements. EPAs are not simply tariff agreements or FTAs; they are genuinely partnership agreements—that is the essence of them. Therefore, we need to look at the wider, non-tariff areas of relationships, deliberately framed not to be purely about tariff measures for middle-income countries, or codifying the Everything But Arms approach for other countries in the different categories.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, said in her very informed and powerful contribution on development support, this is not a continuity agreement. In Annexe 3A of the EU’s Aid for Trade agreement there is a matrix of 23 pages of costed, specified projects for increasing trade, competition and finance from the European Union through its European Development Fund and the members of the EAC and Kenya.

This annexe has been removed from the UK agreement, with no replacement. Indeed, the section on development co-operation in the Government’s report has two paragraphs and leads with what I find are chilling words. Paragraph 57 starts—the noble Lord, Lord McDonald, will have to forgive me, but this is perfect Civil Service speak—with the words:

“In line with the different approaches of Britain and the EU to programming for development cooperation”.


What does that mean? What are “different approaches” to programming for development co-operation? It means, by the last sentence, that while parts of this agreement reflect the ambitions of the parties, they

“do not create any obligations on us to provide financial or non-financial support in specific areas.”

So aid for trade and development support have been stripped out entirely from this agreement.

None of the commitments is binding in Parts III to V. In Part V, the 27 articles have the rider, of course, that there will be no financial commitment or obligations. Technically, under this agreement, which we are being asked to ratify, there is no commitment for a single pound in facilitating aid for trade or trade for development support. Can the Minister clarify what is the aid for trade development support with this agreement? Let me be clear what it is. It relates to food standards and upgrading laboratories. It is connected to all of the areas where we would seek to facilitate UK trade to develop even further. This is sending a very strong negative message.

This leads me to the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, mentioned with regards to TradeMark East Africa, which has been highlighted by respective Governments over the past decade as a very significant success for the UK. Our support for TradeMark East Africa facilitates $100 million to the benefit of UK businesses, making trade easier and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, highlighted, tackling corruption and bureaucracy, reducing trade costs by 30%, increasing competition, improving transport corridors for trade, and increasing jobs and prosperity. But TradeMark East Africa now has a sword hanging over it. It has already been asked to make 20% cuts last year by the FCDO, reducing its staff to a four-day week, and now it could see a cut of 50% of its work, which in effect would make it inoperable. You can only cut programmes so far before they are unable to be delivered. This is a flagship project. Such a cut could create significant long-term reputational damage for the UK, putting at risk longer-term projects that we have secured with our partners.

The final point I would like to make to the Minister is that it is not too late to reverse the trajectory. If we are to have better digitisation, anti-corruption measures, better procedures, better standards, policy development and support for women traders, which should be the essence of these EPAs, we cannot see cuts to TradeMark for East Africa. It would be inconsistent with the wider approach and inconsistent with what we are told should be an Africa strategy in the fastest growing, and what is likely to be the biggest, trading area in the world. It is not too late. I hope the Government will persuade the Secretary of State to change course.

Trade Bill

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Alderdice) (LD)]

Does anyone else in the Chamber wish to speak? No? We will move on to the listed speakers. I call the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, for moving this amendment and allowing us to debate this issue. I will turn to that in a moment.

When the noble Baroness was speaking, I reflected on the constitution arrangements that we have. I think that she and I both favour change in our constitution to change the mechanism of appointment to this place and make it a fully democratic House. Nevertheless, in his remarks the Minister referred to having trade scrutiny and decision-making that is appropriate to our constitutional arrangements. Our constitutional arrangements say that this is a revising Chamber, and we are doing our duty in asking the Government to think again. When the House has voted by large majorities on every occasion that it has debated scrutiny amendments in either my name or that of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, it has made its view plain. It is therefore incumbent on the Government to reflect on that, not simply to exercise the Whip.

One of the votes that the Minister referred to tested this point slightly. Last time round, the other place was not asked to have a separate vote on these amendments because, in the way that they scheduled all this, the Government bundled them all into one. Members of the Commons with a particular view on scrutiny, human rights, genocide or anything else were asked to support or oppose the Whip in one particular vote. I do not think that that reflects very well on the way in which the Government have approached the Trade Bill and these stages.

