Trade Bill

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 6th October 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Blower (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am pleased to speak on Amendment 17, to which I have added my name.

While the history of trade negotiations may not be completely littered with the fragments of failed attempts, it is certainly the case that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, TTIP, failed, after several years of negotiations, to come to any conclusion. In Britain, much of the opposition was on the basis of the perceived—and I believe very real—threat to our NHS: the threat that the NHS would not survive as a public service and that the writ of privatisation would run ever more unchecked. I was pleased to hear a most eloquent speech from the noble Lord, Lord Patel, offering a catalogue of already privatised and outsourced elements from our NHS, and, significantly, pointing out the dangers that this posed.

Equally, the opposition to TTIP, not just in Britain but across Europe, focused, as my noble friend Lord Hendy said, on the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism—ISDS. My noble friend gave chapter and verse on the reasons for opposing ISDS. I concur with his remarks and associate myself with those of my noble friend Lord Hain.

Let me add a perspective from the United Nations, specifically from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. As the Committee might expect, ISDS features in UNCTAD reports. In May of this year, we find the following in one of its reports:

“Foreign investors have used ISDS claims to challenge measures adopted by States in the public interest (for example … to promote social equity, foster environmental protection or protect public health)”—


all issues close, I am sure, to the hearts of many in this House. The report goes on:

“Broad ISDS mechanisms typically used in old-generation”


international investment agreements

“provide for the contracting parties’ advance consent to international arbitration and are characterized by broad scope, few conditions for investors’ access to ISDS and a lack of procedural improvements. As ISDS is at the heart of the IIA reform process, in recent IIAs countries have carefully regulated ISDS and at times omitted it”

completely.

UNCTAD goes on to make a number of recommendations, but I shall confine myself to this one:

“Replacing ISDS by settling disputes in domestic courts and/or through State-State dispute settlement”.


In July, UNCTAD returned to the question and said:

“Policy responses taken by governments to address the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout could create friction with existing IIA obligations. This highlights the need to safeguard sufficient regulatory space … to protect public health and to minimize the risk of”


ISDS proceedings.

There are huge problems with the ISDS mechanism, from Philip Morris to the Portuguese metro and so many more. It would therefore be wise for the Government to heed the words of the United Nations—but, more so, to heed those of my noble friend Lord Hendy. ISDS should have no place in our future trade arrangements. I will listen extremely carefully and with great interest to the response from the Minister.

[Baroness Kramer (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 43 and 44, which again deal with dispute resolution. In a way, these amendments need to be seen together, because Amendment 44 is perhaps a patch on the current system, while Amendment 43 takes us forward towards a resolution so that we can structure a suitable mechanism for dispute resolution under trade agreements.

Amendment 44 requires that legal proceedings against the UK under an ISDS would be heard in the UK courts. Essentially, it picks up the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, that one of the recommendations of dealing with the most egregious aspects of ISDS is to throw the issues back into the domestic courts. It provides a patch that would help us get through this immediate set of problems, because suddenly transparency, fairness and respect for domestic law come into the picture.

I am not going to repeat all the arguments already made very powerfully by the noble Lords, Lord Hendy and Lord Hain, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, about the flaws in ISDS. I think we can all accept that it is generally regarded as unfit for purpose in a modern, complex economy, with trade agreements that now cover so many issues. We probably all share the concern that rolling over existing ISDS in continuity agreements is generally very undesirable because it sets such a clear precedent for using ISDS again in future trade agreements. I think we all have a particular eye on the US FTA negotiations and are very concerned about ISDS provisions appearing in that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grantchester (Lab)]

Amendment 20 is in my name and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for adding her name to it. It concerns the importance of food safety and quality, and how these issues are administered through government departments and agencies for these matters. This includes the importance of nutrition.

We are all rightly proud of the high agricultural and food standards in this country. Many people believe that trade must not undercut those standards, not only to maintain fair competition for agriculture, the food service and food manufacturing sectors—and the diverse food chain—but to maintain and improve the health benefits to consumers from transparent certified and production regulations. These latter points have been underlined by the Mail on Sunday in a letter from Jamie Oliver, the people’s chef, and PE teacher Joe Wicks. The letter, with wide public endorsement, does not want the Government to

“trade away our children’s futures”.

Alongside the letter, a Delta poll found that 68% of people believed that the most important priority for Britain is to maintain high standards for food, even if that meant some trade deals did not materialise.

Amendment 20 has an overreach into the Agriculture Bill, which passed all its stages in the House last week, now that it includes important provisions on this issue. “Food standards” includes not only food safety but production standards, environmental protections and welfare. In this amendment, these regulated standards are administered by the named government department —the Department of Health—and the other executive agency, the Food Standards Agency, including Food Standards Scotland.

We all know the threat post by a potential trade agreement with America and Australia, for example. Although the Bill technically deals with precursor agreements, nevertheless it is important to clarify that these also pass these most stringent tests as they develop. In the case of Japan, these rollover deals can go further. It is material to this debate that the US has 10 times the level of food poisonings that exist in Europe.

The Global Economic Governance Programme of Oxford University has reported that as the Government transferred the entire acquis of EU law into UK law through the withdrawal Act, substantial decision-making powers were conferred on UK Ministers to amend the legislation. That includes amendments through secondary legislation, which carries far less scrutiny in its procedures than primary legislation. There are anxieties around the claimed certainty of the withdrawal Act, heightened by the Government’s bringing forward the internal market Bill, now with further amendments proposed and inserted into the Bill at a very late stage in its Commons consideration. That is why so little credibility is attached to the many protestations from the Government that their word that they will maintain the UK’s high standards in its negotiations can be relied upon. May I stress to the Minister that he reconsider his often-repeated assurances, since they are not being developed into meaningful, transparent procedures and are in themselves inadequate?

This amendment, under proposed new paragraph (e), also has cognisance of future dangers through antimicrobial resistance—AMR—on which UK agriculture has already demonstrated admirable awareness by reducing antibiotic usage considerably over recent years. I also underline proposed new paragraph (g), which draws attention to the issue of labelling, country of origin specifications and the importance of branding through geographical indicator schemes, which have proven so successful in driving high-quality exports. It would be helpful to have the Minister’s comments on the record that these provisions will continue to be recognised through continuity agreement enhancements.

Although it was not initiated by me, I have added my name to Amendment 23, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, and other noble Lords, and I will speak only momentarily to it. The Government themselves brought forward this amendment on Report of the previous Trade Bill, which was so graciously steered through your Lordships’ House by the noble Baroness, Lady Fairhead. It was good to see her attending this Committee, and I look forward to hearing from her later. Our Benches were part of the cross-party consensus on which that government amendment was based. I am sure that, through these amendments, other proposers will underline the key necessity of maintaining statutory protections. Only 18 months on, can the Minister give cogent reasons why the Government should now wish to discard this important safeguard?

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and other noble Lords for their supporting Amendments 24 and 25; I will speak to my Amendment 56 in this group. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and my noble friend Lord Rooker for adding their names to this amendment. While it may appear onerous, I consider it important that government must produce a register that can ensure equivalence and a transparent baseline for a level playing field. That would be another way for the Government to deliver on their election promise to maintain the UK’s high agricultural, environmental, plant health and animal welfare standards.

My Amendment 67 in this group goes further by recognising the importance of animal sentience. The Government have agreed to introduce a measure recognising this to ensure that all future legislation on the welfare of animals is assessed against that standard. While the amendment does not seek to be the whole answer to this issue and does not define animal sentience, nevertheless it would be helpful to hear from the Minister what now is the Government’s view on this and when they might bring forward a specific Bill.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for her Amendment 74 in this group and commend her for the thorough way she approaches the issues at all times—that ratification of trade agreements must be compatible and have equivalence with UK standards. The key approach of all these amendments is that modern trade agreements allowing imports of food into this country have to reflect the quality of food to which all domestic food must comply. Why allow substandard food that would be condemned here to be imported into the UK? This needs to be enshrined in legislation. I beg to move.

[Baroness Kramer (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 23 in particular. All the amendments in this group have very similar goals—they just choose rather different avenues for achieving them.

Amendment 23 would require that trade agreements maintain UK statutory levels of protection for human, animal or plant life or health, animal welfare, the environment, employment and labour. I join noble Lords in supporting the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, who, along with the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, and I, is a signatory to this amendment. He said that upholding standards should not be a matter of trust. We live in a country where important principles are reinforced in law and in statute. That is exactly what this amendment tries to do; I suspect that the other amendments in this group are trying to do the same.

I particularly support this amendment because, as the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, said, it uses the exact language of a government amendment agreed on a cross-party basis and introduced into the Trade Bill in 2019. On that basis, one would think that the Government would have no problem with it, yet they have removed that language from the Bill. That act of removal is very powerful. Choosing to omit a clause—in effect, withdrawing it—sends a message. I am sure that those countries with whom we are negotiating trade deals, whether they are continuity deals or future deals, have taken note. I am very sure that the United States has taken note of the decision to remove this language and the clause. As we know, actions speak louder than words. I also take the view that, if Amendment 23 does not apply to continuity agreements, why would anyone negotiating a future agreement suddenly insist that the precedent should be broken?

In this context, I want to pick up a point made by the noble Viscount, Lord Younger of Leckie, in the debate on an earlier amendment. He said that regulatory standards are not set in trade Bills. For many years, I worked in the United States as a banker in two major companies. I can tell the noble Viscount that his description will be real news to American companies, which have a long history of using dispute resolution mechanisms in trade Bills to achieving particular policies regardless of whether they override domestic legislation. As we look forward to negotiating a US-UK FTA, we must be well aware that everything we do will make that conversation either more difficult or easier.

In the United States, a complex mix of federal and state regulators set and uphold a wide range of standards. The fragmentation is one of the reasons why the US is so successful at keeping out imports; few exporters want to take on the highly complex US federal and state court systems. In the United States, where there is a very different culture, in nearly every company, there is a real taste for aggressive litigation. Many companies have deep pockets in which large amounts of money are set aside for litigation, making such companies effective at intimidating negotiating partners. In effect, they export US standards regardless of domestic legislation elsewhere.

We are in a period when trade is a tense issue. Historically, we would probably have said that most major developed countries would avoid trade battles with each other. We are not in that period any more. The US is at present taking a very aggressive view towards trade protectionism, and any kind of loophole or weakness within any trade deal will be fully exploited. When we say that we must have safeguards to protect our standards, I hope that the Government will recognise that that protection must extend to this Trade Bill.