All 5 Emily Thornberry contributions to the Trade Bill 2019-21

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Wed 20th May 2020
Trade Bill
Commons Chamber

2nd reading & 2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons & 2nd reading & Programme motion & Money resolution
Mon 20th Jul 2020
Trade Bill
Commons Chamber

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons & Report stage & 3rd reading
Tue 19th Jan 2021
Trade Bill
Commons Chamber

Consideration of Lords amendmentsPing Pong & Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tue 9th Feb 2021
Trade Bill
Commons Chamber

Consideration of Lords amendmentsPing Pong & Consideration of Lords amendments
Mon 22nd Mar 2021
Trade Bill
Commons Chamber

Consideration of Lords amendments & Consideration of Lords amendments & Consideration of Lords Amendments

Trade Bill

Emily Thornberry Excerpts
2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons
Wednesday 20th May 2020

(3 years, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Trade Bill 2019-21 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Emily Thornberry Portrait Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
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I beg to move,

That this House recognises that upon leaving the European Union, the UK will need effective legislation to implement agreements with partner countries corresponding to international trade agreements of the European Union in place before the UK’s exit, to implement procurement obligations arising from the UK becoming a member of the Government Procurement Agreement in its own right, to set out the basis of a Trade Remedies Authority to deliver the new UK trade remedies framework, and to establish the powers for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to collect and disclose data on goods and services exporters; but declines to give a Second Reading to the Trade Bill because it fails to set out proper procedures for Parliamentary consultation, scrutiny, debate and approval of future international trade agreements, fails to protect the principle of Parliamentary sovereignty in respect of the implementation of international trade agreements previously negotiated by the European Union and in respect of changes to existing government procurement regulations arising from the UK’s or other countries’ accession to the Government Procurement Agreement, fails to establish sufficient scrutiny procedures to replace those that have pertained while the UK has been a member of the European Union, fails to guarantee that the UK’s current high standards and rights will be protected in future trade agreements, and fails to render the Trade Remedies Authority answerable to Parliament or representative of the full range of stakeholders who should be included in its membership.

In moving this amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition, I am conscious that, for many of us, there will be a strong sense of déjà vu: the personnel may have changed, but we have all been here before, with the same Bill, the same amendment, and the same arguments. For once, the Government are correct when they say that nothing has changed. The inescapable truth remains that this Trade Bill, as it currently stands, is a massive missed opportunity for the Government, for this Parliament and for our country.

For the past five decades, our trade policies have been set at European level. Indeed, there is not a single Member of this House who was in Parliament the last time the UK set its own trade policies, so, like it or not, this Bill carries an historic significance, and that is what I want to address today. Is this Bill, in its current form, fit to rise to its historic challenge? After five decades, in which we have seen tremendous upheaval in our global economy, does the Bill provide the legislative framework and the bold and far-reaching vision that we need to underpin Britain’s trade policies for several years to come? After five decades, does the Bill ensure that issues such as climate change and human rights, which were barely a consideration the last time the UK set its own trade policies, are now at the heart of our decision-making and central to our relationships overseas? And after five decades, does the Bill give a proper voice to the devolved Administrations, who did not even exist back then, and to all other private, public and civic-sector bodies whose ideas and insights constantly improve our policy-making and remind us that Whitehall does not know best? Finally, after five decades, does this Bill restore full sovereignty to Parliament over Britain’s trade policies, especially when it comes to the formulation, scrutiny and approval of new trade agreements? Those are the questions I asked myself. As I will explain, the answer that came back, on every front, was a resounding no—even worse, a warning cry that far from restoring the powers of Parliament when it comes to trade policy, this Bill erodes them to nothing.

Let me begin with the first question, namely whether this Bill gives us a legislative framework and a bold new vision for decades of trade policy to come. Here we find ourselves in the strange position of having Ministers themselves tell us that the answer is no. They say that there is nothing of significance in this legislation, and that it is simply a continuity Bill that is designed to maintain the status quo beyond 31 December. I will come back to whether that is right, especially in respect of new trade agreements, but one thing is for sure: there is no bold, long-term vision in this Bill. There is no great legislative framework for the future, and when it comes to the UK shaping its own trade policy after five long decades, this Bill certainly was not worth the wait.

That brings us to the second question, namely to what extent the Bill reflects the necessary and welcome widening of Britain’s trade policy objectives over five decades, and the extent to which it puts at the heart of our future trade agreements the issues of climate change, environmental protection, human rights, workers’ rights, sustainable development and gender equality. Again, we should all be ashamed to say that the answer is: not at all.

I will take just one of those issues, namely human rights. It is disappointing enough that the Government are failing to make it a key priority in negotiating new trade agreements, but what is truly damaging is the Government’s willingness to omit from their rolled-over trade agreements the human rights clauses that are now mandatory in all deals with the EU. If the Government want to refute that, the Minister of State has a simple task when he closes the debate later. He should guarantee that the rolled-over trade agreements that the Government are still trying to negotiate before 31 December with Cameroon and Egypt will both contain clauses enabling the UK to terminate the agreements if those countries continue their horrendous abuse of human rights. Will he ensure that the same policy applies to Turkey, Singapore, South Sudan and every other country with whom we are in negotiation?

The third question was whether the Bill marks a decisive break with the “Whitehall knows best” attitudes that dominated policy making five decades ago, and instead paves the way for Britain’s new trade policies to be formed in a transparent and inclusive way, for example by consulting the elected representatives of our regions and devolved Administrations, benefiting from the expertise of our development and environmental non-governmental organisations, or listening to the concerns of British businesses and their employees. Again, the answer, sadly, is no.