However, as people more famous than me have said, we are where we are. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, for his work on getting us to this position. I have enjoyed working with him, the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and others. It has genuinely been cross-party work. I also share the thanks expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, to Jonathan Djanogly and others in the House of Commons for their work. In many respects, they have been courageous. Consistently voting or making a case against one’s own Government is a courageous thing in politics, but they are doing it out of a great sense of sincerity that going forward trade agreements for the UK are now deep and comprehensive by definition and touch on very wide aspects across public policy and regulation and therefore for parliamentary scrutiny to be effective, it should inform debate, and if accountability is to be operable, that debate should lead to votes. Ultimately, that is the approach about which we have sought to persuade the Government.

There have been indications of the Government being more flexible in certain areas. This is an interesting Bill which, as the noble Baroness said, has taken so long. A White Paper about trade policy appeared and disappeared mid-Bill; there has been no successor to it. The words of the Minister today are helpful and we now have the Grimstone rule, which is that ratification of a new trade agreement will not take place without a debate. That is important. It is not as much as I wanted or as much as the Government were going to give us at the start of this process, many years ago, but this is the third Minister who has handled this Bill and it is third time lucky, as far as the commitment that we will at least be able to vote on the agreements coming up.

There had been a rule for treaty ratification called the Ponsonby rule. It was replaced by statutory provision, because we were not satisfied that simply a ministerial rule, commitment or convention would be appropriate. While we may be putting this issue to bed in this Bill, at this moment, the issue has not been put to bed. Other Bills in the future will do as we did with the Ponsonby rule, which was to put it on a statutory footing. We will have to live with the Grimstone rule for the moment. It is perhaps, shall we say, a tweaking of the Government’s position. Nevertheless we accept it for the moment, as the House was clear, in all its votes, that more scrutiny, accountability and debating are required. I assure the Minister that we will come back to this at other times.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his comments and the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, for moving his Motion 1D on a cross-party basis. I put on record, as he did, how enjoyable it was to work with him, the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, and Commons colleagues of all persuasions to see whether we could progress this important issue. Although I have some sympathy with the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, I agree with the Minister and others who have spoken that the speeches we have heard draw discussions on the parliamentary scrutiny of international trade deals to a close, for the moment. This issue will not go away, although I believe that the Grimstone rule—if that is what we are to call it—will help us to work through a process to consider trade agreements in the future. That is for the good.

I will make three small points. First, it is difficult to make constitutional change. Anybody who has operated in either House of Parliament knows that to be the case. It should be hard—and it is right that it is—but it is sometimes frustrating if the pace of change does not match some of the aspirations and recognise some of the wrongs committed. As the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, said, although we have not managed to set in statute that which a significant majority in this House, across all parties, would have liked, we have agreed a way of working with the Government for the future—the Grimstone rule—that strikes a workable balance between the rights and responsibilities of the Executive and those of Parliament. Time will tell. We are in the right place and no doubt will benefit from the experience to be gained in the next few years, but we should record that progress has been made.

Secondly, one key turning point to have emerged from the discussions is the need to ensure that we have a process, in any future agreement that we might make, which properly engages the devolved Administrations and civil society—and on a sensible timescale. I will come back to that. This Parliament will now need, in the way that it works, to address four major points in any future statutory system, although they will be covered by the Grimstone rule: approval of the initial objectives, review of the progress of negotiations, considerations of the final proposed agreement including changes to existing statutory provisions, and parliamentary approval of the deal and any subsequent changes to legislation that may be required. We have analysed that to the nth degree in our discussions during the last four years; now we have a model for how it can work. If there is good will on both sides, as I think there is, we should let that run for a while before returning to it.

My third point, on which I will end, is that in these debates over the last four years we have made it clear that UK trade policy and the trade deals that will be the basis of our future activity and prosperity are important. They deserve the sort of focus and interest envisaged under the protocols described as the Grimstone rule. We can be confident that, with the work of the Select Committees in the Commons and the International Agreements Committee in the Lords complementing the interests of a range of other bodies, including devolved Administrations and civil society, that debate will continue to be an important aspect of our public policy.

Finally, although we have gone as far as we can on this today, we will keep a close eye on it and look forward to resolving outstanding issues in the not- too-distant future. We have worked closely with the Government and with successive Ministers. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Fairhead, and the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, for their engagement since 2017. We have built a coalition of interest across parties in this and in the other House, which has been rewarding, positive and a model for how issues of this nature can be resolved in the public interest.

--- Later in debate ---

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

My Lords, at this point I must ask if there is anyone else present in the Chamber who wishes to contribute to the debate. No? In which case, I shall call the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, characteristically, this has been another powerful debate with, inevitably, a degree of emotion—but less emotion and more considered judgment, which is appropriate at this stage of the Bill.

My view is that the UK can act; and when we act, many people still look at how we pass our legislation in this Parliament and at our behaviour around the world. We can lead by example and, in many cases, we have done so. If it were argued that proposals on human trafficking and forced labour should not reach beyond UK businesses operating globally, and that we should act only in a multilateral forum, other countries would not follow. The UK’s record on human rights has been good but should be better. This debate, because it is on the Trade Bill, is about how we interact with our views of human rights and what triggers exist to remove preferential trading arrangements from countries that are in gross dereliction of their duty on human rights, regardless, in many respects, of a flawed decision by an international tribunal. Ultimately, it is the UK that makes its decisions.

Five years ago, President Xi was addressing both Houses next door in the Royal Gallery. I shall refer to China first and then open up my argument to the wider area of human rights. A joint statement was issued by the UK Government and the Chinese Government, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, had his beady eye on it then. The communiqué, issued on 22 October 2015 stated:

“The UK and China commit to building a global comprehensive strategic partnership for the 21st Century. This visit opens a golden era in UK-China relations featuring enduring, inclusive and win-win cooperation.”


“Win-win cooperation” is a classic Chinese line. The statement continues:

“In the last decade, the bilateral relationship has flourished and matured with close high-level exchanges, deeper political trust, fruitful economic cooperation and wider people-to-people contact.”


Some of those factors remain the case but some have been significantly damaged, as noble Lords have indicated and as the Foreign Secretary highlighted. That joint communiqué highlighted seven co-operation agreements, covering £30 billion of trade, strategic partnership agreements and joint alliances providing preferential relationships. However, it did not include a free-trade agreement. We have more than £30 billion of trade covering a whole separate area.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, unlike the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, I pride myself on my boring consistency on some of these issues—perhaps the Minister’s office has trawled back through Hansard. I hope the desire that the UK will be seen as a trading nation of the highest standards has perhaps brought common ground across all parties. If, as the Minister said, that will set the tone for future trading policy and strategy, that is at least one area where there is common ground.

However, the devil is in the details of all these aspects when implementing legislation and, therefore, the implementing regulations for the continuity agreements. As the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, indicated, we discussed in Committee not just the interaction between the continuity agreements and brand new agreements for countries we had no FTA with, but what happens when we renew and refresh the existing continuity agreements. The continuity agreements, many of which are now out of date, especially the EPAs—some of which we will debate in this House—will need successor agreements. This amendment covers that interaction between the continuity agreements and the new successor agreements in which we will want to maintain those standards.

One agreement which may have to be looked at again is that with the Faroe Islands. I am glad the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, raised it. It seems a long time ago that we debated it, but its figures are seared in my memory. I fear she was rather generous about UK exports to the Faroe Islands—as I recall from 2017, it was £3 million in exports from the UK to the Faroe Islands and £229 million in imports from the Faroe Islands, of which £200 million were fish. The Faroe Islands told the All-Party Group on the Faroe Islands last week that, with most of that fish being landed into Northern Ireland and the extraordinary costs per shipping for the certification they need there, it is now looking at bypassing landing that into the UK—where it would then be processed for the EU market through the Republic of Ireland and elsewhere—directly to Denmark. We will therefore have to look at the interaction between that agreement and the European TCA, which we have had little scope to debate in this Chamber in plenary, because there could be a direct cost from that, maybe to our fishermen, for whom it is competition, and to our consumers for whom it is of great interest.

The Minister referred—for the benefit of Hansard, with a slightly irreverent eye— to my wisdom in Committee. My wisdom was, perhaps, in seeking today’s position. We are approving an amendment—I have written this down to try to get it right—which was rejected in Committee, and which the Government had removed from this Bill but had inserted in the last Bill after saying it was unnecessary at the outset. However, that is some progress. We now know what the Grimstone rule is, and that is very positive; if there is a Purvis political rule, it is “If at first you don’t succeed, try and try and try again.”

The Minister has been gracious to all who have engaged in this debate. One amendment where the wisdom of my arguments did not prevail upon the Government was to amend Clause 2 to ensure that it was about not just continuity agreements but all agreements. Had that been the case then the points that the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, raised would have been covered.

I very warmly welcome the Minister saying that this amendment will now set the tone for the new amendments. The manner in which he has done this has also set the tone. On that basis, we will accept where we are at the moment; we have lifted the baseline, so when we engage in these debates going forward, we will start from a higher base. Ultimately, that is a positive move.

