LGBT History Month

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I thank my hon. Friend. I am not sure about him standing on my shoulders; I am not sure I could quite cope with that, but I understand absolutely the points he made and, unlike my response to them, they are very serious. They are a serious cause for concern and should concern everybody in this House.

Returning to the transformative work of the last Labour Government in this era, I recall that we needed to invoke the Parliament Act, no less, to equalise the age of consent in the face of massively ferocious opposition and ongoing vetoes from the House of Lords. This was the heavy lifting and it was done because it was the right thing to do. These progressive gains have made our society a better and more supportive place for everyone, and they finally allowed LGBT+ people to be respected and included and to enjoy equal rights before the law.

I see the effect of these gains especially in the increased visibility of LGBT+ people and their willingness to live their authentic lives in the open at last.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the real gains from being able to teach about LGBT people in schools is that young people—when I say “young” I probably mean those under 35 or under 40—in this country have a very low rate of problems with LGB and T people and they find many of the debates we are currently having on the roll-back completely bemusing, because for them it is just normal to have diversity in sexuality and gender?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

It is almost like my hon. Friend can read my mind—which is a slightly worrying prospect—because I am going to come on to make precisely that observation.

These gains have led to the increased visibility of LGBT people and confidence among our community for them to live their lives as they wish, in the open. I also see it in the recent census returns, which show an increased propensity of young people to define themselves as LGBT+ without the stigma that that label would have presented in the past. There are those who regard this as a bad thing and call it a “social contagion,” but I regard it as a welcome freeing of our society from oppressive norms which imprisoned people and narrowed their lives, depriving them of the chance to flourish and live their lives more truthfully.

None of this was easily accomplished. None of it happened automatically as if there was always going to be an inevitable progression from less enlightening times to a more enlightened present day. This progress was not inevitable. It had to be campaigned for; it had to be fought for; it had to be won. And it was won, often in the teeth of fierce opposition from the red-top tabloids and some in the Conservative party who put section 28 on the statute book and blighted the lives of generations of children—although I am glad to see that there has been progress there too, and I genuinely welcome Conservative Members to the ongoing fight to maintain and strengthen the gains we have made, because there is no doubt that there is a backlash, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) pointed out, and a threat that we may go backwards here and in the rest of the world.

In the UK, we are approaching the 20th anniversary of the repeal of section 28, the 10th anniversary of the equal marriage Act and, incidentally, the 25th anniversary of my own coming out, but there are still things on our immediate to-do list. First, the Government must fulfil their pledge to legislate for a comprehensive ban on conversion therapy. That must include all LGBT+ people and not be rendered ineffective by either a religious or a consent loophole. For let us be in no doubt: conversion therapy is torture, it is inherently abusive and damaging, and five years after pledging action it is past time for this Government to act. I hope we can hear from the Minister in his response some indication of precisely how and when the Government will do that. I note the recent announcement of a draft Bill, which is welcome, but as yet there is no detail on when it might be enacted, or what it will actually consist of. As the delay lengthens, vulnerable LGBT+ people are left at risk of this unacceptable abuse.

Secondly, the Government should be tackling the rising tide of anti-LGBT+ hate crime. Currently in the UK, the atmosphere is becoming increasingly hostile, with a 42% increase in reported hate crime targeting sexual orientation and a 56% increase in the targeting of transgender people. Some of this is associated with the backlash I mentioned earlier, to which I will return. Some of it, I am sad to say, has been provoked deliberately by the disgraceful targeting and problematising of transgendered people by some members of the Government and their enablers in the press.

We are currently in the middle of a full-blown hysteria which targets transgender people using many of the tropes and smears which those of us who lived through the ’80s remember only too well being used against gay men and lesbians. Trans people, especially trans women, are disgracefully being portrayed as automatically predatory, inherently dangerous to women and children and somehow responsible for all the violence against women which plagues our society. That is an offensive caricature which does not bear relation to the truth.

