Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Bill

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I commend the hon. Member for Bath for bringing this Bill forward. That is a lot of work, and it is difficult, but it is great to be able to work across the Committee to do it.

The statistics about how many women in customer-facing roles in particular face sexual harassment are shocking. I think most of us who have been in that position recognise the gravity of that. It has been a pleasure to serve on the Committee. I recognise the serious nature of this legislation, and I wish the hon. Lady well with the passage of the Bill.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Bath for bringing forward this Bill, which is particularly important in stressing the employer’s liability. Most of us—most women, certainly—have faced some sort of sexual harassment in the workplace at some point in our careers, and one of the main issues was that it was much easier to solve it quietly or sweep it under the carpet because the employer had no liability to act. This Bill is a great step forward in tackling workplace sexual harassment and changing that culture, which is so insidious. We must recognise it and ensure that action is taken.

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I rise to support the Bill, but I also want to say a few words about the hon. Member for Bath. She was elected in 2017, a few years after me, and has been a doughty champion for women’s rights. This is not the first time she has brought such a Bill to the House. In 2018, she introduced a very good private Member’s Bill about upskirting and the things that we turn a blind eye to. That private Member’s Bill was supported by the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), and the extent of cross-party support demonstrates how strong the Bill was.

The hon. Member for Bath has worked really hard on abortion rights as well as on eating disorders, which are becoming more of an issue in society. They have always been an issue but are highlighted now more than ever because of the effect of social media. Another strand of her work is on violence against women. Even though we are not in the same party, I am very proud that she is in Parliament, because these issues are important for women and for society, and we have to fight for them and legislate on them, as all Members have said.

Sadly, a lot of young women have come to believe that sexual harassment is an unavoidable fixture of the workplace, and that is not how it should be; I will come on to talk about LGBTQ workers and women in the workplace who come from ethnic minority backgrounds. I am also supporting the Bill on behalf of our children who have not yet come into the workplace, so that when they do they will, hopefully, not have to see, experience or be a victim of sexual harassment.

It has been 16 years since the #MeToo movement started and five years since it was relaunched on social media. Here we are, 16 years later, still trying to legislate against harassment. I am not sure whether we should be celebrating, but it feels like it has taken a very long time to get here. The fact that we are here probably should be celebrated; at least we are doing something about the issue.

Transgender Conversion Therapy

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree with me that there is ample evidence to show that transgender people submitted to any form of that conversion therapy potentially suffer greater psychological impacts, including harmful outcomes and lifetime suicide attempt risks?

[Elliot Colburn]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady. I have had the privilege of listening to many survivors who have come forward to share their stories—I am sure many people in this place have—and those stories demonstrate just that fact.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Thursday 21st April 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Trade Policy (Penny Mordaunt)]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. UK exports to that country were up 7.2% on the previous year. He will know that recently we have had a UK-led consortium committing $8 billion of investment into telecoms, which will significantly increase growth and jobs and help the digital economy in that country. I thank him again for the role that he played in securing that investment.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

T5. This morning, much has been made of our links with Ukraine, and that comes at a time when the Prime Minister is in India for trade talks. We also hear reports of a $2 billion increase in India’s trade with Russia. What implications does that have for our relationship with India and for our sanctions on Russia? Will that be taken into account in the Prime Minister’s dealings? Will he be putting pressure on India to sanction Russia?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

I am really pleased that the Prime Minister is able to be in India today and tomorrow to discuss broad matters of trade and to support the Department’s work to bring together a really comprehensive trade deal with India in the months ahead. He is also there to discuss the international situation. He has a good relationship with Prime Minister Modi, and I know that he will discuss all these issues. The UK, the US and the EU have been working in close concert to bring together a series of sanctions, limitations and export bans, and the Prime Minister will discuss with Prime Minister Modi what we have been doing in the UK, with the US. They will continue to take the direction that they need for their economy.

Trade (Disclosure of Information) Bill

Christine Jardine Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 16th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I echo much of what the Labour and SNP spokespeople have said. There is little that can be added, certainly with the Bill being brought forward in the manner that it is today and the time that we have. That is indicative of the shambles of the Government’s handling of our exit from the EU and the end of the transition period. I am not sure how the Government expect industry and business to be prepared for 1 January when this expedited legislation illustrates just how unprepared the Government themselves appear to be for the end of the transition period.

