Trade Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 29th September 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I will address the provisions of Amendment 3 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, and use this opportunity to ask the Minister a couple of questions.

One clear advantage of leaving the European Union was that we would leave behind the European procurement programme, which is very similar to this one. That would open up possibilities for our home producers of meat, cheese, dairy products and other products, particularly foodstuffs, to win contracts in our hospitals, schools, prisons and so on. The threshold that I remember was €135,000, but that may of course have changed with the passage of time.

Does the Bill limit the opportunities for small businesses and others to bid for contracts, particularly with public bodies such as schools, hospitals, prisons and others, or will the opportunities be exactly the same as we currently enjoy under the EU? Further, will my noble friend explain what the threshold will be? Will the threshold that we adhered to under the European Union be followed by the GPA, as we are already deemed to be members through our membership of the EU? Who will be party to setting the threshold and the conditions of procurement? I hope my noble friend will put my mind at rest that, as we transition out of the EU, there will be more and greater opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses to bid for these opportunities, not fewer.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I offer the Green group’s agreement with the legal aims of all noble Lords who have spoken so far. Amendments 1 to 5 seek to keep environmental and public health protections, and in particular workers’ rights protections. I note that there has been very strong support for Amendment 5. I offer support, too, for Amendments 100 to 102, because of the need for democratic control of this House—something that we seem to spend a lot of time talking about these days. I also agree very much with the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Bryan, about how they would keep basic minimum standards here, so it is very hard to see why the Government would disagree with any of them.

However, I can perhaps offer different sentiments to some of the ones expressed in the debate thus far. The noble Lord, Lord Lennie, said that we had seen a century of rising standards. That is broadly true if you start from the beginning and go to the end, but in recent decades there have been real falls in standards, and when we look at the state of the world, whether we consider the natural environment or the climate emergency, we see that there has been a massive degradation.

The noble Lord, Lord Fox, said that there is no point having trade that reduces our standards. I very much agree with that, but we have a real problem in that so much trade has done just that. On Friday, I was at the launch of a report by the Green House Think Tank and the Green European Foundation on trade and investment requirements for zero carbon, which set out how much damage trade has done historically. However, what we are debating are the amendments, and however much we might want to shape towards a trade world that has less trade in it but far better trade that does not build in environmental destruction and exploitation of workers, we do not want to go backwards. These modest amendments, as other noble Lords have said, seek modestly to ensure that we do not go backwards. I therefore commend them to the Committee.

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I agree entirely with the speech of my noble friend Lord Hain. We have moved a long way from when public contracts and the wages thereof were governed by the 1946 House of Commons fair wages resolution. We do not want to go back to those days, but we will if we are not careful.

Before making my main point, I want to reinforce the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, in her question about small traders. I agree with the sentiment behind her questions to the Minister, but in relation to schools, hospitals and prisons, there is an real ongoing problem: it is not possible to create a situation where someone can bid—or feel that they have a chance of bidding—for a particular prison or school, or for a group of prisons or schools, simply because we have devolved the administration and awarding of contracts to the lowest possible level; there is no central control. Small firms will miss out unless something is put into the process that allows them to benefit. On the other hand, I do not want to leave the EU, so I do not want small firms to benefit either way; there is a better way of reorganising the EU.

The only reason I asked to speak on this group is Amendment 100. It is another example of how this Government are constantly trying to make sure that this House does not get a voice. The Bill talks about scrutiny as a resolution of either House of Parliament. That is not good enough. The amendment would correct it: it should be each House of Parliament. The contempt shown by Ministers for the parliamentary scrutiny process is abysmal and on a massive scale, and it has to be pulled back constantly. The House of Commons will try to make that provision tomorrow, and we have to do it in this Bill. I therefore offer 100% support for Amendment 100.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)]

I call the noble Baroness, Baroness McIntosh of Pickering. No? I think the noble Baroness is unable to join us at this point, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I rise to speak primarily to Amendment 11, to which I attached my name, as moved by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, and in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. I thank the noble Lord for his very clear introduction.