The Prime Minister spent his leadership election campaign pledging to save, and I quote him, “our women” from the supposed threat of trans people, and we currently have an Equalities Minister—not the Minister opposite, the right hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), I hasten to add—who feels able to use the term trans women and predator in the same sentence, as if the two were somehow inherently the same. Although she appears to have lost the battle, it was reported that she wished to exclude trans people completely from the proposed ban on conversion therapy even though they are more likely than anyone else to be subjected to it.

For the record, I believe that the cause of equal rights best advances when the interests of all those who have suffered discrimination in the past advance. We advance together. There is no contradiction between LGBT+ rights and women’s rights that is not adequately covered in the Equality Act 2010. Trans rights which grant them respect and dignity are not a threat to anyone, and I say that as a lifelong feminist and a lesbian.

It is obvious that we are now in the midst of a well-organised global backlash against LGBT+ rights. It is well-funded, ferocious and potentially deadly for LGBT+ people. Its adherents range across the globe, from President Putin to Steve Bannon, from Viktor Orbán to ex-President Trump. Its aim is to reverse progress and, sadly, our own country is by no means immune to these global issues. The Government’s announcement of a review of those countries whose gender recognition certificates they will recognise is ominous, with rumours circulating that the Government are seeking to delist as many as 18 countries whose gender recognition certificates we currently accept. That is so that they can justify their use of section 35 of the Scotland Act 1998 to strike down the recently passed Scottish law on gender recognition. Surely the best way forward would be to have, not that confrontation, but a sensible discussion to find a way through. I urge the Government to reconsider their confrontational stance. I hope the rumours of delisting are not true and that the Minister can reassure us on that point, because such a move would take away existing rights.

Many countries are at risk of going backwards on LGBT+ rights. Russia legislated for a modern version of section 28 and then extended its so-called anti-LGBT+ propaganda laws across society. That follows the vicious persecution of LGBT+ people in Chechnya; legislation has been passed in Hungary, with so-called LGBT-free zones appearing across the country, and anti-LGBT law is also being passed in Ghana, accompanied by open persecution of LGBT+ people.

On that point, I wonder if the Minister might be able in his response to scotch persistent rumours that the Government are in the middle of trying to negotiate a Rwanda-style deal with Ghana. The implications of that for LGBT+ asylum seekers are too horrendous to contemplate, so I hope the Minister will be able to put all our minds at ease that that is not currently on the Government’s agenda.

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[Elliot Colburn]

I agree entirely, and I commend my right hon. Friend for all the work he has done in paving the way for many of us in this place.

Let me now turn to some of the UK’s more recent history in this regard. As I said earlier, the decriminalisation of same-sex relationships in the UK finally occurred in 1967. By the turn of the century, LGBT people could serve in the armed forces and the age of consent had been equalised.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

We should note, however, that when same-sex relationships between men were legalised it was due not to some euphoria about gay rights, but to a conservative view held in many quarters that we should look after these sorry, poor, gay individuals who were likely to be blackmailed. While that was a step forward, the transformation in people’s minds in relation to how to consider gay people took many more years. Are there not similarities with the way in which some people talk about trans people now? Perhaps we are on that journey as well.

[Elliot Colburn]

The hon. Gentleman is right. This was not a euphoric overnight decision in 1967 after which everything was OK; things took much longer. Of course, the circumstances were very different, but the hon. Gentleman has made an important point.

I was talking about some of our more recent successes. The passage of the Equality Act 2010 protected LGBT+ people from discrimination, harassment and victimisation in many areas of public life, and the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Act 2013 and equivalent legislation across the UK—passed in 2014 in Scotland and 2019 in Northern Ireland— finally enabled LGBT+ people to marry.

We have come so far, and it is easy to reel off a long list from the history of discrimination, but it is important not to forget the implications of that history. If many of us—here in the Chamber and outside it—had been born just a few heartbeats earlier, our lives would have been completely different, and would have been hell. That was the reality for millions of LGBT+ people throughout history—our history. We must never forget the struggle that they underwent, and the sacrifices that they made, to lead to the great advances that we enjoy today, but we should also remember that for too many people around the world, that struggle is still all too real. LGBT+ people are still criminalised and persecuted because of who they are and who they love in 67 countries across the world. Half of those are Commonwealth countries, where homophobic and transphobic laws and attitudes exported and implemented by the UK have still not been repealed.