The Liberal Democrat party and I agree that we do need, upon leaving the EU, legislation to make trade deals with other countries, but perhaps we are in this situation because many of us do not agree that the Trade Bill—the original Trade Bill—is the way to do it. It has failed on several counts, but particularly in setting out proper procedures for parliamentary consultation, scrutiny and approval of future international trade agreements.

This Bill is, as the Minister said, necessary in order to allow our authorities to function properly on 1 January. However, if the Government expect, understandably, this place to recognise the need for flexibility to cope with this lack of preparedness, surely businesses and companies across the country should be able to expect a similar understanding. I appeal to the Government to recognise, and urge the Minister to take back to his colleagues, the need for an adjustment period for businesses to implement change, because if we are going to accept that this is a difficult period, as it is because of the lack of the deal on which we are still waiting for word, then surely business can demand the same sort of understanding that the Government are asking of the House.

Trade (Disclosure of Information) Bill

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 16th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

I wish to speak to amendment 1,

tabled in my name, and to some of the other clauses.

During the passage of the incomplete Trade Bill there were, as the Minister will have seared into his soul, a number of debates and amendments—I think amendments 33 and 34—relating to the requirement to collect data by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, specifically with regard to the exclusion of protection of legal professional privilege, which in many other circumstances would have applied. The same issue to some extent arises, in terms of the disclosure of information, in clause 2(7) of the Bill. It states:

“A disclosure under this section does not breach— (a) any obligation of confidence owed by the person disclosing the information, or (b) any other restriction on the disclosure of information (however imposed).”

The explanatory notes make it very clear that

“Certain information held by specific public authorities are subject to constraints on disclosure. To enable sharing of this information, clause 2(7) provides a general disapplication of these restrictions.”

If I may, I will just remind the Minister what was said in previous debates on this matter. Legal professional privilege and confidentiality are essential to safeguard the rule of law and the administration of justice. They permit information to be communicated between a lawyer and client without the fear of it going to a third party without the clear permission of the client. In normal circumstances, that includes HMRC. Many UK statutes already give express protection of legal privilege and it is vigorously protected by the courts.

We are in a rather odd position where data can be collected and is required to be collected, and where legal professional privilege has been disregarded entirely. We are now in a position where clause 2(7) disregards legal privilege in terms of the disclosing or sharing of that information. The Minister may well pray in aid some of the limited protections that are offered in clause 2, but if I run through them I suspect we might conclude they are not quite as strong as the Minister might like to think they are. The explanatory notes state:

“Clause 2(8) confirms that nothing in this section authorises the disclosure of information which would contravene data protection legislation or which is prohibited under the Investigatory Powers Act 2016.”

So far, so good—that is helpful, but very, very narrow. Others may say that it is only specified public authorities who can disclose or share information. They are specified in clause 2(3) as: the Secretary of State, the Minister for the Cabinet Office, a strategic highways company, or a port health authority constituted in a particular way. However, clause 2(9) states:

“A Minister of the Crown may by regulations made by statutory instrument amend this section for the purpose of specifying a public authority in, or removing a public authority from, subsection (3).”

Therefore, any number of other bodies could be added to that list. The other protection one could point to would be to say, “Ah, but they can be added if they are dealing with functions relating to trade.” They include:

“the analysis of the flow of traffic, goods and services...the analysis of the impact, or likely impact, of measures or practices…the design, implementation and operation of such measures”,

and so on. Those three specifics, however, are prefaced by:

“Those functions include, among other things, functions relating to”.

That allows it to be completely open-ended. It is not a comprehensive or complete list. As anyone watching will know, trade is no longer simply about traffic flows, the number of containers, quota and tariffs. It is about a whole range of things: all sorts of regulations, security, immigration and goodness knows what.

The provision is vague and ill-defined. It strikes me as being subject to scope creep by regulation. Fundamentally, it includes clause 2(7)(a) and (b), which is a get out of jail free card insofar as it disapplies the normal protections of information being disclosed, which would be subject in many other circumstances, including in statute, to legal professional privilege. That is actually a problem in the long run, but not necessarily in the short run as it allows us to get over an immediate hurdle where data must be shared. I appreciate that but, in the long run, how on earth can we say that we are a law-abiding country and that we want to adhere to the international legal system—the rule of law internationally—when we have here the disapplication of fundamental rights and protections for people not to have their information, normally subject to legal protection, shared, collected, distributed and disseminated. When the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) asked whether a private body could act as a public authority, the answer seemed to be that, yes, it could. That means that we could have a private body—a private company of indeterminate origin and a very small book value—doing something on behalf of the public, acting as a public authority, where the normal protection of data, which it may be provided with to fulfil its role, has the normal protections of legal privilege disapplied in statute.