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to make my closing speech on this motion with such a spirit of compromise and good will around the House. I thank noble Lords for that and will try to spread a bit of that good will towards food safety when I come to it in a moment.

This Trade Bill was always designed—it seems a long time ago now—to have continuity trade agreements at its heart; I apologise for constantly trying to bring noble Lords back to that. That is because its Clause 2 power, given that the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, failed in his attempts to widen it, allows for the implementation of agreements only with a third country with which the EU had a signed agreement prior to exit day. It does not apply to future agreements with countries such as Australia, New Zealand and the USA. Interestingly, I am advised that successor agreements which derive directly from continuity agreements—for example, those with Canada and Mexico—will be within scope of Clause 2. If I need to elaborate on that, I will write a letter to the noble Lord.

I have said before, and say again, that the UK has a long track record of high standards across all areas. We should be proud of that, and the Government are keen to ensure it continues. However, I realise that, no matter how many times I stand here and repeat this, it will never be enough for some noble Lords. I appreciate that, but I say to them—this is the important point—that Parliament always has the final say. If it believes that the Government of the day have not kept their word and have negotiated an FTA that has reduced standards, it can refuse to ratify or, perhaps more importantly, refuse to agree with the legislation that will be necessary to implement future trade agreements not covered under our Clause 2 powers. It would be more than illogical—it would be foolish—for any Government to negotiate an agreement that they knew could not gain the approval of Parliament.

In direct answer to the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, who spoke with his normal sincerity and conviction, we do not yet know what form future legislation for future trade agreements will take. We know that it will be necessary in certain circumstances, but it will mean that I have the pleasure of standing across from the noble Lord at the Dispatch Box on future occasions.

I will touch on the very important issue of food safety, which was raised by my noble friend Lady McIntosh, in her Amendments 6G and 6H. I had a helpful conversation with the four musketeers, the noble Baronesses, Lady Henig, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, last week, who asked me to provide greater clarity on this issue today. I can provide assurance that the Government’s proposed amendment also addresses food safety. It includes references to

“the protection of human, animal or plant life or health”,

among other issues. I am advised that that is the definition of sanitary and phytosanitary measures, as outlined in the WTO SPS agreement, and that it incontrovertibly includes matters relating to food safety. So, food safety is included in the amendment; it just has not spelt it out specifically.

Decisions on food safety standards are made outside of negotiations and are informed by the advice of our independent food standards agencies. As we know, all imports must abide by our food safety standards. The Government have also recently enhanced our commitments on scrutiny of food safety and standards in new FTAs, as an additional reassurance. Again, I congratulate Peers, as Section 42 of the Agriculture Act requires the Government to produce a report on whether provisions in new FTAs are consistent with statutory protections for human, animal and plant health, animal welfare and the environment. I am pleased to give the complete assurance that human health includes food safety, as well.

We will be consulting with the independent food standards agencies when producing our report, which will be published ahead of CRaG. These are independent agencies that have the ability, and normally the desire, to produce their own reports and make their views public. Even though this is a matter for them, I would be surprised if they did not want their views on such an important matter to be made known before the House considers such agreements.

The Government have listened to the concerns of noble Lords. We brought forward this amendment in the other place and it secured a majority. I say with caution that no other standards-related amendment proposed by this House has ever come close to doing this. I hope that noble Lords feel that we worked constructively with this House and kept our promises, and join me in voting for the government amendment and taking a decisive step in enacting this Bill into law. I hope that all agree that now is the time for us to move on with this important question, and not to delay the passage of this important legislation any further.

Trade Bill

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments & Ping Pong (Hansard) & Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 2nd February 2021 Lords Chamber

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

Does anyone else in the Chamber wish to speak? No—good. That is that “name that Peer” round over, so that is excellent. I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Earl. On this issue we share a great deal of common ground, although on other issues perhaps not, and I agree with his remarks about the procedures on these stages.

It has been a pleasure to work with the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, who suggested that this was like “Groundhog Day”. That fantastic film had an element of things changing in each of the days that the character relived. If that was the equivalent of the Trade Bill, we would see the incremental changes that make for a happy ending at the end of the movie. If the Government see sense and accept the noble Lord’s wise words, we will see that incremental change with a happy ending, as in “Groundhog Day”.

