Trade Bill

Lord Reid of Cardowan Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansarad): House of Lords
Monday 21st January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, would be valid only if this Bill were designed to give the Government a power to make a free trade agreement with a country such as Australia or New Zealand, but it is not. I participated at Second Reading, as did the noble Lord. Therefore, he will know that the Bill is designed as a continuity Bill. It is not a Bill to provide a power for establishing new free trade agreements, but to give the Government a power to ensure that the existing free trade agreements which the European Union has with third-party countries are able to be continued in law in this country after exit day. Much of that is already able to be incorporated into our law by virtue of the EU withdrawal Act, but some aspects would not. On that basis, this Bill is not, as most people in this debate seem to be saying, a mechanism by which to establish new free trade agreements with lots of new countries and we need therefore to know what the scrutiny process is; it is a continuity Bill and we should see it solely in that context.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

My Lords, I have only one brief point to make in response to our noble colleague the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. He said that this is an extraordinary procedure. That is because we live in extraordinary times. No one in this country would have imagined even two or three years ago that we would be standing on the eve of the biggest act of self-immolation in economic terms in some 80 years and yet have no plans for the future. I was going to say that the continuity of which has been spoken is a vacuum, but that is too substantial a word for it. It is the most extraordinary set of circumstances that we have seen in my memory, having been involved in politics for over 40 or 50 years, and every day it gets more extraordinary.

Quite apart from the Bill, this morning Downing Street was apparently briefing that the solution would be for Downing Street to amend the Good Friday agreement—forgetting that even if that course of action might commend itself to this House, the Good Friday agreement is the product of two sovereign nations in a bilateral agreement, along with an American President and eight parties in Northern Ireland itself. Yet they speak as though they are ordering a pizza—as if they can just phone up and suddenly the order will be changed. If the noble Lord worries about extraordinary measures taken by this House, he should seek to remove the Government from the extraordinary position of incompetence and blindfold Brexit in which they find themselves.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I would not pretend to know a great deal about trade, but this I do know: we live in extraordinary times, and it is all the more important that one sticks with constitutional procedures and the rule of law. Imagine if we had a different Government; it is extremely dangerous to play fast and loose with our established procedures. At this moment, we should be clinging to them; it is really important.

We cannot take back control until we leave on 29 March. Taking back control has always meant that we do so in relation to other countries, not that we fight internal warfare in this House and in the other House. We would not be in this position if the leadership of the party of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, who moved the amendment, had been more co-operative and constructive. We would not be in this position if the EU itself had been more constructive and co-operative. Its failure to do so is a sign of a lack of confidence in its own future.

It is absolutely essential that we stick with our constitutional procedures and do not play fast and loose with them, because imagine what would happen in a future circumstance with a future Government. That could be far worse, and we must proceed as our procedures require us to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, I rise to respond to the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness the Leader of the Opposition and to subsequent speakers. I note what the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, said about the roles of the usual channels and the Government, and the relationship between the two. I also note the comments of my noble friend Lord Strathclyde. However, I cannot allow the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Reid, about the Good Friday agreement, to go without comment. I have no hesitation in saying that what he reported to the House was completely untrue.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan]

My Lords, I am not sure that it was parliamentary to accuse another noble Lord of putting an untruth before the House. I said that we read reports this morning. The noble Lord might check the Daily Mail or the Daily Telegraph, for instance. I may be mistaken, but I would be grateful if the noble Lord would withdraw his comment that what I said was an untruth.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

All I said was that what the noble Lord reported was an untruth; he himself was not, perhaps, being untruthful. Those newspapers are not in my reading.

The House has heard the arguments made by the noble Baroness and subsequent speakers, and it will have to take the amendment she proposed at face value. However, it is difficult to understand why the House should agree to it. After all, we are shortly going to go into Committee, when all the arguments which have been expressed this afternoon will, no doubt, appear again in the form of amendments and in the debates that surround them. I can only agree with the comments about the Bill by my noble friend Lord Lansley.

The effect of the amendment is to prevent Report stage proceeding until a subjective condition has been fulfilled. I note that in recent weeks many noble Lords opposite have expressed their desire to continue with the Bill, apparently frustrated that the Committee was not scheduled to start earlier. Yet here is an amendment to delay the passage of the Bill. The oddest thing of all is that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, who is leading for the Opposition on the Bill, has tabled amendments covering the issues listed in the noble Baroness’s Motion. It seems pre-emptive of her to ask the House to reach such a conclusion now, before the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, has even started to make his case.