Time is short. I know that this is urgent, I am not stupid, but this is actually serious. We cannot have a Government riding roughshod over legal protection, legal privilege, in this way over such a short period of time just because they have failed to get their ducks in a row and a proper functioning Trade Bill through where everything joins up.

It is not my intention, Dame Rosie, to press amendment 1 to a vote, but I do hope that the Minister takes seriously what I have just said and understands the possible consequences, particularly if it is private bodies acting as public authorities which have disapplied from them everything in terms of protection other than data protection and whether it would breach one other piece of named legislation. That is a serious and bad place to be.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I will not take the House’s attention for long. Again, I find myself in agreement. The Liberal Democrats have serious reservations about the original Trade Bill, but we recognise that, through no fault of this House, the Bill has to be expedited. We need some form of data protection and for our authorities be able to use the data effectively, so we are prepared not to go along with this Bill, but to accept that we need it and that we need it by 1 January. We are in this situation simply because the negotiations with the European Union have not gone in the way that the Government had assured us they would and because the situation has not been handled by the UK Government as expertly as we might have hoped.

[Greg Hands]

I will, if I may, respond to those points. I thank Members for making them and for participating in this Committee debate.

Taking the points in turn, the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) asked about instances covered by clause 2(7). As he noted, reference to investigatory powers legislation is absent from the Trade Bill. That is a minor drafting error. I should have made that clear. An equivalent change will be made to the Trade Bill in due course during its passage.

The hon. Gentleman asked a series of more general questions about borders and ports and I will try to answer those as best I can, recognising that almost all of his questions are within the remit of other Departments, rather than the Department for International Trade.

The hon. Gentleman asked how the border operations centre will assist the movement of medicines and vaccines. That will be a key part of the priorities that we have set for the border after 1 January, to ensure that vital goods continue to flow quickly and efficiently. I will give an example of the sort of data that would be within scope for the border operations centre, assuming that the Bill becomes law. The ability to analyse customs declarations, transit declarations, export declarations, safety and security declarations and things such as highways data would, I think, allow medicines and vaccines to be moved more quickly and more efficiently than would otherwise be the case without the data.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stewart Hosie]

I would be delighted to take this opportunity to make the briefest of Third Reading speeches and to return to a theme that has typified this entire debate. Notwithstanding the need to be able to share data or to have the legal basis on which to do so, it is completely wrong to rush this through with potentially hours, or possibly a day or so, before the House rises for recess and barely a fortnight before the full horrors of Brexit come on to the British people and business in this country.

This is a lesson for us all in the future: there must be a better way of dealing with technical matters, even ones that come up urgently, than today’s very short and expedited debate. I hope that, as the Minister said in Committee, the Trade Bill gets its Royal Assent soon enough that the dangers implicit in this—temporary, I hope—legislation with a long sunset clause do not come to fruition.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

[Christine Jardine]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, I thank you for your indulgence and your patience, and I ask your advice on a matter that has come to my attention today that is of great importance not only to my constituent, Murray Gray, but to a number of constituents, mostly children, who are currently in receipt of private prescriptions for medicinal cannabis. I have had confirmation today that the Department of Health and Social Care says that those prescriptions will not be permissible after 1 January, so a number of patients will find themselves without medication. I wondered whether there is some way that could be raised as an urgent matter to be discussed by the House, and that we could hear from the Department, before the House rises for recess.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the hon. Lady for that point of order. It is not really a matter for the Chair, but she is a very experienced Member of the House and I am sure she will talk to the Table Office about the different ways she might raise this matter, perhaps through written questions or directly with Ministers. Obviously, the Treasury Bench has heard what she has to say, so I trust that she will do that as quickly as she can. It is also business questions tomorrow, and she may wish to raise it there.

I will now suspend the House for three minutes in order to allow the safe entry and exit of right hon. and hon. Members.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jayawardena]

That is a great and typically thoughtful question. The TAC includes representative bodies from the length and breadth of Britain, so I encourage young farmers and others to continue to share their views with those bodies, which work proactively to provide insight to us and the TAC. Indeed, as my hon. Friend says, many young farmers—such as Jonty and Claudia in the Cheshire Young Farmers Club in my hon. Friend’s county and Tom Janaway in the National Farmers Union in mine—are already actively involved in sharing their views.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

What assessment she made of the potential effect of the free trade agreement with Japan on the UK’s progress on meeting its climate change commitments.