We see that most starkly when it comes to the Bill’s proposals for the membership of the trade remedies authority. That will be a vital body with a vital task, but it will have no guaranteed representation from the UK’s industry bodies and trade unions—the representatives of the people most affected by the unfair practices that the TRA is supposed to prevent. No wonder there are such concerns and suspicions that the Government’s true agenda for the TRA is not to defend Britain against underpriced imports, but somehow to balance the damage they do to domestic producers against the perceived benefits for domestic consumers. That is not the job of the trade remedies authority. That is why we instead need there to be proper representation on the board for the businesses and workers that it has been set up to defend, and why we need the TRA to be accountable to Parliament rather than Government.

That brings me to the final question, which is of the greatest immediate significance: whether, after five decades, this Bill succeeds in restoring parliamentary sovereignty over our country’s trade policies or whether, in fact, the opposite is true, as Members here and in the other place—all formidably led by my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner)—have consistently said over the past two and a half years.

Let us take an example. The Secretary of State is a fan, it would seem, of the Government procurement agreement. As my colleagues have pointed out in the past, no matter how much we agree with the GPA, it is still incredible that the UK can accede to the GPA and MPs have no practical means to stop it; that the UK’s coverage schedules can be sent to the WTO and MPs have no opportunity to approve them; and that changes can be made in the future to the UK’s commitment under the GPA, and MPs will have less chance to scrutinise them than we did when Brussels was in charge and the European Scrutiny Committee was in place. So in an area such as Government procurement, the Bill does not advance parliamentary sovereignty—it does not even leave us standing still. The Bill takes us backwards.

Let us look at a more contentious area: new trade agreements. The Government have tried to convince us that, because the Bill only seeks to provide the basis to roll over existing agreements, we do not have to worry about the almost complete absence of accompanying parliamentary scrutiny or approval. But the reality is that in many cases there are or will be major differences between the UK’s third country agreement and the EU equivalent it is opposed to replicate.

Let us look at some of the examples we have seen. We have agreements with five countries in a trade bloc where the UK only covers three. We have EU agreements with mandatory clauses on human rights that the UK has agreed to drop. We have an EU agreement with Turkey based on a customs union, which the UK has explicitly rejected. We have an EU agreement with Japan, which both the Secretary of State and her Japanese counterpart have said our bilateral deal should go beyond, and that will doubtless be true of the Canada deal as well.

In short, we will end up with several major new trade deals all significantly different from their EU equivalents, but all subject to the same minimal amount of parliamentary scrutiny and approval, as proposed in the Trade Bill. That is not a restoration of parliamentary sovereignty. That is not anywhere near the gold standard of parliamentary consultation, scrutiny and approval of trade deals that we see in Australia or the United States. That is not therefore what I would call taking back control.

In conclusion, I believe that this Trade Bill offers a historic opportunity, but that opportunity has so far been missed. Instead of a bold, strategic vision for the future of our trade policy, we have a stopgap piece of legislation that even Ministers are trying to talk down. Instead of issues such as climate change and human rights being put at the heart of our trade policy, they have been ignored or consciously dropped. Instead of opening our trade policy to the expertise of others, the Government are denying them even a seat at the table. And instead of restoring Parliament’s sovereignty over trade policy, this Bill leaves MPs even more powerless than before. That is why I urge colleagues on both sides of the House to support the Opposition’s amendment. After five decades, let us spend the time and effort we need to get this historic Bill right.

Trade Bill

Emily Thornberry Excerpts
Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 20th July 2020

(3 years, 8 months ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Trade Bill 2019-21 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 20 July 2020 - (20 Jul 2020)
Jonathan Gullis Portrait Jonathan Gullis
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Will the hon. Gentleman give way on the scrutiny point?

Bill Esterson Portrait Bill Esterson
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I do not know if Michael Spicer is talking to the hon. Gentleman or not; we will find out in a moment.

--- Later in debate ---
Bill Esterson Portrait Bill Esterson
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Absolutely. We compare very badly with the scrutiny in the United States, some of which I have already described. My hon. Friend is right to make the comparison. Is it not ironic that we are in the middle of trade talks with the United States, where they have full scrutiny and we do not? While we are stuck with CRAG, in the United States debates and votes will take place in Congress, alongside the engagement with business and the unions that I described earlier.

Let us remind ourselves that CRAG was introduced as part of our scrutiny process while we were EU members, because trade agreements were an EU competence. The process included full scrutiny in the European Parliament —scrutiny that has not been replaced by an equivalent system. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) reminded us of her experience performing exactly that role.

The Minister wrote to MPs last week. I think he read out quite a lot of his letter in his speech. He told us last week that legislation will be debated and scrutinised by Parliament in “the usual way”. The usual way? There is no “usual way”, because the usual process only worked alongside the scrutiny carried out for us in the European Parliament. Despite what the Minister says, CRAG on its own makes no sense unless the Government wish to avoid scrutiny.

Today’s amendments to the Bill are similar to those passed in March 2019. The Minister is fond of telling us how vital it is that the Bill passes, so why did the Government not accept the amended Bill last year? It could have saved a lot of trouble.

Emily Thornberry Portrait Emily Thornberry
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And time.

Bill Esterson Portrait Bill Esterson
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And time. What possible reason can the Government have for wanting to avoid scrutiny, and why on such important areas? Perhaps there are some clues in the topics covered by the various amendments. The threat to our NHS is right at the top of the list. Investor-state dispute settlement was a scandal that came to prominence during the TTIP negotiations. Let us look at some examples of the threat posed by ISDS. The Portuguese Government were sued using ISDS when the Lisbon metro was returned to public ownership. ISDS clauses in bilateral investment treaties are being used now to prepare a series of cases against the UK Government for pausing construction contracts during the pandemic.

ISDS is not the only issue. Standstill clauses prevent Governments from returning privatised public services to the public sector. Ratchet clauses require further services to be privatised. Then there are negative lists, which require Governments to specify exactly which services are to be exempt from privatisation, with everything else up for grabs. The Prime Minister told us he favours a social insurance system in his Daily Telegraph article, so when Ministers tell us not to worry about the NHS, it simply will not wash.

