Trade Bill

Claire Hanna Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tuesday 19th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con) [V]]

I wish to make some brief comments about three of the amendments, including amendment 3 on genocide. I have listened to some excellent speeches from colleagues across the House who have made a clear and passionate case for the amendment, and I agree, of course, that states that engage in genocide must face serious consequences for their actions, including in trade. In addition to arguments about the separation of powers, which have already been made, I have serious concerns about the practicalities of amendment 3 and about the amendment in lieu.

The amendment refers to a preliminary ruling by the High Court, but it is not clear what that means in this context, or how authoritative it would be. Neither is it clear how the court would deal with the applications that are envisaged. The amendment sets out who could bring an action, but not who the respondent would be. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) said earlier, it is hard to see the respondent being the foreign Government in question. Would it be the UK Government instead, and if so, how would they present a case about the behaviour of a foreign Government, of whom they are likely to have been critical? All that needs to be clarified before such a change in legislation could be contemplated.

Amendment 7 deals with the protection of children online. I cannot support the amendment as drafted, because I think its drafting contains the seeds of potential conflict between current and future parliamentary judgments, and potentially between parliamentary and ministerial authority. I also think that the concerns it expresses are more relevant to trade deals that are not covered by the Bill, although I entirely support and share those concerns.

The Government have made important and welcome progress in their plans to reduce and remove so-called online harms, and offer real protection to children and others from harassment, abuse, manipulation, and misery. It is that progress that Baroness Kidron, who tabled the amendment in the other place, and others, are determined to defend, and they are entirely right to do so. It may well need defending when negotiations on a trade deal with the USA in particular begin. Although I welcome what the Minister said about the Government’s determination not to bargain away the progress we have made, I hope he will recognise Parliament’s determination to reinforce that, and engage further on how that can be done, before we move on to discuss other trade deals in detail. I agree entirely with what my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) said about that, especially his suggestion about how Parliament might benefit from the assessment by the Information Commissioner’s Office on the digital aspects of any deal.

That brings me to amendment 1 on the approval of trade agreements in Parliament, with which I have considerable sympathy. I take the Minister’s point that the trade deals covered by the Bill may not be those where parliamentary scrutiny is most important, but the CRaG processes that he relies on were not designed for post-Brexit Britain, or for the trade deals of breadth and ambition to which the Government rightly aspire. For those, Parliament needs more time and information than CRaG currently allows us in order to do our job of scrutiny properly. The Government need to think further on that, and do more before those broader trade deals are negotiated.

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP) [V]]

We are experiencing a number of challenges with the outworkings of Brexit, not least here in Northern Ireland, and that is, in part, due to the failure to progress and confront some of the realities of the situation. That is followed through by the fact that the trade deal is in place without this Bill, and there is also an environmental governance gap, due to the failure to pass the Environment Bill before the end of what passed for the transition period. Many see that as a reflection of the Government’s priorities regarding environmental and other protections.

I had the opportunity to speak on Second Reading of the Trade Bill in May and, at that point, set out the SDLP’s concerns about the loss of rights, standards and protections that were enjoyed by everybody in the UK as members of the EU, as well as our disappointment about the lack of scrutiny and oversight provided for by the Bill. I do not want to rehash all those as well, but I raised specifically the potentially regressive impact that the Bill might have on food standards and on the NHS, which is an issue of great concern to my constituents in south Belfast. Several of the amendments before us today would assist greatly in protecting and maintaining those standards. I say again that warm words and assurances, and protesting too much, as I think we heard in a number of previous speeches, do not give reassurance to the public if opportunities are not taken to place protections in law. If the Government are serious about protecting the environment, workers and the NHS, they will have no issue in legislating to put those protections into law.

On scrutiny, we heard a lot from Vote Leave about taking back control and about the sovereignty of the UK Parliament, but we see in practice in this Bill much control being put into the hands of a small number of Cabinet Ministers, and very little in the way of parliamentary oversight. The UK Government’s scrutiny processes and, therefore, democratic legitimacy for trade deals fall far behind those of, for example, the US and the EU. If Brexit was an issue of accountability for many people, I believe that this approach is further storing up dissatisfaction with the political process.

