Trade Deals: Parliamentary Scrutiny

Greg Hands Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

None of this is new or not on the record. I think I have been even franker to the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed to her face in Committee meetings, including about her officials, but I will alert her to this because it is a speech that has come from my contemplation today.

[The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman was not impugning officials at the Department for International Trade in that regard. I am not sure whether he was, but I am sure that he would not want to be questioning the integrity of the officials in the Department. Maybe I misunderstood him and maybe that was not the case.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

No, I think their advice to her was bad. That is my honest feeling. It was not good advice on how she should conduct her relationship with the Committee. It does not need to be like that, because other Committees that I have sat on—and I have sat on many—have had very good relationships with officials. I do not think that the relationship with the officials and the previous Secretary of State was good. I am afraid it is not just about the Secretary of State on this matter.

When I was on the International Development Committee, the relationship was such that we had private discussions and briefings with the Secretary of State every month. They were private, off the record and totally in camera. We would discuss confidential issues relating to development spending—sometimes where it had been misspent or where there were problems. The Committee would then rally around the Secretary of State, the Department and their officials when things were happening. That is the kind of relationship that we need now, and it is the kind of relationship that I think we can have now.

We need to review CraG, and the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, which I also sit on, is doing that now. We need to strengthen CraG and we also need to have the following things, which I will list quickly and then finish. We need to ensure that heads of terms are presented to the Committee and signed off by the House, just like in America, the European Union and most other advanced democracies. We need to have private briefings at every single stage and on every single chapter. That is what the EU and the US get. If it is good enough for them, it needs to be good enough for us. We need to have embedded people in some of the key negotiations. Again, the US Senate has that, and that is what we should be expecting. It is not good enough for Ministers or the Department to tell us that these are confidential discussions. They are in the national interest and they must include the Committee. It is unacceptable for them to think that the Committee is not trustworthy.

We need a proper set of trade commissioners who give impartial advice to the Committee. The Committee needs to be given the resources for a set of sub-committees and staff. The Committee could then look at broad issues and the sub-committees could look at trade-by-trade issues. It is not good enough that the Committee is having to do all the trade-by-trade issues, which means that we are not looking at any of the broad issues in our scrutiny.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Elliott. It is great to be back at the Department for International Trade after a one-year gap. It is good to engage on a huge number of the issues that I used to engage on—I have had a quick crash course to bring myself up to speed after the last year.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) on securing the debate. He is a genuine champion for global Britain and brings great energy to the International Trade Committee—something I remember from when I appeared before the Committee a number of times. The Committee is extremely important to the work of the Department for International Trade, as is the Lord’s International Agreements Committee. Many important points have been raised during the debate, and I will strive to cover as many as I can. First, I will lay out a little context, but most of my speech will deal with the points that have been raised.

For the first time in nearly half a century, the UK is free to negotiate its own free trade agreements with the world’s fastest-growing economies. The rewards will be significant: higher wages, more jobs and more growth, with agreements specifically tailored to the needs of the United Kingdom. However, given that our free trade agreements equate to a significant shift in trade policy and in how this country does its trade policy, it is right that Parliament has the opportunity to fully examine them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes rightly says that the CRaG process came in during the last days of the Labour Government, in 2010. CRaG ensures that Parliament has 21 sitting days to consider a deal before it can be ratified. Only once that period has passed without either House resolving against the deal can it proceed towards ratification. The Government believe that CRaG continues to provide a robust framework, but we have added, in addition to CRaG, some important parts to this process. In both respects, the need for parliamentary scrutiny and the Government’s constitutional right to negotiate international agreements under the royal prerogative—

[Anthony Mangnall]

I am sorry to interrupt, but the Minister is making the point that Parliament has the ability to consider these things under CRaG. Parliament only has that ability if the Government allow time for us debate and vote. We did not have that for the Australia agreement. I think most of us want the Minister to say today that, on the New Zealand agreement and the subsequent trade agreements, we will have that time allocated, as outlined under CRaG.