Statements alone are worthless. It is very simple: the detailed text of all agreements must include cast-iron commitments, because it is not just the Prime Minister who wants to hand over our NHS to the healthcare corporations; it is his friend the US President, and it is in the US negotiating objectives, which refer to

“full market access for US products”.

They want access to NHS medicines and more, and they are not shy about saying so.

Scrutiny matters, nowhere more so than in the protection of our NHS in international trade agreements. That is why our new clause 17 is so important. Ministers say that they want export opportunities for our farmers in the United States and Australia. Export opportunities? Really? Ministers are missing the point. Farmers have to survive first. If food imports are allowed with lower production, welfare standards and costs, farmers will struggle to stay in business. They will be undercut. As trade representative Lighthizer warned us, on issues such as agriculture

“this administration is not going to compromise.”

There is no ambiguity in Mr Lighthizer’s commitment not to compromise, is there? The idea that farmers will make up for domestic sales by exporting more is a fantasy. The magical thinking of Ministers will not stand up to scrutiny—that is, of course, if scrutiny is ever allowed.

Trade Bill

Emily Thornberry Excerpts
Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tuesday 19th January 2021

(3 years, 2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Trade Bill 2019-21 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Commons Consideration of Lords Amendments as at 19 January 2021 - (19 Jan 2021)
Greg Hands Portrait Greg Hands
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I am very interested in this topic, but it is not for me as Minister for Trade Policy to make Government policy on which court would be involved, or where that court should be, or on aspects relating to genocide. However, I think the amendment before us is flawed and should be rejected by this House.

Greg Hands Portrait Greg Hands
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No. The right hon. Lady will have plenty of opportunity to speak, and I can respond to her points in due course.

The lack of evidence for the effectiveness of such action underscores the need for the Government to take targeted, appropriate and effective measures on human rights, such as those we are taking towards China in the package of measures announced by the Foreign Secretary.

Lords amendment 2 seeks, among other things, the publication of risk assessments, annual reports and determinations on whether trade agreements comply with the UK’s international obligations. Such legislative requirements would again represent serious constraints on the royal prerogative powers to negotiate, ratify and withdraw from treaties. Erosion of the royal prerogative is a red line for the Government, so we cannot support that amendment, either.

I need to make a little more progress, Madam Deputy Speaker—I am conscious that we are 18 minutes in and there are a lot of speakers. I turn to Lords amendment 4, which would introduce a wide range of restrictions on the regulations that can be made under clause 2. Those relate broadly to the delivery of free, universal health services, the protection of medical data and scrutiny of algorithms, and a prohibition on the use of investor-state dispute settlement, ratchet clauses and negative listing provisions.

--- Later in debate ---
Greg Hands Portrait Greg Hands
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I am going to make a little bit more progress, with apologies to the right hon. Gentleman. He obviously has a special interest in this space, but I am conscious that time is moving on.

Turning to the amendments concerning the Trade and Agriculture Commission, the Government have offered alternatives to Lords amendments 9 and 10. We also accept Lords amendments 11, 12, 29 and 30. These amendments put the commission on a statutory footing to help to inform the report required by section 42 of the Agriculture Act 2020. The Trade and Agriculture Commission was originally set up by the Department for International Trade in July 2020 to boost the scrutiny of trade deals. That is alongside other steps that the Government have taken to ensure that relevant interests are taken into account at every step of the negotiation process, from public consultation at the start, dedicated trade advisory groups during the process and independent scrutiny of the final deal at the end.

The Trade and Agriculture Commission will advise the Secretary of State for International Trade on certain measures set out in section 42 of the Agriculture Act concerning the consistency of certain free trade agreement measures with UK statutory protections for animal and plant health, animal welfare and the environment. The Government amendments were modified in the other place, however, also to include advice on human health. The Government do not consider the inclusion of human health to be appropriate for the Trade and Agriculture Commission, as it would duplicate the work of other appropriate bodies. Just because human health will not be in the remit of the Trade and Agriculture Commission does not mean that there will be no scrutiny in that area. It must still be covered in the section 42 report under the Agriculture Act, for which the Secretary of State may seek advice from any person considered to be independent and to have relevant expertise.

I hope that that has been a useful introduction to the Lords amendments we have in front of us. I am looking forward to the debate and to responding later.

Emily Thornberry Portrait Emily Thornberry
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It is a pleasure to open this debate for the Opposition. I want to thank Members from the other place for all the work they have done on these amendments, which follows the considerable amount of work on the Bill’s previous iteration, all of which is welcome.

It is a great tribute to how deeply Members on all sides and in both Houses have engaged in our debates about trade over the last few years that we have such a wide range of important amendments before us today. They reflect the values, priorities and safeguards that we believe the UK should apply when negotiating new trade agreements. We have one amendment that reflects our desire that young boys and girls growing up in this country should be able to learn, play and interact with their friends online without the fear that those experiences will be tainted by bullying, grooming or exposure to harmful content. We have another amendment that reflects our equally strong desire that young boys and girls growing up 4,000 miles away should be able to live in freedom, practise any religion they choose and one day have children of their own without the fear that those rights will be taken away by the criminal actions of the Chinese state. I want to focus most of my remarks today on the amendments relating to human rights and to parliamentary scrutiny, but let me first talk briefly about the other key amendments we have before us.

We welcome Lords amendment 4, which seeks to exclude NHS patient data from the scope of future trade deals. This amendment cuts to the chase of the debate over whether the NHS is on the table when it comes to trade negotiations. To some people, that concept would mean private healthcare companies from overseas being able to compete against the NHS to provide taxpayer-funded healthcare, but in fact it is much more realistic and pernicious. What it means is those same companies winning a greater right to provide services to the NHS through open procurement contracts and thereby gaining access to the vast resource of NHS patient data, which, quite frankly, they have been actively pursuing for years. This amendment seeks to prevent that, and I cannot see why any Member of the House would disagree with it.