There is hope, however: I want to emphasise that. Recent years have seen an increase in the decriminalisation of LGBT+ people. Just last year, same-sex activity was decriminalised in Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Singapore and Barbados, with many more countries likely to follow. Equal marriage legislation has progressed across the world, in countries including Cuba, Slovenia and Mexico last year. I look forward to visiting the Czech Parliament later this year: it is currently considering its own equal marriage legislation. Thirty-three countries now have equal marriage laws, which means that 1.35 billion people now have access to the joy that is marriage.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way again; he is being very generous to me. Does he note with disappointment Bermuda’s repealing of same-sex marriage legislation, and this Government’s failure to intervene to prevent it despite their ability to do so? They did intervene to prevent Bermuda from legalising cannabis, so they have no problem with intervening, but they did not intervene on the human rights issue of same-sex marriage, which was such a disappointment.

[Elliot Colburn]

I agree that that is a great disappointment. It also harks back to the point made by the hon. Member for Wallasey about not taking rights for granted, and the fact that the fight for LGBT+ rights does not always move in a linear, A to B direction. There is always a struggle. We have to remember that and always be conscious of it, and the hon. Gentleman has given one such example.

India and Pakistan recently passed legislation supporting the protection of trans people against discrimination in education and healthcare. Further progress can be seen, with Cyprus, India, Canada, New Zealand and indeed the United Kingdom now considering banning conversion practices, or currently legislating for them. I want to go into a bit more detail on conversion therapy, because we have been talking about it for a long time.

A ban was first announced back in 2018, as part of the LGBT action plan. I welcome the announcement by the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, at the conclusion of our proceedings on the Online Safety Bill, that the Government intend to publish the Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny in the current parliamentary session, and that it will be trans-inclusive. However, I hope that the Minister will either be able to give us a bit more of a timeline today or commit himself to sharing that information with us soon, because we have been waiting for this for a long time. Pre-legislative scrutiny is a rare tool for Parliament to use. I understand why the Government wants to ensure that legislation is done well and done right—Parliament’s job is, after all, to produce good, well-worded legislation—but I sincerely hope the Government will not allow pre-legislative scrutiny to enable a watering down of the Bill, and I hope that we can have that commitment from the Minister.

I have one final thing to touch on—I realise that I am being very selfish with my time—which is the current discussion around the trans debate, gender recognition reform, the use of section 35 in Scotland, and the potential for delisting countries for acceptance of gender recognition certificates. The hon. Member for Wallasey put it very well indeed when she said that there seems to be hysteria around trans issues at the moment. Often, discussions on those issues have become so blown out of all proportion and so lacking in any fact that we have lost sight of what people are attempting to do.

Public opinion polls have shown that, overwhelmingly, the British people come at this issue from a position of compassion. We might not necessarily understand all the issues, we might not necessarily think that everything that some people propose is correct, but the British people are overwhelmingly compassionate in this space and really want Parliament to get a grip of what has become a very toxic public debate. This is a failure of this place to get to grips with difficult issues, to calm things down and to talk about issues on the basis of fact and move the conversation on.

We will not always agree—I know that. We have seen examples of that with the passage of the Gender Recognition Reform Bill in Scotland and the subsequent use of section 35. I do have concerns that there seems to have been a lack of discussion between Holyrood and Whitehall in the run-up to the passing of the Bill. I appreciate that it took a long time for all the amendments to be considered in the Scottish Parliament, but the Government have indicated that they are willing to accept a form of gender recognition reform Bill in Scotland if certain criteria are met. That is all well and good, but I do not think that it has been adequately explained exactly what that framework would look like—what the Bill would look like.

In my opinion, and in the opinion of many lawyers that we have received evidence from on the Women and Equalities Committee and beyond, the statement of reasons for the section 35 order are shaky. I worry about the Government going into legal proceedings—inevitable legal proceedings—against the Scottish Government not only because of the effect that will have on the Union and the constitution, but because it will bring trans people into a very public fight.

