Trade Deals: Parliamentary Scrutiny

Julian Sturdy Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[Anthony Mangnall]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman on literally nothing apart from this point about scrutiny. I thoroughly enjoy working with him on this issue, because there is genuine cross-party consensus about the need for scrutiny. I say in response to him that trade deals are not static. We should not view them as static, because they can evolve and improve. To the point he just made, where there are pitfalls we should look to improve them, and to see how we can develop the agreements in the future. He is absolutely right; had we been given due process when we signed the free trade agreement with Australia, Parliament would have been able to debate this issue at length and we could have rooted out some of the issues before we ratified the agreement.

As we sign all the trade agreements, there is good news to be told, but a cloud has hung over all the excellent work. I want to raise four points—I am conscious that a number of Members of Parliament want to speak—that the Minister might consider and respond to. First, we must ensure that there is a long-term strategy for trade negotiations. We need better clarity. It is clear that the Government have a big appetite to sign new trade deals, and therefore they must consider how they will convey to Members of Parliament, trade bodies and the general public an understanding of their ambition. If we have a long-term strategy, we can at least understand the Government’s direction of travel, and we can scrutinise it to better effect to see whether the goals have been met. I really cannot think that any Member in this room is against the United Kingdom signing trade deals, but we need to understand whether we are meeting those goals and whether the Department for International Trade is improving or worsening in its ability to take on new trade agreements.

My second point is about issues on which our provision would not change in any circumstance, such as human rights. It is essential that there is a standard level of human rights clauses in our trade agreements. There is a moral obligation for us to do that.

My third and perhaps most lengthy point is about something that came into being in 1924, the whole premise and purpose of which was to give us a say over international agreements that were signed. It was updated in the late 2000s by the Labour Government in something called the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, which basically said that we would have 21 days to ratify a new trade agreement. Within that, Members would be given time in Parliament to debate and vote on the issue, with a votable motion at the end of the debates. If it were rejected, there would be an extension of a further 21 days before ratification.

The previous three International Trade Secretaries have all affirmed the existence and the importance of CRaG and the need to use proper parliamentary scrutiny to get into the weeds of our trade agreements. In fact, the previous Secretary of State for International Trade said that CRaG provides a sound framework to scrutinise treaties that is less than a decade old. That is of real importance. Successive Ministers, including the Minister who is here today, have talked about the value of CRaG in ensuring that we, as Back-Bench Members of Parliament who are not in Government, can justify the agreements that we are passing and ensure that due process has taken place.

To the point made by the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) just a moment ago, the scrutiny has taken place; the value is there for British taxpayers, businesses and residents; and we are signing good deals. Ultimately, if we get these agreements right, we will only get better at this. If Members from all parts of the House are given due process to scrutinise trade agreements, we will only make better and more successful ones.

On 9 February, the Minister said that we have a robust scrutiny arrangement that allows Parliament to hold the Government to account. Let us take the Australia-UK free trade agreement, for which we were not given due warning of the CRaG process starting. There was not enough time for Ministers to come before the International Trade Committee to discuss the terms of the Australia free trade agreement. In fact, the previous Secretary of State was invited eight times and did not attend. When the CRaG process was started, the International Trade Committee had not even had time to publish its report. That is not the way it should be.

Let me make it crystal clear that the International Trade Committee should be given the right to publish its report before the start of the 21-sitting-day CRaG period, to ensure that due process is followed and that Members from across the House can read the report, digest it and prepare to debate and vote on the trade deal in Parliament. Can the Minister guarantee that a Secretary of State will appear before the Committee to discuss a trade deal ahead of our publication of any report on it? It should not be hard for us to secure a Secretary of State to discuss these trade deals of which we should, rightly, be so proud.

The important point, from my perspective, is that I am not asking for a veto. In fact, a vote to delay ratification does not change the terms of an agreement. It just delays it, and sends a very clear message that, should we sign another trade agreement, certain principles and concepts should be thought about again. We have to take that into account. I am not an extremist about the need for Parliament to come in, rip up trade agreements and decide what goes in or out of them. I am simply making the point that we must ensure that we have a say. We must have an opportunity to be constructive in a way that allows us to justify the creation of our trade deals and scrutinise their components.

Compared to other countries, we are behind the times on this issue. America has a more rigorous system. In Canada, Parliament has an opportunity to debate and—in some instances, although not in statute—to vote on trade agreements. Let us catch up with them. Let us justify it, because it will only improve the process.

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful argument, with which I entirely agree. The UK has not done trade deals for many years, and there seems to be a slight lack of expertise out there, which is no fault of Government or Ministers. Does he think that that is a reason to have extra time for scrutiny? Also, there is plenty of expertise in the international businesses and industries that operate in the UK. Does he think that the Government should use that expertise more readily?

[Anthony Mangnall]

I thank my hon. Friend for his incredibly helpful intervention. Yes, I do. The International Trade Committee has sizeable limitations, and a number of trade deals are being signed. If we are able to discuss such matters with more people, open this up, and allow people to debate and scrutinise, we will be able to improve the actual process. If hon. Members were to ask anyone in the Department for International Trade whether they had learned lessons between the signing of the Australia trade agreement and the signing of the New Zealand trade agreement, they would clearly see that lessons have been learned: the situation has improved, and we are getting better and better. From the officials that have come before the International Trade Committee, it is clear that the Department is doing a fantastic job in tackling international trade agreements. It is learning each day how to do it, in a way that we have not had to for the last 40 years. It is right that we use the expertise in both Parliament and trade bodies across the country.

My last point is around the International Trade Committee’s resources. An extraordinary, dedicated group of people works to help us, as Members of Parliament, do our duty on that Committee. We have found it incredibly frustrating to see their hard work sometimes ignored and sometimes rubbished, because we have not had the access and due process—which was always promised to us, I hasten to add—to ensure that our reports can be produced, read and valued by Members of Parliament. We must change that system; otherwise, the International Trade Committee is completely redundant. I ask the Minister to listen carefully to what we are asking for. We are asking for access to Ministers and for time to produce our reports. We are asking for CRaG to be amended to include debates and voteable motions, so that we, as Members of Parliament, have opportunities to debate trade agreements.