We welcome Lords amendments 6 on standards affected by international trade agreements, which rests on the very simple notion that the international trade agreements we negotiate should not undermine the domestic standards we apply on everything from environmental protection to employment rights—again, something we would have thought everyone would support.

I have spoken already about Lords amendment 7 on the protection of children online, which seeks to protect the very welcome progress we are making in the UK to keep our children safe when using the internet, and to force major service providers to help prevent children from exposure to illegal content or harmful activity. We know for a fact that the major US internet companies have sought to use trade deals with Mexico, Canada, Japan and Korea to exempt themselves from liability over the harms caused by their services and to guarantee unrestricted access to user data, including that of children. The Minister might well assure us that the same thing will not happen here, but I would simply urge him to allow the passage of this amendment to ensure that the same thing cannot happen here.

We also welcome Lords amendment 8, the Northern Ireland amendment, on non-discrimination in goods and services, for which we thank my good friend the former right hon. Member for Neath—a much missed presence in this House, but still a good friend to the people of Northern Ireland. When we look at the delays, disruption and economic damage that has been caused by the loss of unfettered access for goods travelling between Great Britain and Northern Ireland surely we would all agree how important it is that we protect the unfettered access for goods travelling the other way and for the exchange of services in both directions. Indeed, if the Government are promising to maintain that unfettered access, I cannot see why they would urge Members of this House to vote against the opportunity to put that promise into law.

Finally, let me turn to the other amendments. We welcome amendments 9 and 10, which would expand the remit of the Trade and Agriculture Commission to cover the impact of food on public health. If the Government are to leave it to the commission to protect our food and farming standards against low-cost, low-quality imports, rather than putting those protections into law, then the least they can do is ensure that the commission’s remit covers all the standards that we wish to protect, including those related to public health. I understand that the Government are trying to lift the public health aspects of this amendment, but, before the Minister does that, I urge him to speak to his colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs about Government undertakings that may have been given before we had clause 42 of the Agriculture Bill.

There is a common thread running through all the amendments that I have mentioned and through those that I will come on to relating to human rights. The common thread is this: if we do not have the right procedures in place to allow proper parliamentary engagement in the Government’s trade negotiations and proper parliamentary debate and approval of the Government’s new trade deals, then, inevitably, Members will seek instead to ring-fence what the Government can give away and protect in law the standards that we want to preserve.

I just do not understand why the Government are so stubbornly holding on to the Ponsonby rule and CRaG and laws that come from a previous century and a previous age. Why we cannot step into the 21st century as a confident democracy is beyond me. In other words, if we do not have proper scrutiny of the Government’s trade deals, we must have proper safeguards on what the deals can do. Personally, I argue that we should want the best of both worlds—proper safeguards coupled with proper scrutiny—but surely every Member of this House can agree that the worst and most illogical of all worlds is to have neither. I urge Conservative Members, when they are instructed by the Government later to vote down not just the amendments relating to NHS data, online harms, standards, public health and unfettered access, but Lords amendments 1 and 5 relating to parliamentary scrutiny, please to say to the Government that one set of amendments or the other may be opposed, but logically they cannot oppose them both.

Anthony Mangnall Portrait Anthony Mangnall
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It is somewhat unfair to suggest that the Government have not moved on this issue already. I serve on the International Trade Committee and the facts are that the Trade Committee is able to scrutinise each trade agreement, Parliament is then able to debate that, and there is CRaG. That means that there is scrutiny, so it is not acceptable to go back to constituents and say that there is no scrutiny mechanism for our trade deals. Does the right hon. Lady not agree that that is enough?

Emily Thornberry Portrait Emily Thornberry
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I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for what he has said, but as he and I know, the International Trade Committee was promised access to the Japan deal and to the assorted documents attached to it by a certain date, and that did not happen. First, the Committee did not get the time that it should have been given. Secondly, notwithstanding some fairly wild claims made by the Minister about the ability of Parliament to vote on these matters, the reality is different. An international deal can be signed on behalf of Her Majesty by this Government and the only way in which this Parliament can vote against it is under CRaG, which means that Labour needs to use an Opposition Day to have a vote. What happens—and this has happened—when we do not get Opposition Days during the period in which we are allowed to debate a trade deal and have a vote on it? It cannot be claimed that the roll-over deals that we have had so far have been followed by time given to Parliament to debate them.

The hon. Gentleman is in a privileged position as a member of the International Trade Committee, because he has a greater opportunity to scrutinise any deal, but the rest of Parliament does not. We are making deals with countries that come from the same stable—because of historic reasons, have developed their democracies on the back of learning about democracy from our country—and yet they now have a greater chance than we do to scrutinise those trade deals. What holds up a trade deal is not British Parliament having the time to scrutinise it, but the other Parliament in the country with which we are signing the trade deal.

Anthony Mangnall Portrait Anthony Mangnall
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Will the right hon. Lady give way on that point?

Emily Thornberry Portrait Emily Thornberry
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I do not think I am going to allow double-dipping; we are talking about democracy but there is no one on our side here in Parliament because we are all participating remotely. The Labour party has taken the decision that the correct way to react to the pandemic is to work from home when necessary, so it is more difficult for Labour Members to intervene in these circumstances. I do not mean to be unreasonable or unfair, but frankly that is the reason why.

Jonathan Djanogly Portrait Mr Djanogly
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Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Emily Thornberry Portrait Emily Thornberry
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I will one more time and then no more.

Jonathan Djanogly Portrait Mr Djanogly
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Is not the situation at the moment that, effectively, the amount of scrutiny provided is at the whim of the Executive? If they want to give us hundreds of pages of Bill the day before we have to sign, they can do that. If they want to give another country a month for scrutiny, as with Japan, but us no time at all, they can do that. We need a system here.

Eleanor Laing Portrait Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Order. I do not think we should go much further down this line. I have 59 Back-Bench Members who wish to participate in this scrutiny now, so let us not go down the rabbit hole of scrutiny but stick to the purpose of the amendments before us.