The noble Lord referenced previous stages, and I quote from a previous stage in Hansard, where it says:

“We talk about taking back control, but Parliament has got to stop giving its decision-making powers away. If we want to be respected in this Parliament, we have to be the ultimate arbiters of the decisions and direction of travel of our country. We can have those powers. I say to the Minister for Trade Policy that we have had these discussions. I hope that the Government will bring forward mechanisms that allow the House to have much greater scrutiny at the outset of a trade negotiation to set those ethical parameters”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/1/21; col. 812.]


That was not from me, although I have called for similar during previous stages in the Trade Bill. That was from Dr Liam Fox on 19 January, when the Government rejected Lords Amendments 1 and 5 and gave the same reasons for rejecting both. I hope that, as there is growing consensus on this issue, the Government can at least listen to Dr Fox, if not to myself or to the noble Lord, Lord Lansley.

Dr Fox also said:

“Those who had discussions with me when I was Trade Secretary will know that my preference … was for us to have a meaningful debate on a motion that was amendable at the outset for the mandate of trade discussions. That would have enabled the House to set the ethical parameters within which we would operate, and then the Government would have gone ahead and carried out the negotiation”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/1/21; col. 811.]


That is very interesting to have learned. There has clearly been a position within the Government whereby they look to see how open they are at the stage of setting the parameters or mandates for opening negotiations. So I hope that the noble Lord’s amendment is not that far from a great deal of thinking within the Government, if that had been the position of the Trade Secretary then.

It is not just Dr Fox—yesterday, on the very good and open Zoom meeting that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, hosted on the amendments that we will discuss in the next group, Sir Iain Duncan Smith said that Parliament should give the go ahead on a trade deal. He made it clear that it would not affect the prerogative power. So I think that there is cross-party support in this area, on a greater setting of the mandate. Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Dr Liam Fox and many Members of this House during the passage of this Bill have expressed a belief that it is in the Government’s and our country’s interest, so that these negotiations are stronger.

On the next element of the consultation, I welcome what the Minister said about the new page on GOV.UK on the ministerial forum, which we have debated during previous stages of this Bill. What the Minister mentioned is to be welcomed, but I think that the Government could still, in looking at legislation for international trading agreements, move the same mechanism that they put in place in the internal market Bill for our domestic trading relationships. In that Bill, there was a time-limited period of consultation with the devolved Administrations for regulations for the implementation of trading arrangements. However, I hear what the Minister said, and I hope that aspect is something on which, at this late hour, the Government could still think again.

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[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak in support of this all-party amendment so powerfully advanced by my noble friend Lord Alton and supported so eloquently by other noble Lords. I know that my remarks cannot compare with the brilliant speeches we have already heard, so I shall keep them brief.

As I assume do all noble Lords, I believe passionately in freedom—freedom of trade and freedom of conscience. So I have one question for my noble friend the Minister. Just how bad does it need to get before global Britain stands up for that freedom?

I conclude with a question to all noble Lords and, crucially, Members of the other place. If we really believe in freedom, and if we want others to respect and honour it, how, in all conscience, can we not support this amendment?

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I refer to my entries in the register of interests. This has been a comprehensive and very thorough debate, as it should be. It has been ably led by the noble Lord, Lord Collins, introducing his amendment and who I think is now collectively our noble friend Lord Alton, for introducing so—

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

He used to be.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

Yes. I will not be distracted by my noble friend Lord Campbell of Pittenweem with regard to where the noble Lord, Lord Alton, used to sit on these Benches. Nevertheless, he is our noble friend.

The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, referred to the three years of this Bill. There are two things in her contribution I would like to reflect on. First, one of the elements of the Bill that she highlighted as important was not in the Government’s draft. In fact, putting the Trade and Agriculture Commission on a statutory footing was as a result of considerable cross-party pressure. The Government recognised that the case was very strong and amended their own legislation. We are seeking a similar kind of regard when it comes to human rights and how the UK trades. The Government have not only scope but precedent in changing this Bill—in listening to arguments and making changes. That is what we are seeking.

The second thing I reflected on was the three years. The reason I referred to the register of interests was that, during this time—although the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, might think I have no spare time other than that spent on this Bill—I travelled extensively to northern Iraq and to Sudan, two countries that have been badly afflicted by gross human rights abuses of the worst kind. I was in the north of Iraq, with victims of the gross atrocities of Daesh, and with people who were on their phone to their families who were in cellars of houses as prisoners of Daesh. I went to Sudan before, during and after the revolution. I was driving around Khartoum behind vehicles with armed paramilitaries and militia who the BBC had exposed the previous week as throwing people into the Nile and sending people away using the euphemisms—as the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, so accurately said—of oppressive regimes or military forces.

I have therefore been a supporter through all the stages of this Bill. Our trading relationships and where we give preferential trading relationships with states should not be isolated from our human rights and foreign policy. This is personal to me, as it has been over these last three years, and therefore I can completely understand the personal nature of many of the speeches in this debate today.

I commend the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and others who spoke so powerfully and those in the House of Commons. My right honourable friend Alistair Carmichael, who co-chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Uyghurs, has led on this issue in partnership with many others and I commend his work. Therefore, from these Benches, we will be supporting Amendments B1 and C1 if they are pressed and we hope that they will be.

There are two key elements in my view. What would be a triggering mechanism that would bring about, as the Minister said in his opening remarks, tough decisions and courses of action? What would an appropriate framework be for making those decisions and what would the course of action be? Because we are operating under legislation, those processes would have to be compliant with domestic legislation and WTO requirements.

On the triggering mechanisms, because these are bilateral agreements, we have to have a triggering mechanism here in the UK, either through an international tribunal or commission—a judicial body—because of our international obligations, or through a domestic court. There has to be a domestic triggering mechanism, either by virtue of our international obligations or starting here domestically.

I have reflected on what the Minister said, and I wonder, with regard to the Minister’s letters, what would have happened when a Spanish court indicted General Pinochet. If we had listened to what it says in the Minister’s letter, I do not think that we would have put him under house arrest until there was the assuredness that he would be put on trial back in Chile. What would have happened last year if we had listened to the Minister’s letter, which was not about a domestic court, when the ruler of Dubai was found guilty in a domestic court of crimes against his wife and children? I found it useful for the Government to say, in international diplomacy, that these are court decisions and that due process was being carried out. If we had to rely on the methods within the letter, I am not sure that that would have been as transparent.

I am so glad that the noble Baroness made reference to selling arms to Saudi Arabia. I wanted to direct this to the Minister, given the letter that was sent to us at lunchtime, which referred to a committee that would then seek a debate on any decisions made with regard to genocide and human rights. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, and I have been sitting on the International Relations and Defence Committee, although unfortunately I have just left it. In our report on the Middle East, the committee’s finding was that the UK was on the wrong side of international human rights legislation with regard to arms sales, and called for a pause to sales before further judicial processes. The Government’s response was simply to say that they disagreed. There was no debate, and the Government did not have any “tough decisions” or “courses of action”, as the Minister said. I am with the noble Lord in being very sceptical about the contents of this letter, because we have seen a committee make a determination and the Government simply say that they disagree.

A domestic triggering mechanism is needed on genocide and, in our view, other gross violations of human rights or war crimes for existing agreements. These Benches also want to see a process in place that is the framework for what actions can be taken. We have had one through virtue of our membership of the European Union, since 1995 and 2008. There were mechanisms in place before trade agreements started to be negotiated, with an impact assessment on the human rights of that country which included the round, to inform the Commission and European Parliament on the decisions that it would take in negotiating with that country. The impact assessments would be carried out during negotiations, which would then inform a vote in the European Parliament on whether it approved of the negotiations having been conducted. Importantly, the agreements would have human rights chapters that included suspension clauses, which could be activated with regard to existing trade agreements.

The noble Lord, Lord Collins, referenced the opaqueness around whether the continuity agreement with Cameroon should have other elements, and I hope that we will debate that. I am also alarmed by the decision of the Government to open trade negotiations with Cambodia, to which we are currently offering preferential trading agreements that had been removed when we were in the European Union last year. So we are now restoring agreements to a country which we had been party to determining did not meet a human rights threshold for the “everything but arms” criteria. I can add that to the litany of complaints made by the noble Baroness with regard to this Government.

We have called for a comprehensive trade and human rights policy with draft legal texts of human rights clauses. This is not just us asking for this because it is something afresh—we are asking the Government to do what they said that they would do.

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[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

The noble Lord, Lord Hain, has withdrawn and there are no unlisted speakers, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister’s reassurance on this is slightly jarring with the latest news, which is most unwelcome in Northern Ireland, about the security threat to many staff working to process at the ports of Northern Ireland. The Government are right to have indicated that any threats to them are unacceptable, but it draws stark attention to the fact that considerable tensions remain in Northern Ireland. I do not think that anybody could have seen the recent debacle on vaccines between the EU and UK without feeling a degree of foreboding about the potential consequences of some elements of the protocol.

