Comprehensive Economic Partnership (EUC Report)

Baroness Henig Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Henig (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Darroch, on his excellent speech. Clearly, he will be a great asset in future debates in your Lordships’ House, and I look forward to hearing from him.

This is an important deal for the United Kingdom, but it also raises significant issues relating to scrutiny, as my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith and the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, have said. Effective scrutiny requires access to clear and relevant information. I turned first to the Government’s impact assessment and read it with increasing frustration and bewilderment. I found it turgid, difficult to follow and very unhelpful. It clearly was not aimed at a Back-Bench Member of the Lords such as me, seeking to understand the key aspects of this deal. Who was the impact assessment aimed at and why was it written in the way it was?

I felt better when I read the verdict from the International Agreements Sub-Committee on the assessment, that it

“fails to provide the information that Parliament and the public need if they are to evaluate”

the benefits of the agreement, and that it left many questions unanswered. The committee further cautioned the Government not to oversell their achievements, and I would endorse that, having followed the infamous Twitter debate about duty on soy sauce, which caused huge interest on the internet. It illustrated very clearly the dangers for the Government of inviting ridicule over their inflated claims. I note that the Minister agreed that her original tweet was an error, and she put it down to a display of exuberance. We really need to be able to access sober and realistic financial and economic analysis from the Government on trade deals.

In contrast, the report of the International Agreements Sub-Committee was excellent: clear, informative and helpful in its assessments. However, there is still one issue where I am unclear about what impact the agreement may have—along, I think, with many other noble Lords —in relation to the new provisions on international data flows. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, I have seen it suggested that these provisions will endanger a deal on data adequacy with the EU, which many businesses say will be crucial to them. Can the Minister clarify the Government’s position on that issue?

I note that other provisions hinge on a deal with the EU for their effectiveness, especially in Northern Ireland. Has the Minister any updates for us on the EU negotiations, given how close we are to the wire on that one?

I was extremely concerned to hear about the time pressures that the International Agreements Sub-Committee felt that it was under in scrutinising this treaty and hearing from a sufficiently broad range of experts. Clearly, more time is going to be needed in this area. I have in the past suggested that trade deals should be accompanied by an independent expert assessment of the main issues covered in a deal. Is that something that might assist the committee in its future treaty scrutiny? I think that those of us who are not members of that committee would find an independent report and the committee’s assessment of it, alongside the Government’s impact assessment, very helpful.

I also query whether a three-hour debate such as we are having now is sufficient time for Back-Bench scrutiny, especially in future, when the treaty is not mainly rolled over but may be a completely new agreement.

Finally, I mention involvement of NGOs and trade bodies. We have had useful feedback from some of those bodies that were consulted, such as the City of London Corporation, the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford and Which? I very much agree with Which? about the importance of safeguarding consumer rights and protections in future deals. I also agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Fairhead, who stressed recently in Committee on the Trade Bill the importance of engagement with wider audiences. I know that some trade bodies are regularly in contact with the Department for International Trade, but many are not on official lists, and it will be vital in future to mobilise as wide a range as possible of businesses and commerce effectively behind future trade deals. I agree very much with the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, on that one.

I have a suggestion for the Minister. The treaty with Japan has as one of its objectives to pave the way for the United Kingdom to join the CPTPP. That will raise issues far more fundamental and complicated for businesses and consumers than anything in this largely rolled-over treaty. The text of the CPTPP is already in the public domain, so there is nothing to stop the Government openly engaging and consulting on it and inviting a wide range of businesses, NGOs and trade bodies to participate in preliminary discussions. That would be a clear demonstration that the Government are serious in their desire to consult widely and engage fully in their future trade negotiations, not just with Parliament but with the wider business community and consumers.