Emily Thornberry Portrait Emily Thornberry
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I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker. My argument is simply that the scrutiny amendment among these amendments is perhaps the most important, because if Parliament could be allowed scrutiny, we would not focus on other particular issues, because we would know that, in the end, Parliament could make the decision. I would find it particularly astonishing if any Government Minister or Whip is able to look their colleagues in the face and ask them to vote down the amendments on parliamentary scrutiny of trade deals after the shambles we saw in December with the supposed scrutiny of the new continuity agreements—10 deals that were agreed too late to complete the 21-day ratification process before they came into force.

The Minister is an intelligent man, and I am surprised that he is so uninformed. Four of those deals were finally laid before Parliament on the afternoon of new year’s eve, just a few hours before they took effect. The deal with Cameroon has still not been laid before Parliament, almost three weeks after it came into force. Needless to say, there was not a single word of parliamentary debate about any of those 10 agreements before they took effect, let alone any suggestion of parliamentary approval. The very fact that it is possible for all that to happen without falling foul of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act is all the evidence we should need that the procedures set out in CRaG for the scrutiny of the Government’s trade deals are simply not up to the job.

The Government might make the argument that, since those 10 deals in December did not sell any NHS data or alter our standards on food hygiene, their agreement does not make the case for the amendments I mention or for new levels of parliamentary scrutiny. However, that brings me to the issue of human rights. What happened in December makes an incontrovertible case for Lords amendments 2 and 3, on human rights, and 1 and 5, on parliamentary scrutiny.

It is understandable and right that many Members will focus their contributions on the situation in China and the plight of the Uyghur people. We have all read with horror the first-hand accounts of torture and extrajudicial killings, mass incarceration in detention camps, forced sterilisation and abortions, servitude and slave labour. It shames the world that this is happening in our lifetime and it disgraces the Government of China. It is absolutely right that if a UK trade deal with Beijing is proposed or agreed, representatives of the Uyghur community should be able to seek a ruling from the High Court that the crimes they face in China meet the criteria for a charge of genocide, in turn requiring the UK Government to consider revoking that trade deal. When the Minister has an opportunity to look at the compromise amendment, as it has been called, he will see that that is what is being suggested.

There have been various arguments by Ministers as to why the proposed genocide amendment is neither appropriate nor necessary. I will deal with one of those in particular. It has already been suggested that no trade deal with China is imminent, and so measures to block such a deal are premature—a point well made, Members may think. However, the problem is that it cannot be squared with the fact that both the UK and China have to different degrees announced their plans to consider joining the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, the trans-Pacific trade partnership.

If the Government cannot guarantee, first, that they will beat China to the punch, and secondly, that they will be given veto power over any future bid by China for membership, I am afraid that the right hon. Gentleman is not in a position to guarantee to Members of the House that a trade deal with China is not on the horizon, because in the shape of CPTPP it most obviously is. That was why I was trying to intervene on the right hon. Gentleman—to see what his answer was. I would be happy to give way again, or perhaps he can answer at the end of the debate.

That dispute about the potential timing of any China deal raises a very important issue, which I hope all supporters of the genocide amendment will consider very seriously. During this debate on trade and human rights, and the surrounding media coverage, it would be very easy to tell ourselves that this is a discussion entirely about China, and therefore entirely about deals that might or might not take place in the future. The reality is that it should, and it must, also be a debate about the deals that the Government have done this month, and the deals that they are openly planning to do in the next two years, because anyone who cares deeply about the human rights of China must also have deep concerns about the records of Egypt, Turkey and Cameroon or Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Brazil. That is why Lords amendment 3 demands that before the Government negotiate and sign such trade deals in future, they should present Parliament with a report on the human rights record in each country in question and allow Parliament to take that into account during the process of scrutiny and approval.

Let me give the House one example of why Lords amendment 3 is required. Just five days before the US Senate was attacked, it came together to approve a resolution co-sponsored by 20 senators from both parties, from Marco Rubio to Cory Brooker. It was about the brutal campaign of subjugation by the French-speaking Government in Cameroon against the country’s English-speaking minority. The Senate resolution condemned with great force the atrocities committed by the Anglophone separatist militias, and it speaks with equal power about the actions of the Cameroon Government, including “torture, sexual abuse,”

massacres and

“burning of villages, the use of live ammunition against protestors, arbitrary arrest and”

unlawful

“detention…enforced disappearances, deaths in custody,”

attacks on journalists and the regular killing of

“civilians, including women, children and the elderly”.

The Senate resolution noted approvingly that, exactly one year before, the Office of the United States Trade Representative—remember, this was Donald Trump’s trade representative, the direct counterpart of the Secretary of State for International Trade—had terminated Cameroon’s access to preferential trade rights due to

“persistent gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.”

Finally, in that same spirit, the Senate resolution urged members of the international community to join the United States in a strategic collective effort to put pressure on the Government of Cameroon, including through “the use of” all

“available diplomatic and punitive tools”.

I have quoted that Senate resolution at length because I believe that we must ask ourselves what on earth those senators would think if they knew that on that very same day, when they were unanimously passing those strong words of condemnation towards the Government of Cameroon and urging the international community to join them, here in the United Kingdom we were bringing into effect a brand-new continuity trade agreement with Cameroon—a trade deal that was agreed by Ministers apparently with no consideration, and clearly no concern, for the persistent gross violations of international human rights that are taking place inside Cameron; a trade deal that none of us in this House bar Ministers have even been allowed to read, let alone debate or approve; and a trade deal that may or may not contain provisions on human rights, but until the Government finally decide to publish it, we the elected Members of this Parliament simply cannot know. I hope that Members on both sides of the House will keep the example of Cameroon in mind, and consider the words of the US Senate and the actions of the US trade representative, when judging how to vote later.

We all know that on occasions such as this when amendments are up for debate, Ministers will try to persuade us that they do not disagree with the good intentions behind them, but they just do not think that they are really required. However, if that is what Ministers say today in relation to Lords amendments 2 and 3 on human rights, or Lords amendments 1 and 5 on parliamentary scrutiny, I only ask Members to remember Cameroon: a trade deal done with a regime that is slaughtering women and children just because they live in English-speaking towns; a trade deal done in the face of the US Senate on the same day that it called for international support; and a trade deal that, incredibly, has still not been laid before Parliament, almost three weeks after it came into force.

I urge all Members to think about the Cameroon deal and how little consideration Ministers gave either to human rights or to the rights of this Parliament when they decided to sign it. Finally, I urge Members to ask themselves and their conscience whether they accept what those same Ministers are saying when they go through the amendments before us today and tell us, “They’re not really required.”

Eleanor Laing Portrait Madam Deputy Speaker
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I had hoped that we might manage at least the first part of this consideration without a formal time limit, but I will have to impose a time limit initially of six minutes, at the absolute outside—in the hope that Members will take less time than that.

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Anthony Mangnall Portrait Anthony Mangnall
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I thank the Minister for his comment, which I would echo in terms of the scrutiny that the International Trade Committee, through the reports we publish, can give each and every one of the trade deals that comes before us.

What is the intent here? We are trying to address the injustices that people face around the world, from the Uyghurs to the Yazidis to the Rohingyas.

Emily Thornberry Portrait Emily Thornberry
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Does the hon. Gentleman remember giving any scrutiny to the rollover deal with Egypt, given that Egypt is one of the worst human rights abusers?

Anthony Mangnall Portrait Anthony Mangnall
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The right hon. Lady is very quick to criticise the fact that many of the deals that we now have are continuity arrangements from the EU. She complained last week that the deals took too long to do and did not include enough detail. The purpose of these deals is not to be the end point but the start point for the future relationship that we wish to have with those countries.

I go back to the point about the intent of amendment (a) in lieu of Lords amendment 3. The intent for every single one of us should be to eradicate genocide and to do everything we can to prevent human rights injustices. Instead, we have an amendment that will do grave injustice not only to the trade deals, but will still essentially see countries trade with one another. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green suggested that this non-advisory trade amendment was advisory. He makes the point that we will be able to take the advice of the High Court but potentially ignore it. That is not what is written in the wording.

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Greg Hands Portrait Greg Hands
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With the leave of the House, I will respond to what has been a wide-ranging debate, covering many domestic and international matters.

Let me first say that the Government recognise that this House enjoys significant expertise and experience on questions of human rights. We are committed to ensuring that that knowledge is utilised, and to exploring how we can ensure that the views of colleagues are heard and considered on these issues in relation to our free trade agreements.

Let me turn to the points raised during the debate, although I do not have so long to respond. The shadow Secretary of State made a number of points. She said that the Government were stubbornly holding on to CRaG and the Ponsonby rule, despite entry into the 21st century. I was intrigued by that, because, of course, CRaG was introduced by the last Labour Government, in the 21st century—and the right hon. Lady supported it. I would add that, through CRaG, there is an ability to prevent ratification.

Through the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, we have added to the process the publication of negotiation objectives and economic impact assessments, and parliamentary statements after each round of negotiations. We have created the Trade and Agriculture Commission to inform Parliament; section 42 of the Agriculture Act reports; and the International Trade Committee and the International Agreements Sub-Committee having access to the texts to provide their own reports to Parliament.

The right hon. Lady mentioned China. She has come a long way in a short time on China. In her very first appearance at the Dispatch Box in this role on 12 May, she asked my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to make it clear to the USA that she would not agree to

“any version of article 32.10 of the USMCA that would constrain the UK’s ability to negotiate our own trade agreement with China”.—[Official Report, 12 May 2020; Vol. 676, c. 111.]

She did not want anything that would conflict with the UK’s ability to negotiate a trade agreement with China. I have been absolutely clear that the Government—

Emily Thornberry Portrait Emily Thornberry
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Will the Minister give way?

Trade Bill

Emily Thornberry Excerpts
Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 9th February 2021

(3 years, 1 month ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Trade Bill 2019-21 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Commons Consideration of Lords Message as at 9 February 2021 - (9 Feb 2021)
Greg Hands Portrait Greg Hands
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I am not going to take further interventions —there is only an hour for this debate.

It is up to Committees how they report, but such a report could come about in response to evidence produced by their own inquiries or to a finding of genocide by a competent criminal court, whether international or domestic. Such an approach rightly puts Parliament, not the courts, in the driving seat on this issue, which is who generates a debate in Parliament. Our policy on the legal determination of genocide has not changed. It has long been the Government’s position that genocide determination is a matter for the relevant court, which includes international courts and domestic criminal courts. However, whether to have a debate in Parliament should be a matter for Parliament.

I hope the House agrees that the amendment tabled by the Chair of the Justice Committee is a reasonable middle ground: it delivers the result envisaged by the Lords amendment—that is, to have a parliamentary debate—and the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green, but it does so through Parliament, not the courts. It allows Parliament to act quickly and decisively on the issue of genocide and, crucially, places a specific duty on the Government to act on the Committee’s concerns. It does so without upsetting the delicate separation of powers and without judicial encroachment. It ensures that Parliament has a clear role and that the Government have a clear duty when credible reports of genocide are raised with regard to a proposed bilateral FTA partner. I hope that Members from all parties will come together in support of the amendment tabled by the Chair of the Justice Committee.

Emily Thornberry Portrait Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
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At the outset, I thank the hon. Members for Wealden (Ms Ghani) and for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and the many others from all parties who, like our colleagues in the other place, who have worked with great persistence, and always in good faith, to achieve the right outcomes today.

Do you know what, Mr Deputy Speaker? It was 52 years ago this week that the House of Commons debated the introduction of Britain’s very first Genocide Act, which made genocide a distinct offence in our country and gave our courts the power to determine when it had been committed. When one looks back at that debate, it really strikes one that, were it not for some recognisable names, one would not know which MPs were Labour, Conservatives or Liberal, such was the unity in the House on the issue. Such obvious pride was taken by all Members in being part of a decision, taken by the British Parliament and led by the British Government, that would resonate around the world.

I fear that today, the atmosphere and outcome of our debate may be very different. Any future generations who choose to look back will ask themselves why on earth the Government of the day were playing procedural parliamentary games on an issue as serious as momentous as the genocidal crimes being committed against the Uyghurs in China. Rather than dwell on the shameful, shabby and shifty behaviour of the Government Whips in seeking to prevent a straight vote on the genocide amendment, let me instead address the key point of substance in the amendment that the Government have put forward to wreck it.

In the space of the last three weeks, the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Trade Secretary have all stated on the record that the courts can determine what is and what is not genocide. The hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) himself, the Chair of the Justice Committee, wrote an article, which has already been quoted. Let me quote another bit of it, in which he said:

“Successive governments have said that the attribution of genocide is a matter for judicial determination.”

Yet he and the Government are now proposing an amendment that would remove the courts from that process entirely and hand the responsibility instead to the Select Committees, which have already said publicly that they do not have the capacity to make such judgments. In other words, the Government wish to take a strong, substantive and historic new process for attributing genocide through the courts and acting on those rulings through our Parliament, and replace all of that with a weak, flawed and, frankly, entirely forgettable adjustment to the existing powers of Select Committees, and that is not good enough. I hope that Members on all sides will reject what I am afraid has to be said is a shameful wrecking effort, and vote instead for the original amendments 2B and 3B.

The Government’s other wrecking amendment today, on non-regression of standards, is equally flawed and equally contemptuous of Parliament’s will. It has been, I am afraid, very deliberately drafted to apply only to the continuity trade agreements already signed by the Government over the past two years, not to the trade agreements that the Government are negotiating with the likes of America and Australia today. In other words, the amendment would act retrospectively to prevent our standards for food safety, animal welfare, NHS data and online harms being undermined by the deals we signed two years ago.

Anthony Mangnall Portrait Anthony Mangnall
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Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Emily Thornberry Portrait Emily Thornberry
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I am not going to take any interventions, because my view is that we have so little time, I think it is only fair just to continue. [Interruption.] I have made it clear that I am not going to take any interventions.

The amendment the Government have tabled is one whereby we are just talking about continuity agreements, not about agreements to come. Those deals are deals such as the ones we signed two years ago with Lesotho or with Liechtenstein, and this will have no bearing whatever on any trade deal that we negotiate in the next two years with Washington or Canberra. That is the level of contempt with which the Government Whips are treating the House of Commons today. So again, I would urge Members on all sides to reject this ridiculous wrecking effort, and vote instead for amendment 6B.

In closing, I think we can all do something today even more powerful than rejecting those wrecking amendments and standing up to the shameful tactics employed by the Government Whips. We can draw the only logical conclusion from today’s events—namely, that if we do not act to guarantee the rights of Parliament to scrutinise and approve the Government’s decisions on trade, then we leave ourselves entirely at the mercy of the Government Whips, who have shown today that they will stop at nothing to deny us a voice and deny us a vote.

We have it in our power today, by backing Lord Lansley’s amendment 1B, to guarantee Parliament a vote on all future trade deals and take responsibility in this House for ensuring that our standards and our values are not undermined by the deals that we do abroad. It is a very simple idea, and in the absence of a straight vote on what I would call the Alton amendment, passing the Lansley amendment would be the very best safety net that we could put in place to prevent the agreement of trade deals with countries that commit genocide and the very best rejoinder that we could provide to anyone who would seek to suppress the will of this Parliament. If we can achieve that outcome, we can turn this from a day of shameful, shabby, shifty tactics to a day a pride for our democracy and a day of promise for the Uyghurs.

Nigel Evans Portrait Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
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There is a three-minute limit on all Back-Bench contributions from now.

Trade Bill

Emily Thornberry Excerpts
Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 22nd March 2021

(3 years ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Trade Bill 2019-21 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Commons Consideration of Lords Messages as at 22 March 2021 - (22 Mar 2021)
Rosie Winterton Portrait Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
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I inform the House that the Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of Nusrat Ghani.

Before I call the shadow Secretary of State, I inform the House that there will be a three-minute limit on speeches for Back Benchers. There is a countdown clock for those in the Chamber, and for those participating virtually it will be on their screens.

Emily Thornberry Portrait Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
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By my calculations, it has been three years, two months and two weeks since this House first debated the Government’s proposed Trade Bill, so if today’s debate proves to be the final one on a long drawn-out Bill, it would be appropriate to thank all Members of both Houses, all the parliamentary Clerks and all the officials in the Department for International Trade who have contributed to its passage.

Looking back at the very first day of debate in January 2018, I was struck by two things that were said by the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), the then Secretary of State, which seem very prescient in retrospect. The first was:

“Trade is an issue that transcends party politics”.—[Official Report, 9 January 2018; Vol. 634, c. 220.]

Time and again over the past three years, we have seen that to be the case, as Members from all sides of the House have campaigned together on different issues from farming standards to online harms. It seems fitting, after more than three years, that we should have been left with one final issue to resolve: a cross-party consensus on where we stand as a Parliament and on what we believe as a country will be most important.

That relates to the second thing that the former Secretary of State said three years ago, which I believe is equally relevant today. He said that

“trade is not only about self-interested commercial gain.”—[Official Report, 9 January 2018; Vol. 634, c. 209.]

For me, that simple statement of principle goes to the heart of the debate we have had in recent months, and especially in the past week, about human rights and trade. It goes to the heart of the decision that we have to take today on the Alton amendment to the genocide amendment.