[Greg Hands]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Of course, I have only been back at the Department two days now, but I will carefully consider the representations that he has made on parliamentary scrutiny. As I am laying out, CRaG is a process that, I believe, works well overall. We have added elements to CRaG, on top of the situation we inherited in 2010.

I should stress that no international treaty—we saw this in the House earlier in the Committee stage of the Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill—can of itself change the UK’s laws. That can be done only by Parliament. What is more, it is the long-standing practice of successive Governments to ratify treaties only once relevant domestic implementing legislation is in place. As my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes knows, the Australia free trade agreement is not actually ratified yet, because the domestic legislation is not yet in place.

My hon. Friend made an excellent speech. He rightly praised a litany of successes and the importance of our trade policy in making a difference to businesses, exporters, and consumers. Having read through quite a few of these free trade agreements and international trade agreements, I can say that there is no point negotiating just for the sake of producing a doorstep-style document. The point is to have an agreement that works for our exporters, consumers and producers, as rightly pointed out by various hon. Members.

May I give some praise to my officials? I was a little perturbed by the points raised by the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle). Whatever officials may or may not have advised Ministers in the past, it is unfair to attack them if Ministers chose not to follow that advice or did something else. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will want to think about that and perhaps intervene on me to clarify what he meant.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

What I should have said is that the Secretary of State hid behind her officials, claiming that it was their advice that she was following. I hope that that was not the case and I that officials were giving her good, broad advice—I am sure they always do.

[Greg Hands]

Let me take that in the spirit in which it is meant. I think we will agree to move on, but the hon. Gentleman has made his point. I am just saying that Ministers are always responsible for the decisions and actions of their Departments. That is a very good rule for how our constitution works.

My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes made various excellent points about better clarity and better comms. In my experience, there can always be better communication in the world of trade. There is always a huge amount of misunderstanding in relation to trade in general and free trade agreements in particular.

My hon. Friend mentioned outreach, which I will come back to. He also mentioned human rights clauses. The UK has an incredibly proud record—not only on our own human rights, but on the engagement we do around the world. Free trade agreements are not always the best way to engage on human rights—there are often better ways to do that—but we do make sure that, wherever appropriate, human rights are included in free trade agreements. We will certainly engage with all our trade partners on the issues that matter to the British people and the Government, be they human rights or trade union rights.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

Will the Minister give way?

[Greg Hands]

Let me deal first with the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes raised and the specific case he mentioned. I will talk about CRaG in a bit more detail, but the other part of his speech was about respect for the International Trade Committee. I know from the times I have appeared in front of that Committee how important it is. It is ably chaired by the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil)—I have mutilated the pronunciation of the Western Isles, but I have done my best. I say to my hon. Friend that our system of scrutinising international agreements and trade deals is at least as good as that in other Westminster-style democracies, such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Unless something major has changed in the year I have been out of the Department, I think the UK shapes up at least as well as those equivalent systems.

My hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy), who is no longer in his place, talked about a lack of expertise in the Department, but I would say quite the opposite. I was there at the foundation of the Department in 2016, and we deliberately made sure that we had the expertise and the right people in place.

I am already overshooting on time, Ms Elliott. I have not done justice to a lot of the contributions that have been made, but I think that I have dealt with human rights. There was mention of China and Russia. Of course, there are no plans to make a free trade agreement with the likes of China or Russia. Trade policy is reserved, but we engage with and consult the Scottish Government and Welsh Government through the ministerial forum for trade, which I used to chair and which I think I will be chairing again.

The hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green) talked about meaningful debate. The Department for International Trade always has meaningful debate, and we always have outreach to stakeholders. People have specifically mentioned farmers. I cannot tell you the number of outreach sessions that I did with the NFU, NFU Scotland, NFU Cymru, the Farmers’ Union of Wales and the Ulster Farmers’ Union. The number of Zoom and Teams meetings that I did with them all during the pandemic was absolutely extraordinary. We did a huge amount of outreach.

I say to hon. Members that it has been a helpful and interesting debate. It has been useful for me to get back up to speed on parliamentary scrutiny. I appreciate that Members want to see more scrutiny and more debate. I am open-minded on that, and I will have a look specifically at some of the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes raised in relation to current free trade negotiations.