We are well aware that compliance with international law is something of a sore point now, so on the basis of that sensitivity, one would hope that the Government would adopt this amendment as a matter of course. They have the opportunity, by agreeing with this amendment, to demonstrate their belief in the rule of law. However, it has to be said that we have, as the amendment includes, signed up to the sustainable development goals, but we are not on track to deliver a single one of them, even in our own country. UK trade and UK actions are damaging the push towards sustainable development goals all around the world. We need accountability and leadership, and we need a legal framework, which Amendment 11 would supply.

I will also speak briefly in support of Amendment 18, which seeks to guarantee the ILO conventions and the European Social Charter. Many years ago, I prepared a report for the ILO on child labour in Thailand. If I had needed a reminder of the importance of regulation, the rule of law and the risk of exploitation, I certainly had it with that. Given the reports that we have had from the garment sector in Leicester, those experiences are not as foreign as we might once have thought. Protecting workers’ standards around the world has impacts on workers’ standards in our own country.

I will also speak briefly in support of Amendment 33 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Alton. In doing so, I will quote another Member of your Lordships’ House, the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, in a meeting this morning of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong, of which I am a co-chair. He spoke of a sense of moral values being a bigger part of our foreign policy. I very much agree. I suggest that we also need to see that in trade policy, particularly in the purchasing practices of our Government. This amendment allows democratic oversight of key government procurement.

Finally, I will speak to Amendment 45 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, reflecting the need to undertake human rights and equalities impact assessments of all trade deals before and after implementation. I am very aware that noble Lords have not yet spoken to all these amendments—I am reflecting the written material —but the same argument applies as in Amendment 33, and also the comments I made in my first contribution to this Committee. “First do no harm” is a medical phrase that, if applied to trade over recent decades, would have produced far less trade and a far healthier, less poverty-stricken, more rights-respecting, less damaged world. Given the fragile state of this planet and its people, we have no alternative but to apply that principle in our future trade policies, and the amendments I have named take us some steps in that direction.

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 18, which develops one aspect of Amendment 11, so ably introduced by my noble friend Lord Stevenson and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett.

It is usual in free trade agreements to have a chapter which contains provisions on labour standards. Chapter 23 of the much-discussed EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement is typical. It requires each state party to ensure that its labour law and practices embody and provide protection for the fundamental principles and rights at work, which it lists as

“freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining; elimination of forced labour; abolition of child labour; elimination of discrimination”.

In that free trade agreement, the parties affirmed their commitment to respect, promote and realise those principles and rights, in accordance with the obligations of the members of the ILO and the commitments under the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, and its follow-up. They undertook that their labour law and practices would promote

“health and safety at work; minimum employment standards for wage earners, and non-discrimination in respect of working conditions, including for migrant workers.”

That is all very well, but it is not enough. The United Kingdom has ratified many ILO conventions, including the core conventions. Indeed, 70 years ago this summer it was the first nation on the planet to ratify fundamental ILO convention 98 on collective bargaining. However, its potential trading partners may not have such a fine record. The USA is sadly lacking in this respect. Any free trade agreement should require a prospective partner to ratify those conventions which the UK has ratified—otherwise, there will be asymmetry in labour standards.

Ratification by partners is not enough. We should insist that our prospective trading partners customarily observe standards we have ratified. That is an obligation in CETA too, which states:

“Each Party reaffirms its commitment to effectively implement in its law and practices in its whole territory the fundamental ILO Conventions that Canada and the Member States of the European Union have ratified respectively.”


That principle should apply to all the international treaty provisions that the UK has ratified, not just those of the ILO. We should therefore include those of the Council of Europe, its convention on human rights and the articles of the European Social Charter 1961, which we have ratified. Non-European states cannot ratify those provisions but they can certainly undertake to implement them. The effect, I hope, will be to uplift the labour standards of some potential trading partners to those we purport to uphold. It will also prevent the creation of an unbalanced playing field on labour rights, contrary to the level playing field that the Government claim to advance. Likewise, the free trade agreement should be compatible in all respects with the ILO conventions that this country has chosen to ratify; otherwise, standards can be watered down.

The amendment is surely uncontroversial in requiring that prospective FTA partners must uphold the sovereignty of Parliament, the authority of our courts, the rule of law and the principle of equality before the law. It is hard to conceive of a rational objection to the proposal that the minimum standards referred to in the amendment are required of any prospective trading partner, whatever may be said about our own Government’s record on these points. I ask the Government to ensure that these requirements are embodied in the Trade Bill.