The hour is late, the Trade Bill has debated these issues well and they are not going away, so I will just ask the Minister one question. I do not expect him to respond immediately, but I would be grateful if he could write to me. I am on a distribution list for HMRC, which provides information to businesses trading between GB and Northern Ireland. I will quote from the most recent email I received, and ask the Minister to clarify. This is for all businesses. The email says:

“You must have an Economic Operators Registration and Identification (EORI) number that starts with GB if you wish to move goods between Great Britain or the Isle of Man, and other countries. Without it you will not be able to complete your customs declarations and you may experience increased costs and delays.


You will also need a separate EORI number that starts with XI if you: move goods between Northern Ireland and non-EU countries (including Great Britain), make a declaration in Northern Ireland, get a customs decision in Northern Ireland. To get an EORI number that starts with XI, you must already have an EORI number that starts with GB.”


I hitherto had not been aware that, to have a separate business registration for conducting fettered business between GB and Northern Ireland, and Northern Ireland and GB, you need a separate registration number. Within the United Kingdom, businesses trading between Northern Ireland and GB now have two separate processes to cover trade over the new border down the Irish Sea.

My question to the Minister—and I would be grateful if he would write to me—is: how many UK businesses that conduct trade between Northern Ireland and GB, and vice versa, currently have an XI EORI number, and what is the Government’s estimate of what proportion of businesses have it?

Trade Bill

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

3rd reading & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 18th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I also welcome the amendment, and I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, who is back in his place. I hope his journey was safe.

I want to pick up on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, in his characteristically accurate and sensible contribution. We will probably debate impact assessments, including their value and necessity, to some degree during ping-pong if the Government make the regrettable decision not to support what was Amendment 6, which refers to the need for independently verified impact assessments on trade agreements. Many of us are rather startled, and indeed worried, by the fact that, on the biggest trade agreement of them all—the one with our European Union partners—the Government have maintained a position of refusing an economic impact assessment, even after all the statements made during the passage of this Bill by the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, whom I hold in very high regard, that it is the Government’s position that every trade agreement will come with an impact assessment. I hope the Government can clarify their position and say that we will get an impact assessment with our trade agreement with the European Union.

I want to comment on the necessity of having this amendment corrected by the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, as has been remarked on. In an interview in the Financial Times last week, Tim Smith, the outgoing chair of the Trade and Agriculture Commission, made some very strong statements, which I support, about the UK not entering a “race to the bottom”, needing to be vigilant on behalf of the different elements of the UK—rural and agricultural business, in particular—and wanting to see the Government, in their permanent arrangements for the independent body that we have now established under the Bill, being as strong as possible on standards.

I therefore share the unease indicated by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, whom it is always a pleasure to follow in these debates. The Government seem set on an agenda that demonstrates why their approach needs to be different from that previously taken in the European Union. This might be just to show that we are different, rather than being at all meaningful, but the damaging aspect is that, as Tim Smith indicated, there are many countries with which we have had rollover agreements—and will have trade agreements in future—but which do not prohibit the use of the same chemicals, additives and procedures in the rural industry as we do. Our trading relationships with them should be about us maintaining our standards and working with partners to see the ever-increasing standards that they enjoy.

This minor and technical amendment, which I hope we will see go through to be in the finalised Bill after the House of Commons considers it, is of value. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, has brought it forward and I support it.

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[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD) [V]]

It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, in his literary thanks to the Minister. I cannot compete with that. I am from the Walter Scott area rather than Shakespeare country, but I am certain that, during the three-and-a-quarter years of the passage of the Bill, the Minister and Ministers probably felt that many of our amendments and much of what we were saying were “Much Ado About Nothing”, much as we thought that the Government were probably acting as a “Comedy of Errors”. But the Minister will now probably think that “All’s Well That Ends Well” with the passage of the Bill, and I congratulate him on putting this legislation on the statute book.

In response to his maiden speech, I indicated that it was the third time that the Bill had been presented to the House and that I was certain that it would be third time lucky for him, and it has been. However, I do not think there has been much luck associated with the Bill. I congratulate him on taking it through in a conscientious, gracious and inclusive manner. All those qualities were indicated in his first correspondence with me when he became a Minister when he set out how he wished to operate. He has demonstrated that to the letter, and I am very grateful, as are my noble friends Lord Fox, Lady Kramer, Lady Bowles, Lord Bruce, Lady Bakewell and others on these Benches who have been able to benefit from the Minister’s time and the manner in which he has listened our concerns and thoughts and responded in a timely manner. In that, he has been very ably assisted by his private office, which I also commend, as well as the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, who has been an extremely patient Whip on the Bench on many of these proceedings.