Again, I understand where the Government are coming from: they say that this is about procedure and not the policy itself. I hope that the Government and everybody in this House can understand the problem that many trans people have in believing that at the moment. It is because the talk about trans issues has become so toxic in Parliament, in the media and beyond. The idea that there is any sort of goodwill or benefit of the doubt that this is more to do with procedure and constitutional issues than trans people is hard to believe, whether or not it is true.

Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 12th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making a very good point—a point that the Secretary of State for International Trade unfortunately did not seem to be fully up on when we questioned her last week. She has now promised to investigate this area. Is it not a good example of how, not necessarily the legal risk, but the uncertainty will lead multinational companies to divert their trade through regimes that are certain? Britain will therefore lose out as long as there is uncertainty, even if that is not a reality.

[Gareth Thomas]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Equally significantly, Professor Sanchez-Graells, in his evidence to the Bill Committee and to the Select Committee, suggested that the protections for British businesses trying to win Government procurement contracts across CPTPP—comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership—countries would be damaged if Ministers continued to negotiate similar provisions to those that are in the Australia procurement chapter. We examined his detailed concerns in Committee. The absence of a cogent and compelling rebuttal from the then Minister was striking. To be fair, shortly after the end of the Committee stage, a further letter from the outgoing Minister of State was sent to me, and a copy was placed in the Library. I shared a copy of that letter with Professor Sanchez-Graells, who reiterated his concerns, noting the lack of clear counter arguments for the assertions in that letter. Indeed, there were not any worked-though, real-life examples of the sort that I raised directly with the Minister in Committee to explain why the concerns articulated by Professor Sanchez-Graells are misplaced.

Given that this Bill is specifically about procurement, and given that Professor Sanchez-Graells was one of only two witnesses asked to comment on procurement by either the Bill Committee, the other place’s International Agreements Committee or this House’s own International Trade Committee, it was a little surprising that there was not better preparation by the Department for consideration of his arguments. I do recognise that the Department was in a degree of chaos at the time, with Ministers coming and going, but one can only hope that the Minister replying to this debate has a little more to offer.

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It is a matter of great regret that the devolved Administrations with responsibility for agriculture, wherever they are in the UK, have had no direct role in the negotiation of these deals, and that absolutely has to change when we are negotiating future trade deals to replace those left behind.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Is it not the case that in most countries that have federal, confederal or other such arrangements with devolved nations, those nations are involved and embedded in the negotiating teams? Does that not show the arrogance, in relation to co-operative relations across the Union, of this Conservative party, which seems determined to fulfil the hon. Member’s party’s wish, which is to annoy people in Scotland so much that they want independence?

[Richard Thomson]

That is certainly an interesting take, and entirely understandable, but I would far rather be making the arguments for Scottish independence on their merit, rather than on how much we and all the devolved Administrations are being vexed by a high-handed UK Government who are over-mighty and overreaching in this respect.

We have already been forced against our will in Scotland to trade outside of the EU and to be tied to a UK Government who seem hellbent on agreeing trade agreements at almost fire-sale prices just so they can pretend that Brexit is working. That is a thoroughly invidious position to be in, but it is the position we find ourselves in, for the moment at least, and we are determined to do all we can to try to mitigate the damage on this before we go back to the issue of principle that the hon. Member has raised. Make no mistake: the impact of these agreements will be felt throughout Scotland, and to that end it is vital that not just the Scottish Government but all devolved Administrations can have a full role, with their input being listened to, respected and acted on in future negotiations.

The Bill did not have to be like this. It was entirely possible to take a longer period of time to reach a more considered view. For those absolutely hellbent on leaving the European Union, there were better ways of doing it than the unmitigated car crash that has followed from the way successive iterations of Conservative Governments have gone about it. They seem to have spent more time negotiating among themselves than negotiating with those who matter. There are better ways of doing this, and there are better outcomes that can yet be agreed. I strongly urge the UK Government to repent, go back and try to achieve something better. It is within their grasp if they have the will to do so.

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[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

We are here to talk about a very small part of a much wider trade Bill. To some extent, we are only talking about it because the Procurement Bill has not been brought to this House from the other place. If it had, we might not even be talking about some of this Bill’s clauses at all. Is that not a disgrace? Almost no other country has such poor scrutiny of its trade arrangements.