[The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)]

The UK-Japan agreement locks in the benefits of the EU-Japan deal, including provisions on climate change such as those that reaffirm our respective commitments to the UN framework convention on climate change and the Paris agreement; those that promote trade in low-carbon goods and services; and those that support co-operation on trade and climate.

[Christine Jardine [V]]

Although I am disappointed with some aspects of the Japan trade agreement, such as the provisions on data, I am heartened that there is no investor-state dispute settlement clause in the new UK-Japan FTA, as ISDS has been used by large corporations to sue Governments over environmental regulations on issues such as water pollution, deforestation and fracking. Will the Minister confirm that, to protect our natural environment, the UK will not seek such an arrangement with either Japan or any other new trading partners after Brexit?

[Greg Hands]

I thank the hon. Lady for that question. I ought to add first of all that we really welcomed the announcement that Japan made on Monday, in advance of COP26, that it will be seeking to become carbon neutral by 2050. On her question about ISDS, I will be frank. This country is already party to ISDS with dozens of agreements, but let us recognise that the UK has never lost a case brought against it in ISDS. It is something that is there as much to protect British businesses trading abroad as it is for foreign investors in this country, so her alarmism about ISDS is misplaced.

Continuity Trade Agreements: Parliamentary Scrutiny

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

The shadow Secretary of State has come out with some extraordinary comments in recent times. That particular one sounded like it was verging on Trumpian mercantilism. My hon. Friend is right that, at a time of growing protectionism, trade provides economic security at home and opportunities abroad. It is a key part of the Government’s levelling-up agenda. Trade is very much part of this country’s future, as are trade agreements.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I am afraid I cannot share the relief of the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison) that we have a Conservative Government, because as we move closer to the end of the transition period, my constituents, and constituents and businesspeople all over this country, are increasingly worried about their inability to secure the deals and the clarity needed. As a Scot, I am not a nationalist, so my views cannot be dismissed as wanting to undermine the interests of Scotland in the United Kingdom, so can the Minister give us some indication of where these deals are going to come from, how they will be settled and what scrutiny they will have in this place?

[Greg Hands]

I urge the hon. Member to judge us by our actions, not just our words. We have done continuity agreements with 52 countries, which account for £142 billion-worth of bilateral trade. On top of that, we have done a bespoke bilateral deal with Japan, which is the first stand-alone UK free trade agreement that this country has negotiated in 40 years. She should welcome the actions that we have taken to secure the future of these trade agreements and, in the case of Japan, improve on them.

Japan Free Trade Agreement

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD) [V]]

I thank the Secretary of State for prior sight of her statement. Yes, we also welcome the trade deal, but I have two serious concerns. First, it seems to simply mirror what we have with the EU, and, apart from symbolic wins on things such as Stilton cheese, the Government have failed to leverage any real, meaningful benefits. Also, given that the deal has stricter state aid regulations than the disputed ones in the EU proposals, do the Government actually have a trade strategy?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I urge the hon. Lady to look beyond the EU—90% of global growth is coming from beyond the EU. Both Japan and the wider Pacific region, which is a fast-growing area, are vital for Britain’s future economy. Of course we want a deal with the EU, but that should not stop us doing advantageous deals with fast-growing parts of the world and working with allies to put forward the cause of free and fair trade.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Thursday 3rd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We have to remember that we actually answer questions, rather than keep asking them.

I call Matt Vickers. Not here.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

We have heard warm words today from the Government Benches about cheese and the food and drink industry, yet we need reassurances in Scotland more than just warm words about trade deals. The Scotch whisky industry has lost a third of its exports to the United States since the 25% tariff was introduced. What are the Government actually doing to support the industry, which is vital not only to my constituency but to just about every constituency in Scotland?

Sale of Arms: War in Yemen

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Monday 13th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

The revised methodology takes into account all the decisions by the Court of Appeal. Were these historic incidents part of a pattern? Even if we could not answer in every incident, we should at least attempt to do so. That is the question the revised methodology is seeking to answer—and I believe does answer—so that we can move forward.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

The Saudis are currently taking part in the action in Yemen as part of a coalition. They are also part of a coalition involved in the blockade of Qatar. That is not currently a military action, but what guarantees do the Government have that arms sold to the Saudis for use in Yemen will not be used against another of our allies elsewhere in the middle east?

[Greg Hands]

I am not aware of there being any conflict at the moment in that space, but clearly we look at these matters as part of the criteria against which we assess export licences.