Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between James Duddridge and Lloyd Russell-Moyle

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th October 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

rose—

[Sir James Duddridge]

If I am given some leniency near the end, there might be an opportunity to intervene then, if there is a particular element that I have not picked up on, because there are about 25 issues that I need to cover.

Broadly speaking—officials will not like me saying this—I agree with a lot of what has been said. I agree about the importance of consultation, and of reviewing and evaluating what we have done. There is a lot of that in the Bill, and a lot of it has been done by the Government already. I will go through what we have done, but just because we have consulted, that does not mean we do what someone wants. It is a balancing act. I suspect the hon. Member for Harrow West would do things differently from me if he was in the hot seat, but I am sure he would have consulted as widely as the Department and officials did on behalf of His Majesty’s Government. I am disappointed to hear that he will press two of these measure to a vote. He has thrown down the gauntlet, and I have picked it up, so hopefully I can persuade him not to vote on them, because we are covering a lot of the issues raised.

Communication with the devolved Administrations is integral to not only the way the Department conducts its negotiations but ensuring that legislation operates effectively in each and every nation of the United Kingdom. I am more than happy to reiterate the commitment of the then Secretary of State for International Development that the UK Government would not normally legislate without the consent of the devolved Administrations. The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts may well say, “Why not put that in the Bill?” That is a valid point, but it is not one about procurement; it is about the fundamental nature of devolution. Treaty making is done at the UK level on procurement, as it would be in an international treaty on, for example, nuclear non-proliferation.

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[Sir James Duddridge]

He clearly does, but that is not for this Bill. On scrutiny, Members drew comparison with the EU and the US. I gently point out that those are very different democratic bodies. The EU is a body of 27 nation states, remotely located; and the US has a presidential system, and an Executive that is more detached from the legislature, whereas we are much more integrated here.

On consultation, there was a wider discussion that related to all types of scrutiny but included procurement, so with your permission, Mr Twigg, I will go through how we have looked at scrutiny through the lens of procurement.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

The Minister is quite right to mention that those two systems are different. Norway operates a dualist system for international treaty agreements in the same way that we do. It operates a prime ministerial system with a constitutional monarchy in the same way that we do. Their Parliament has the ability to scrutinise the heads of terms of international agreements, and its committees can agree the additional measures that are coming through, and can be consulted on them. So, yes, he is right in relation to the two big examples that I gave, but there are many other international examples, and I do not want to bore the Committee by going through more of them. Will he not at least acknowledge that we are on the worse end of the scale when it comes to the consultation of Parliaments, devolved areas and civil society, not on the better end?

[Sir James Duddridge]

No, I do not. I do not want to go through a comparative analysis of every country around the world, but we are not. There is a lot in legislation that we have to do; there is a lot that is not in legislation that we do on a repeated basis. For example, on issues of the scrutiny of the New Zealand and Australia trade deals, particularly in relation to procurement, prior to our talks, we published all of our objectives. We published the economic scoping document and a Government response to the call for input. During the negotiations, we published six public reports of what happened, so Parliament and the public could input and lobby. We published extensive information at the agreement stage and at the in-principle stage. We also engaged in Parliamentary activity. All together, there were over 12 sessions with either the International Trade Committee or the Lords International Agreements Committee.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir James Duddridge]

I will just finish the point and then I will certainly give way to the hon. Gentleman. I was rather hoping that he was going to be at a Select Committee, but it is a pleasure to see him here—[Interruption.] I will finish my point and then I will give way. I apologise, Mr Twigg, for being slightly disorderly. We made nine ministerial statements and there were eight formal MP briefings; Ministers also made themselves available more informally to Members on both sides of the House.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I could not resist this Public Bill Committee and so I am missing the opportunity to grill the Secretary of State for International Trade. Hopefully I would not just be grilling her, but having fruitful discussions, such as those that we will now have. I look forward to doing that on future occasions.

The Minister listed a number of documents that the Government have published, but he has confused publishing information with having detailed, constructive and structured dialogues—with sitting down and engaging with people.

I have already publicly put blame on the previous Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan), and I will not repeat myself. However, for one reason or another, more than five times, she was unable to meet the International Trade Committee, and she was unable to meet it before it published its report on the Australia and New Zealand free trade agreements. That led to an urgent question in the Chamber and a Westminster Hall debate. Will the Minister not at least accept that there is more that the Department could do to engage co-operatively with the International Trade Committee and others, to stop the contention that we have had?

[Sir James Duddridge]

During long interventions, sometimes Ministers jokingly ask to intervene, but I had been sitting down for so long that I genuinely thought I was listening to a speech.

Relations with the International Trade Committee have not been as good as the Government, the Committee or the House want. That is going to change. We will make ourselves fully available. I know the Secretary of State has already started having those meetings with the Committee. Her diary obviously shifts quite quickly, so I cannot say where she will be, when. I know there is a whole series of activities planned. I am looking at the Public Gallery; there are civil servants looking into how we can link better with members of the Committee. I will play my part as Minister of State at the Department, and will always make myself available to the Committee, if at all possible. It will be my top priority, over and above speaking to the House or taking part in other Committee processes.

