Australia-UK Free Trade Agreement: Scrutiny

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jayawardena]

We have a system that compares very well with other parliamentary systems around the world. We will not be extending the CRaG period, given the extensive scrutiny time that Parliament has had—as I set out earlier, seven months by the end of the period—and we will not be able to offer a debate. The Secretary of State said that she felt the agreement could benefit from a general debate, but that is a matter for business managers in this House. The Labour party was very keen to have another debate yesterday, which took a whole day of parliamentary business from this House.

The section 42 report is there to inform the scrutiny period, not create an additional scrutiny period above and beyond CRaG. We published that report on 6 June. As my hon. Friend says, it was sent to the International Trade Committee, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and the International Agreements Committee in the other place on 27 May to ensure they had ample time to consider the report. There is a balance, as I say, between ensuring sufficient time for robust scrutiny and ensuring agreements come into place quickly. I think we have got that balance right.

On CRaG, the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 was introduced by the Labour party. It gave the opportunity for parliamentary disapproval of treaties statutory effect and it gave the House of Commons the power to block ratification. Members across the House will know the answer to that. I am more than willing to set out the process, but in the interests of time and allowing people to come in I shall sit down for now.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State, Nick Thomas-Symonds.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the granting of today’s urgent question and I congratulate the hon. Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) on securing it.

The Government’s failure to make adequate parliamentary time available for a debate on this trade deal is completely unacceptable and a clear breach of promise. Lord Grimstone wrote in May 2020:

“The Government does not envisage a new FTA proceeding to ratification without a debate first having taken place on it”.

The Select Committee has, rightly, been scathing about the way the Government have handled scrutiny on this issue and about their premature triggering of the 21-day CRaG process without full Select Committee consideration being available to Members. Today’s clear rejection of an extension to the CRaG process is, yet again, unacceptable behaviour from the Government.

The truth is that Ministers are running away from scrutiny. Might Ministers be running away because of the Select Committee’s report stating they lack a “coherent trade strategy”? Or might the Government be hiding from scrutiny because of the chaos at the Department itself? Members do not have to take my word for it. Yesterday, the Secretary of State was saying of her own Minister of State for Trade Policy, the right hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), that there has been a

“number of times when she hasn’t been available which would have been useful and other Ministers have picked up the pieces”.

That is her own Minister. Maybe the Under-Secretary of State for International Trade, the hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena), is one of the Ministers who has been picking up the pieces. Or might Ministers be hiding because of the lack of progress in their trade policy, with no comprehensive trade deal with the US in sight?

There are profound consequences for our agricultural sector from the Australian deal that Ministers should be open about and accountable for. Is it any wonder that Australia’s former negotiator at the WTO said:

“I don’t think we have ever done as well as this”?

To put it quite simply, when are Ministers going to stop running away from their own failure?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jayawardena]

Asked and answered, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

Right. We now come to the next urgent question, from Dame Diana Johnson.