Trade Bill

Edward Leigh Excerpts

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

[Greg Hands]

No, I am going to move on, because I want to come on to what I think might be the areas of greatest interest in this debate, including Lords amendments 2 and 3 on human rights. I remind hon. and right hon. Members of the Foreign Secretary’s statement on Tuesday last week, in which he outlined a range of measures in response to the deplorable human rights situation in Xinjiang. I also refer colleagues to the article I wrote about Xinjiang as long ago as 2011, showing my personal interest in that question.

I recognise that the amendments before the House are not specific to China per se, but some of the supporters have China in mind, and it is worth reminding Members of what the new measures the Foreign Secretary announced will do, as they are germane to the ongoing debate on human rights. The measures will help to ensure that UK businesses and the public sector are in no way complicit in human rights violations in Xinjiang. They include: first, strengthening the overseas business risk guidance to make clearer the risk to UK businesses investing in, or with supply chains in, Xinjiang; secondly, a review of export controls as they apply to the situation in Xinjiang to ensure we are doing all we can to prevent the export of goods that may contribute to human rights violations in Xinjiang; thirdly, the introduction of financial penalties for organisations that fail to comply with the Modern Slavery Act 2015; and, fourthly, ensuring that the Government or public sector bodies have the evidence they require to help them exclude suppliers that are complicit in human rights violations in Xinjiang.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I understand the point my right hon. Friend is making, and we do not have a free trade deal with China at the moment, and we are not likely to, but many of us for years have been frustrated that every time we try to raise genocide in this place in terms of trade deals, we are told that it is subject to the international courts, and that China, Russia or other countries in the UN Security Council have a veto on the matter. Is there any way we can acknowledge that genocide is taking place in a country when we do a trade deal, without losing parliamentary control of our trade deals, and without getting trade deals bogged down for months or even years in courts?

[Greg Hands]

I can reassure my right hon. Friend that the Government are very ready to have these discussions. I am sure that the amendment in the name of Lord Alton is not an appropriate amendment to put into this Bill. As my right hon. Friend will have seen from the Foreign Secretary’s statement last week, we do take the situation in Xinjiang, and other allegations of serious human rights abuses, extremely seriously. However, we also have to think about what we are dealing with—the appropriate role for the High Court in international treaties, and particularly the right in the Alton amendment for an automatic revocation of an international treaty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I think we need to be far more robust about calling out genocide when it takes place. I can do no better than quote our present Prime Minister, writing in the Financial Times in 2016, when he criticised the Foreign Office because

“for some baffling reason the Foreign Office still hesitates to use the term genocide”

about the attacks on the Yazidis. In our own lifetimes, we have seen appalling acts of violence based purely on people’s ethnicity. We need to be robust.

I was originally attracted to the amendments, particularly as they come from good friends such as Lord Forsyth and Lord Alton. I am grateful to the Minister for having spoken to me earlier today, and to his colleague in the Foreign Office. I listened to every word the Minister said. Although I was attracted to the Alton amendment, I now think there are serious faults with it. It is true that our efforts to name and shame on genocide and to act on it have been stymied in the international courts. On the one hand, we have said that it is for the courts to decide. On the other, because of the power of veto of major players on the world stage, international courts will not act.

We have to remember that we are Members of Parliament. We are elected. We are the high court of Parliament. It is for elected officials, not court officials, to decide trade policy. Any other approach would be utterly chaotic.

I am a barrister. I know that when we accuse somebody in a court, the defendant has a right to turn up. Do we really think that, if we accused any country—China, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, Egypt—they would agree for a moment to send counsel to defend their position? Look at it from our point of view. Some people around the world think that our human rights record, for instance in Ireland, is not that great. What would we think if we were going to do a trade deal with somebody and some group took us to court in, say, Japan? Would we ever turn up in some Japanese court and defend our position? No, we would think that that would be a fundamental denial of the supremacy of this Parliament. So I do not think that the court route is the right approach.

I listened to the Opposition spokesman, the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), and was quite alarmed by what she said. We all know that what is happening to the Uyghurs is quite appalling. We suspect that it is genocide, and we think that if there is any sort of trade deal with China we should question it very closely. But then she started talking about other countries. She started talking about Egypt, Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Where would it all stop? Any trade deal could be bound up for months—years—in the courts, and any group could take the Government to court.

I voted for Brexit to take back control. I am a free trader; I believe in international free trade. I want these free trade deals, but there is one very important point that I hope the Minister will address when he winds up. There is a lacuna in parliamentary scrutiny of these trade deals; there is no doubt about it. It is simply far too late to conduct a trade deal, agree it and then at the very last minute send it to the International Trade Committee. Sometimes there is no opportunity for Parliament to discuss it at all.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), a former International Trade Secretary, said, let us have a proper parliamentary scrutiny system so that as we embark on a trade deal the Select Committee can consider it in detail at the start and can report back to Parliament, so that we can debate it and give either instructions or guidance to Government. That is the way the Government should proceed, and I commend that approach to them this evening.

[Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (SNP) [V]]

I support the amendments from the other place, particularly Lords amendment 1, 2, 4 and 6. I am conscious of time, so I shall restrict my points.

First, we have to put this in context. We are in the lee of Brexit and the trade deal that has followed from that, which has taken us into new territory. Speed will be required because of the urgency of the situation. We must try to minimise difficulties and maximise employment opportunities. What we are seeing at ports is shameful, frankly, and we cannot have that continuing or being replicated. But some things have to remain constant and some standards have to be maintained. As other Members have correctly said, parliamentary scrutiny is essential. This is a democracy, and that deal fundamentally affects each and every one of our people, so we have to ensure that Parliament is able to properly scrutinise it.

Secondly, we have to ensure that food and animal welfare standards are maintained. We are rightly proud of those high standards and have always adhered to them here, which must be maintained. Thirdly, it is absolutely essential that the national health service’s being free at the point of delivery and predicated on being a service delivered by a public duty, rather than by private practices, is maintained. We have to ensure the integrity of the NHS and ensure that it is not undermined.

Putting that into context, we have to remember that we are in a situation where urgency is to the forefront, but we are also at a time when we have to negotiate trade deals that are by their very nature complicated. A trade deal with the United States will be essential, given the nature and scale of the country and its importance to us. However, let us remember that the United States may be the home of capitalism and free trade, but it is deeply protective of its own sectors and industry. When it comes to a trade deal with the UK, the US will be looking after its interests, companies and people, and we have to ensure that ours are not undermined as a result. Let us also remember that US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross made it quite clear—this will continue under President Biden’s Administration—that Brexit was an opportunity to eat the UK’s lunch, which means to have a go at our food and agriculture standards and to undermine the circumstances of our protecting the NHS from privatisation, so we have to ensure that steps are taken.

It is always the situation that all Governments have Executive creep—that was no doubt the situation even in the Government I served in another Parliament and institution. Governments tend to do that by nature. However, in the United Kingdom over recent generations, it has certainly become a hell of a lot worse, which requires to be addressed. The nadir was the shameful absence of opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny of the European Union (Future Relationship) Bill for Brexit. It may have had to be delivered in the last few days before Brexit, but the almost total absence of that opportunity cannot be allowed to be replicated, because at the end of the day, in my constituency, high food and agriculture standards are essential. We make premium products there, and we cannot have a race to the bottom that would see our own industry undermined. We have to protect and cherish our health service. We welcome the steps it has taken on coronavirus. We have seen it hollowed out with privatisation south of the border. We cannot allow those two areas of our society and economy to be sold out in a trade deal delivered to ensure that the United States protects its own vested interests.