The hon. Gentleman said, “You just publish reports. That’s not enough.” If that is all we did, it would not be enough, but it is not all we have done. There are inter-ministerial groups on these issues, which are attended by Ministers from the devolved Administrations, particularly those with responsibility for trade. The forum that we are discussing was established to consider all trade policy, and its effective implementation, and will be able to review and evaluate that policy’s impact.

The hon. Member for Harrow West seems incapable of using the word “effect” or “impact” without prefacing it with the word “chilling”, as if these were haunting issues. We want to evaluate policies, to look at the impact assessment, and to improve all the time. As has been said, the agreements are evolving. They get built on and improved. The forum has met eight times since its inception in 2020. It provides for open discussion about negotiation, and allows Ministers from devolved Administrations to contribute their views directly, both formally and, in the sidings, informally.

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[Sir James Duddridge]

The unions are involved in the trade advisory groups. There is, I think, one issue with an offer that has been made to one union to join, but it is holding out because it wants another union also to be involved and is therefore not participating.

On returning to the Department after the previous sitting, one of my officials expressed surprise at the evidence given because it contradicted something she had been at—she had been present at one of those meetings. While I am happy to look again and the current Secretary of State has made it clear that she wants all consultees to be included in the process, we are the decision makers in our process, and I would not want to contract out UK Government decision making to any organisation.

I am not going to answer the question on the United States. I am responsible for many things, but not the system in the US.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

The Minister has said that the trade unions are members of trade advisory groups, but I have looked up the membership of those groups, searching for the word “union”, and there are only four union members, and they are all farmers union representatives. I understand that farmers unions are important, but they are different from trade unions and the TUC, so either the list on the website is not up to date or there is some confusion here. It would be useful if we got some clarity.

[Sir James Duddridge]

Absolutely. On unions—I mean unions in the broadest sense; I am not trying to pull a fast one by referring to four regional national farmers unions—my understanding is that six unions, as the hon. Gentleman would understand the term “union”, as opposed to the Conservative and Unionist party, for argument’s sake, are genuinely involved in the trade advisory groups. That is what we would want.

That is on the record. If I am wrong and if I have misread my brief, I will correct the record later and write to the hon. Gentleman with the details of the unions, and perhaps with more information around the issue of the union being invited to something and there being some type of deal, if it is in the public interest to put that out. I want to encourage the unions to come and be part of the process, and I want us to make decisions.

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[Sir James Duddridge]

Thank, you Mr Twigg.

The Government are committed to transparency. We have put forward a suite of enhanced transparency and scrutiny arrangements that go well beyond our statutory obligations.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Sir James Duddridge]

So early? Yes, I am more than happy to.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I am pleased to hear about the Government’s commitment to transparency, but at 3 o’clock, the Secretary of State cancelled her meeting with the Chair of the International Trade Committee. He turned up to the Department, where an official said, “The Secretary of State is going to be in the House for votes so cannot meet you now. We will have to postpone to another week.” Is that the reset that we were promised and the kind of openness and transparency that we should expect?

[Sir James Duddridge]

I have made the point that we want to establish a good relationship with the International Trade Committee, and the Secretary of State giving evidence to it is clearly part of that. The hon. Gentleman will know that Ministers sometimes need to deal with matters urgently. I do not know what other matters are going on, but I am sure that the Secretary of State has apologised profusely and looks forward—as I do—to attending that Committee. I am more than happy to update the hon. Gentleman in a bit more detail, informally—perhaps even later today if I have time to go back to the Department.

Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between James Duddridge and Lloyd Russell-Moyle

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th October 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I do not think that even the most foresighted Labour politician would expect the rules that they designed 100 years ago to still be in operation today. Even if I managed to get one amendment through in my career here, I would not expect it to last 100 years.

The CRaG process, I am afraid, is not fit for purpose in the modern world. Although I do not want to prejudge what my other Committee will say, I suspect that is the conclusion that all sides are coming to—that it needs to be updated. These amendments allow a sticking plaster so that secondary legislation and regulations that are made must go through that process. That is what we heard businesses wanted.

The amendments would also ensure that all regions and nations of our country are properly consulted. The other part of my constitutional affairs hat is that we visit the devolved Administrations every year and speak to them about how they feel their relationships with the Union are going. I can tell Conservative Members that they think it is going very badly. That is not just the SNP in Scotland but Labour in Wales and the Democratic Unionist party in Northern Ireland. They think that the way this Government consult and work with them is arrogant and dismissive. That is what every single one of them said, and what Conservative colleagues in the devolved Administrations said to us too.

[Sir James Duddridge]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his constructive criticism. In the 25 meetings between the chief negotiator and the devolved Administrations, what, specifically, did the DAs raise on procurement issues that they were unhappy with?

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Well, I can go and look at my notes and see if they said that procurement was a particular problem. Their concern was that they were presented with a faits accomplis time and time again. They were presented with, “This is the way that you can have it; accept it or leave it.” That was in a wide range of areas, but trade was one of their many concerns.

The amendments are not to say that the Government are not meeting with the devolved Administrations or are not in communication with them, but to say that the Government must consult and work with the devolved Administrations and the English regions before the regulations are laid, in a co-operative, rather than dictatorial, way. It is therefore important that they are agreed to, because they would provide the reassurance that is needed to rebuild the way that regulations are laid that affect the whole UK. We have seen how, when legislative consent motions have not been provided, they are still run roughshod over.