Trade Bill

Debate between Viscount Trenchard and Lord Cormack

Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 15th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, although I regret to say that I do not agree with a single word he said. The noble Lord, Lord Fox, is right in his belief that continuation of trade with the European Union requires a reasonable degree of free movement so that companies may dispatch their people, often at short notice, to engage with customers and potential customers for their services.

In Committee, my noble friend Lord Younger said the Government were seeking to agree mobility arrangements with the EU as are

“normally contained in the services part of a trade agreement”.—[Official Report, 13/10/20; col. 981]

Will my noble friend confirm that this is still the situation? Obviously we cannot continue unfettered free movement of people as we have had with EU countries, but we need to offer reasonable short-term entry permissions to EU citizens and to those of our other trade partners.

It is good that the UK-Japan EPA contains a mobility framework permitting UK companies to transfer their employees to live and work in Japan for up to five years. It also permits visa-free travel for short-term business visitors for up to three months in every six months. I regret that the EU has, as far as I know, offered short-term business visitors only up to a three-month stay in a 12-month period, which is rather less generous than the three-month stay in a six-month period which we have offered it.

I am a member of the EU Services Sub-Committee; we wrote in our report on professional and business services—referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty—that businesses need clarity on what is allowed while on business trips and how long they can stay. As the City of London Corporation explained in its evidence to the committee, the UK economy relies on the ongoing supply of international talent. The Government need to ensure that this supply continues into 2021 and beyond.

I regret that I cannot support this amendment because it seeks to compel the Government to introduce a mobility framework that would enable all UK and EU citizens to exercise the same reciprocal rights to work for the purpose of trade in services. I am not clear whether the noble Lord is talking about the same rights as have hitherto existed to travel within the single market or if he is simply seeking reciprocal rights on a third-country basis for the UK and the EU, which, as of now, I think the EU has not placed on the table.

As my noble friend Lady Noakes reminded your Lordships, we have left the EU. Some observers think that the EU will continue to use regulatory measures to try to enforce repatriation of capital markets’ business and other financial markets to the eurozone. That would be Europe’s loss and would be resisted by European borrowers in the international markets, particularly as Europe’s share of global markets continues to shrink. It is more important that the UK adopts business mobility rules which guarantee its openness to the world. This will help our services industries retain the world-leading position they hold today. If the EU declines a reciprocal mobility framework, that will be its loss more than ours. I cannot support this amendment.

[Lord Cormack (Con) [V]]

My Lords, unlike my noble friend, I can support this amendment. I was delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, said that sharing sovereignty is not the same as sacrificing it. I feel deeply frustrated this afternoon for all manner of reasons. It is the first time since July that I have taken part in a debate without being in the Chamber; the frustrations of this afternoon, which have meant that I have to speak to your Lordships over the telephone, fill me with admiration for those who make that possible— we are all very much in their debt—but underline the unsatisfactory nature of our current Parliament. The sooner we can all be in the Chamber, the better. I certainly intend, God willing, to be back in the Chamber immediately we return from the Christmas recess, although we do not know when that will be.

The noble Lord, Lord Fox, talked about the importance of movement. Several members of my family, including both my sons, are in service industries of one sort or another. Movement between the UK and the EU is essential to our prosperity as a nation. It beggars belief that the Government should be jeopardising that prosperity when we are in the deepest recession in 300 years. I cannot for the life of me understand why, when Covid struck, we did not press the pause button on our negotiations with our friends and allies—and they are both. Every nation in Europe is convulsed by Covid. It is the priority on every national leader’s agenda. For us to be coming down to the wire merely because of the mystical significance of 31 December is incomprehensible. Deadline politics is very rarely sensible or wise politics.

Those whose mobility is being frustrated are the very people on whom we will depend for our future: the innovative, the creative, those in the financial services and many others. The prospect of our leaving on 31 December without a deal—the Prime Minister tells us that is the most likely prospect—is a very harsh one. It makes me ashamed of my party and ashamed for my country. I just hope that, in this season of good will, some common sense and charity will prevail and a deal will be struck before or after 31 December, so that we can maintain proper convivial relations with our friends and allies in the European Union.

Of course we are out of the EU. I may regret that, but I do not think it practical that we can go back in, certainly not for very many years. We must make this work. We will make it work not by posturing but with true conviviality and a recognition that compromise is essential for progress in almost all walks of life. I am sorry not to be with noble Lords this afternoon. I cannot get back soon enough.

Agriculture Bill

Debate between Viscount Trenchard and Lord Cormack

Committee stage & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 23rd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

I strongly oppose Amendments 211, 213, 214, 215 and 216 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. These amendments seek to rename the red meat levy “the animal slaughter levy”, which seems to me completely unnecessary. Worse, she proposes that the money raised by the levy should go towards assisting farmers to transition from livestock farming to plant-based farming. As long as there is demand for meat in this country, her amendment would simply result in an increase in meat imports from overseas.

Does the Minister agree that these amendments have no place in this Bill and represent a misguided attempt to use taxpayers’ money to interfere with citizens’ freedom to eat meat if they want to? As well as creating the impression that eating meat is somehow bad or less good than eating vegetables, they cast aspersions on our excellent livestock farms and our meat-production industry. Besides, has the noble Baroness not seen the recent research that shows that vegetarians need to eat much greater quantities of food than meat- eaters to absorb enough protein to prevent muscle wastage as people age?

I understand the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hain, in Amendment 212. There is an argument that the levy should logically be applied at the point of slaughter. The argument supporting this amendment seems to derive from the fact that there are not so many abattoirs in the other three nations, and I would like to hear the Minister’s view on this point.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, who always speaks with wonderful, robust, basic common sense. He spoke for my wife when he talked of “The Archers”, and he spoke for me when he referred to the beguiling speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, who is a very popular Member of your Lordships’ House, and deservedly so. But I would say to her this: just watch it when it comes to pushing the vegetarian agenda. I am entirely happy for people to be vegetarian—I have a daughter-in-law, to whom I am devoted, who is a vegan—but that is by choice, and we should not use surreptitious means.

I am wholly in favour of the spirit of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, and seconded by the noble Lord, Lord Hain. There is a great deal of basic common sense in that, and I hope it will commend itself to my noble friend, if not in its precise form, then in a similar one.

We should be enormously proud of the quality of British meat. Welsh lamb was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hain, on a number of occasions—I love it, as well as Welsh and Scottish beef, and the wonderful lamb we produce in Lincolnshire. From all over the country comes marvellous produce. I think the favourite day of the month for my wife and me is going to the farmers’ market in Lincoln and buying quantities of good, home-produced meat, as well as other things.

I love vegetables; I have my five a day religiously. But we should not use legislation to try to undermine a great industry. We should take great pride not only in the quality of the meat produced in this country but in what can be done in this Bill to safeguard the lives of the farmers who produce it. Producing lamb in Wales is not the easiest of things, and there can be hardly anyone in your Lordships’ House who does not remember the terrible years after Chernobyl, when the Welsh farmers had such a very difficult time.

To my noble friend I say this. By all means, give strong support to Amendment 212, but beware of the wonderfully beguiling talents of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb.