Agreement Establishing an Economic Partnership Agreement between the Eastern and Southern Africa States and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Baroness Verma Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2019 Lords Chamber

The final element with regard to the committee’s report is, in conclusion, that I hope that the points that have been raised can be addressed by the Government. It would be unwelcome to have to use the extreme measures under the CRaG process to try to delay the implementation of some of those agreements. That is not my intention; my intention is to bring this to the Chamber to allow there to be a debate in which these issues can be aired. Finally, I hope, as I said when I started, that when it comes to other agreements the Government intend that there will be an opportunity for them to be laid in the Chamber so that Members will have an opportunity to raise them. When it comes to agreements that represent more than 0.1% of UK trade, there could be major issues that we would need to discuss beyond simply having a report mechanism and moving an extreme action against the agreements. I hope that the Government will consider these issues as constructive and will welcome the opportunity for them to be raised. In so doing, I again pay tribute to the EU Select Committee, which has done a sterling job in making sure that these issues have been properly scrutinised.

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

My Lords, I rise as a member of the European Union Select Committee, which has reported on these agreements, and as chair of the External Affairs Sub-Committee, which considered the Chile and eastern and southern Africa states agreements. The committee’s 31st report is tagged alongside the three Motions. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, for recognising the hard work that the Select Committee does. There are one or two areas that he mentioned that I may refer to during my brief intervention.

I begin by pointing out that tonight’s debate is the first of its kind. Since parliamentary scrutiny of treaties was codified in statute in Part 2 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, neither House has debated a Motion like those that are being debated tonight. It was due to Brexit and the need for the Government to roll over a large number of existing EU international agreements that the Procedure Committee recognised the need for Parliament to scrutinise these agreements and decided that the European Union Committee should take on that task.

It has been a major task, and staff from across the EU committees have worked long and hard to ensure that we could deliver on that task. Today, we published our sixth report in six weeks. It scrutinised another, still more complex, agreement: the UK-Swiss trade agreement. This is demanding work for the committee, so it is important that noble Lords engage more widely in our findings. As a committee, we welcome tonight’s debate regardless of whether, as individual members, we support the Motions introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis. Having this debate shows that the House understands the importance of these agreements and that it is prepared to commit time and resources to doing a proper job of scrutiny. It also puts down a marker for the future, when the Government may enter into fresh negotiations on major new trade deals with the United States or with other countries, that the House of Lords intends to be fully engaged. I hope tonight’s debate will be the first of many.

I will now briefly recap the points made by the committee on these treaties. I emphasise that we have not recommended that they should not be ratified—far from it. But we have raised some points that merit further debate, and I look forward to my noble friend the Minister’s response. First, there is the scale and sequencing of the Government’s programme of rollover trade agreements. The three agreements that we are considering tonight are tiny, representing in total around one-quarter of 1% of UK trade. The Swiss agreement, which I have just mentioned, is of course much bigger, so that is welcome progress. But important agreements with Japan, Canada and South Korea have yet to materialise. We would like to know when they will appear. If we leave the EU on 29 March, which will mean the default position in law, how will the Government mitigate the risk of disruption to the terms of UK trade?

Next we highlight the inconsistency of consultation with the devolved Administrations, which the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, referred to. We understand, of course, that international trade is a reserved competence. But, as the department’s recent paper on parliamentary scrutiny of international agreements acknowledges, trade intersects with many areas of devolved competence. The devolved Administrations should not be closed out of the process. The Government’s approach to consultation has been patchy. The devolved Administrations have been shown drafts of some non-trade agreements—such as the agreement with Ireland on social security and the agreement with Switzerland on citizens’ rights—but have not been shown drafts of the DIT’s rollover trade agreements. Is the Minister able to respond to that? If the aim of these agreements is to ensure continuity of the existing terms of trade, there is no need for secrecy.

The Welsh Government have written to us to say that the Government’s approach to these agreements has fallen very short of their expectations and that it should not set a precedent for the handling of future free trade agreements. Will my noble friend the Minister undertake that drafts of future rollover agreements—or at least relevant sections—will be shared with the devolved Administrations?

We also raised the question of the modification of free trade agreements. Ratification is not the end of the process. These agreements can be subject to amendments and modifications, so ongoing engagement with stakeholders and with Parliament is essential. As a committee, we have repeatedly asked for clarity on when amendments to agreements will engage the CRaG Act procedures, but we have yet to receive a convincing answer. Will the Minister undertake that the Government will state clearly in future Explanatory Memoranda the circumstances in which amendments to agreements will or will not engage the CRaG Act?

I note that we are tonight well beyond the point at which agreements could have been laid in time to complete the full 21 sitting-day CRaG scrutiny process before 29 March. Is my noble friend able to explain how the Government will approach scrutiny of future rollover agreements? Can she say whether in some cases agreements will be provisionally applied ahead of formal ratification, and how will the Government deal with those that cannot be provisionally applied?

As I said, scrutinising these agreements within the time limits prescribed in the CRaG Act has been a big piece of work. I realise that discussions on future parliamentary scrutiny are continuing and I welcome the DIT’s paper of two weeks ago. It showed a willingness to engage with committees earlier in the process. However, we need earlier, fuller scrutiny, and I hope that in her response the Minister will indicate her readiness to engage with noble Lords across the House, and with the EU Select Committee in particular, in developing those ideas.