Amendments 8 and 9 provide a good opportunity for the UK to ensure that trade policy is in line with other international obligations on not entering into trade deals with those committing human rights abuses and genocide, and we very much welcome this. On the issue of Northern Ireland, trade deals and non-discrimination —that is, amendment 26—the SDLP has been very clear before and since 2016 that we do not wish, and have never wished, to see any barriers to trade from Northern Ireland north-south or east-west. That is what we enjoyed pre-Brexit, as well as trading arrangements with the vast majority of the planet, but we are now restricted by the need to manage the problems that have been foisted upon us by an ill-thought-out Brexit. The Ireland-Northern Ireland protocol exists precisely to protect the people of Northern Ireland from the risks and consequences of a hard border. We therefore have to take a very cautious approach to anything that might inadvertently or deliberately undermine that. It remains the case—I will finish with this point—that the higher the UK’s commitments to the standards that we maintain here in Northern Ireland, the softer the barriers to trade in the Irish sea will be.

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con) [V]]

It is a pleasure to speak in such an important debate this afternoon and to hear such eloquent arguments on the merits of the amendments that we are considering today, and I have listened intently to the arguments on both sides.

Last week, in the debate on global Britain, we debated in this House how we wanted this country and its values to be a beacon of hope in this dark world—a country that champions free trade, the rule of law, human rights and democracy. It is these values, which everyone in the House shares, that are driving right hon. and hon. Friends in supporting Lord Alton’s amendment or amendment (a), backed by colleagues this afternoon. Nobody in this House or beyond would ever support this country doing a trade deal with a country engaging in acts of genocide. The United Kingdom continues to encourage all states to uphold international human rights obligations, including under the convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide, and our position on that will never change.

We all look at what is happening in Xinjiang and the plight of the Uyghur Muslims with increasing alarm. In response, the UK has announced an ambitious package of measures to help make sure that no British organisation, whether Government or private sector, is inadvertently contributing to human rights violations against the Uyghur Muslims or other minorities in the region. On 6 October, the UK and 38 other countries made a statement at the UN Third Committee expressing deep concern about the situation. This House and this country therefore cannot be accused of not being aware of or not taking seriously the issues in China at the present time.

However, the amendments pose a serious threat to the separation of powers that this country has observed for hundreds of years. It is this place, and it is the Executive who are held to account in this place, that are responsible for developing trade agreements and the operation of our foreign policy. It is really important that we separate the issues here. Is there increasing alarm over whether genocide is occurring in Xinjiang alongside horrific acts of slave labour and forced sterilisation? Yes; that is not in question. Should we allow the Court power over British trade and foreign policy? No. Although my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) stresses that the Court would only be able to make a preliminary decision, it would be impossible—rightly, might I say—to ignore that decision. Therefore, we would be de facto giving powers to the High Court.

I would be ashamed if it took a decision from the High Court to determine that a country we were looking at doing a trade deal with was engaging in acts of genocide for us to revisit whether it would be the right thing to do. I have faith—faith borne out by the recent examples of what we have done and how we have acted towards states that do not share our values—that the British Government today and in the future will do the right thing, and that if the day comes that they do not, this House will hold them to account and rightly stop them. That is how parliamentary democracy works. We do not offload or subcontract our moral compass to judges in the High Court. We are elected to take tough decisions.

I am against these amendments, but I am for tougher action against China and other Governments around the world who are committing human rights abuses. I have spoken about my support for the Bill before, so I will not take up the House’s time by going over the same ground again. The Bill has been improved since it first came before Parliament, not least with the creation and putting on a statutory footing of the Trade and Agriculture Commission, which puts the voice of farmers, who were concerned about the effect on standards of future trade deals, at the heart of the Government’s trade policy. I hope we can now allow this very good Bill—a Bill on which the Government have listened and acted and which they have improved—to proceed.