I know that some people believe that the choices we make as a country on with whom to sign trade deals should be entirely dictated by our commercial interests and that considerations about human rights should be dealt with entirely separately. But there is another point of view—I believe it is shared by the majority of people in this country and by the majority of MPs in this House—which is simply this: there is a line that needs to be drawn; there are certain countries whose crimes are so great that they cannot simply be ignored on the basis of commercial self-interest; and Britain as a country must be willing to say no to trade deals with countries that cross that line.

The Alton amendment, as advanced today by the hon. Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani), seeks to draw that line by giving Parliament the power to debate whether Britain should sign any form of bilateral trade or investment deal with a Government held responsible for genocide by our country’s most experienced judges. Whether Members in this House decide to support the amendment today should have nothing to do with what party they represent. It should have nothing to do with the long overdue sanctions against Chinese officials announced by the Foreign Secretary earlier today. With all due respect to the Minister for Trade Policy, it should have nothing to do with the points of constitutional precedence that he made in his opening speech.

Whether we support the Alton amendment should only come down to the fundamental question, which is one we must all ask ourselves: should Britain be willing to sign trade agreements with Governments who are committing genocide? Should Britain be willing to sign trade deals with a Government who are engaging in torture, mass detention, slave labour, organ harvesting and non-judicial executions—not on an isolated basis, but on an industrial scale—against the Uyghur population in Xinjiang? Should Britain be willing to sign trade deals with a Government who are separating hundreds of thousands of children from their parents and re-educating them in different languages, religion and history in an attempt to wipe the Uyghur culture off the Chinese map? Should Britain be willing to sign trade deals with a Government who are carrying out the systematic sexual abuse, rape and sterilisation of hundreds of thousands of women in Xinjiang in an attempt to guarantee that this current generation of Uyghur children is the last?

I cannot see how anyone in this House can read the evidence of those crimes being committed against the Uyghurs and think that a potential trade or investment deal with China can be considered only on its commercial merits and not on the basis of morality. That is surely where we need to draw the line, and that is what the Alton amendment seeks to do. That is why I urge Members from all parts of the House to look into their souls this afternoon, to vote with their conscience and to make clear that this is the line that Britain is not prepared to cross.

Iain Duncan Smith Portrait Sir Iain Duncan Smith
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I beg to move amendment (a), to leave out from House to “with” and insert “agrees”.

I rise to continue the debate that has been going on among us about what constitutes a fair and reasonable settlement with the Government. I started by moving the amendment standing in my name, and that of my hon. Friends the Members for Wealden (Ms Ghani) and for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), because I think that the Government have got themselves twisted up in knots, and I think my right hon. Friend the Minister knows that.

My right hon. Friend knows very well that, when the amendment was first put through the Lords, I spoke to a number of Ministers. I must say that the reaction of each of them was, “I don’t think there is a problem here. You have met our red lines, and this is a Committee in the Lords.” Suddenly, late in the day, they discovered this phenomenal red line called “quasi-judicial”.

On the definition the Government have given us today, “quasi-judicial” can be applied to any Select Committee in the House of Commons. Here is what a quasi-judicial committee is defined as in legal terms:

“A proceeding conducted by an administrative or executive official”.

That is important, because Parliament does not have any of those on its Committees—Parliament is separate from the Executive—so that does not apply to Parliament. The Minister knows very well that in this amendment, we have allowed the Government to set the terms of how the committee will sit, the balance of evidence and the kind of peers who would sit on it, which is to do with the judiciary.

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Robert Neill Portrait Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
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I would have no hesitation in voting against a trade deal with a state that commits genocide, nor would I have any hesitation in voting against a trade deal with a state whose oppressive behaviour and conduct fell short of the legal definition of genocide. But either way, those are political decisions and should be taken here; therefore, we need a political process to deal with those.

That is why, despite the changes, there still remain difficulties with the latest iteration of this Bill to come back from their lordships. The problem is given away by the language, which was recognised by the shadow Secretary of State when she referred to a finding by our country’s most experienced judges. That is the rub of the wording of the amendment. When it talks about a “Parliamentary Judicial Committee” and “a preliminary determination”, later defined as “a public finding”, that is the language of courts rather than of Parliaments.

The tension is further revealed by the provisions specifying the procedure by which judges may be appointed to the parliamentary judicial committee. That is constitutionally inaccurate, never mind anything else, because once former members of the judiciary sit in the other place, they sit there as former members, no longer as judges. They have ceased their judicial function. To pass this amendment with its current wording would be constitutionally illiterate. Although the expertise of the former members of the judiciary is very great and very welcome, it is surely objectionable in principle to create a parliamentary Committee on which only one class Member of either House can serve by reference purely to their previous occupation.

Secondly, it seems to me undesirable that, by statute, we should seek to circumscribe so closely both the membership of a Committee of either House or the proceedings by which such a Committee operates, which normally should be a matter for Standing Orders. I would have thought that that was much the better way to go.

Robert Neill Portrait Sir Robert Neill
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I will give way to the shadow Secretary of State, as I referred to her speech.

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Emily Thornberry Portrait Emily Thornberry
- Hansard - -

The thing that has always concerned me about the hon. Gentleman’s amendment is that it is for Select Committees to make decisions about whether there has been genocide, but the Chairs of the Select Committee who would be the primary candidates have all said that they do not think that they are up to it, that they do not feel that they have sufficient experience, and that it would be the sort of thing that someone with judicial experience would be better able to do.

Robert Neill Portrait Sir Robert Neill
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

That would lead the right hon. Lady back into the constitutional problem that was recognised and rejected by this House on a previous occasion with the first version of the Alton amendment. Secondly, I posit that the better way forward is to use the Standing Orders of this House to set up a Joint Committee of both Houses to scrutinise the matter. That could, of course, from the Crossbench Members of the other House, include Members of the House of Lords with former judicial experience, but they would be there as Members of the House, not as former judges and that is their proper constitutional position. None of them has sought to suggest that they will be doing so otherwise.