I had a look at the Parliament web page for the Bill. One of the signs of how conscientious Ministers are is what the website terms “Will write letters”. The noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, has written 23 letters during the passage of the Bill through the Lords, which demonstrates two things: first, that across all the Benches there has been great interest in trade policy in a post-Brexit scenario; and, secondly, that he has tried to respond to all the points that have been raised. For the record, I say that not all the 23 will-write letters were to me, but I am sure that the Minister probably felt at certain stages that the contributions from me and these Benches were perhaps excessive. My colleagues and I care very deeply about having a 21st century trade policy to meet the needs of the 21st century. During ping-pong, we will endeavour to continue to make the case.

The Minister said that he commends those on the other Benches on getting the Bill to where it is today. I hope he does not mind me saying that if the Bill becomes an Act as it is today we would be very happy, but we are not yet at the very final stage—like some of the trade agreements that have not yet been ratified after the end of the transition period, this involves a degree of provisional application. I hope the House of Commons will see the sense in the cross-party amendments that this House has passed so that the Bill as it is today will continue to be strong.

I will say one final thing about the Minister. I commend him on putting through this legislation while also having significant health problems with his eye. I have never known a Minister who has seamlessly managed to have major eye surgery—and we commend the NHS and Moorfields Eye Hospital on restoring his eyesight—while taking this legislation through without pause. No one would have noticed any difference, so I commend him on doing it.

I hope that, during ping-pong, we will be able to protect some of the elements of the amendments that we passed during the scrutiny, which I think most colleagues consider to have been thorough, conscientious and effective.

[Lord Mann (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, as we near the end of lengthy deliberations over a long period, during which we have finally managed to leave the European Union, and now have to start to combat, economically, the greatest worldwide pandemic in many centuries—I do not think that is an exaggeration—I want to make a short contribution imploring the Government not to follow a tendency inbuilt in all Governments. When legislation has taken so long to put together and eventually receives Royal Assent, I implore them not to sit back and leave others to do the next stage. We in this country are good at appointing trade envoys to go out across the world but we are not nearly as good at taking the message inwards. If one thing strikes me more than anything else about what is needed with the freedoms that come from leaving the European Union and the complexities of recovering, at some stage, the economy post the Covid pandemic, it is that we will need to engender two things that will not come automatically.

The first is an entrepreneurial spirit. It is easy for politicians to talk about that but, when industrialists, business people and workers have been anchored down for so long with the pandemic and will continue to be in some way for some considerable time, entrepreneurship will not simply emerge quickly from nowhere; it will need encouraging, facilitating and inspiring.

The second thing, as part of that, will be the need for a new social contract, to use an old term in a modern setting, post Brexit. If those who own and work in our businesses are not on the same wavelength, with the same motivations and moving in the same direction, that entrepreneurship will be severely hampered. The innovations will be concepts rather than delivered goods and services that boost our economy. The Government need to decide whether we will be an economy that trades cheap and cheerful or as the best in the world. That choice will be made in the next 18 months and will last for many years to come.

I implore the Government to go inward into our industrial heartlands of the past, taking the message of this Trade Bill about what trade means and re-establishing that social contract—the message that we are all in this together. The UK, with its new freedoms, will prosper and thrive if we do so on the basis of being the best, rather than the cheap and cheerful back end of the industrial world, I hope that Ministers from this department will take the lead in doing that.

Agreement on Climate Change, Trade and Sustainability

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

My Lords, as I said earlier, we consider this subject to be very important. At the March 2020 WTO General Council, the Secretary of State for International Trade announced that the environment, including climate, was one of the three key priorities for UK ambition and leadership in its position as an independent member of the WTO.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the fact that the Government are considering closely the three policy areas referred to. I am also glad that the Minister keeps me informed of the discussions with New Zealand on a trade agreement. Given this very good proposal from the New Zealand Government, is there not an opportunity in the forthcoming trade agreement with New Zealand that we all hope for to make advances in these three key areas? If global Britain means anything, our trade agreement with New Zealand would be a very good place to start working on these three areas in particular.

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

My Lords, as always, the noble Lord is correct in these matters. We have a close relationship with New Zealand on trading matters; we tend to think alike. We certainly hope to advance these matters during our negotiations.