Of course, Britain did not have such poor scrutiny of its trade arrangements before we left the European Union. In this place, we were able to use the negative resolution procedure at several stages, including the pre-stage. The European Parliament had the right to vote down the deal at the pre-negotiating stage, as well as the final deal, and our Government could do so through the Council.

Now the Government, in all their ineptitude, are the ones who decide. They forced the CRaG process through, which in itself was unnecessary because ratification cannot be fully implemented until all the legislation has been laid down. There was no need for the CRaG process to happen last year without any substantive debate or vote in this place, because the trade deal cannot be fully brought into force until this Bill has passed.

The Government’s whole about-arse process on trade —we have heard all the criticisms made by the former Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice)—shows that they have no real plan and no real idea about how to negotiate. When I ask my Australian colleagues what they may have compromised on and what we may have gained, they say, “It’s a pretty good deal for us—we wrote it.”

Through the amendments on procurement, there are several things we can do to ameliorate the mess that the Government have made of this deal. First, we can ensure that Parliament has scrutiny over how the details will be implemented. If the deal goes through, as we heard in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) and in my intervention on him, it might weaken the protections on procurement.

Ensuring that the statutory instruments laid before the House are not written as poorly as the Bill and the trade deal, so there is no wiggle room on procurement, should be our first step. The way to ensure that is by holding Ministers’ feet to the fire. In the Bill Committee, the Minister seemed a bit unsure about how the affirmative procedure and the negative procedure work. It is clear that if statutory instruments are made via the negative procedure, there will almost never be a debate in this House. They will go through without debate, because Members of this House will not be able to pray against them in time; sometimes we have seen Governments deliberately laying statutory instruments when the House is not sitting and cannot pray against them. That is the reality.

The only way to ensure debate and discussion, either on the Floor of the House or in Committee, is to ensure that the affirmative procedure is applied. That must be the bottom line. It is not hard, and it will not delay the process, because the Australians themselves need to go through an affirmative procedure when they implement measures. This is asking for nothing more than our counterparts are getting; to offer anything less would be to devalue and degrade Britain. We know that the Conservative Party is doing quite a lot of that at the moment, but come on; let us, at least on this one, show that Britain counts. Britain should be able to get something as good as what is available to Australia and other countries around the world. Underselling Britain is disgraceful, and we need to reverse that.

Secondly, we need clarity on the legal clauses. It needs to be made clear that they will not undermine the current protections around the world. As I said in my intervention, it is not a question of whether, in a court of law, we might reach a point at which British companies would be successful; that is irrelevant. The question is, would it be necessary to go to a court of law to determine whether British companies would be able to obtain compensation, or would everyone be so clear about the fact that a French company would be able to obtain compensation that a French competitor would be given a marginal competitive advantage? That is the question that arises from the poor wording in the Bill.

If a marginal advantage is given—even a theoretical advantage that in practice does not come about—multinational companies that can channel their trade either through their British company or through their French company for large procurement deals will do it through the French company, and then where will the tax be paid? Where will the revenue return? It will return to France, and Britain will lose out again. It is therefore vital for this clause to be included.

I am also deeply disappointed—and I wish the Government would accept some of the amendments that deal with this—about the fact that for Australia, the procurement requirements do not count at state level because Australia is a federal system. All its procurement, in respect of education, roads and building, universities and community facilities—I could go on—is at state level, so this trade deal does not bind the Australians. Because of the way this Government have negotiated the deal, they want to tie the hands of our devolved authorities and local government in a way in which Australian hands are not tied; again, selling Britain short. What we could see is the proper integration of our devolved authorities and local government, particularly big strategic local government—for instance, London-wide government and Metro Mayors. We could include them in the negotiations, or, even better, ensure that future negotiations do not allow an asymmetrical position in which we are included and others are not.

This is a poor deal, as we know from the other side. This is a poor Bill, which accepts everything from one side and protects Britain not one jot. The Opposition new clauses and amendments go some way towards ameliorating that. Ministers should accept them, thus ensuring that we can truly champion British businesses that are trying to trade around the world. That is what I genuinely believe we all want.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I was not expecting to be called at this point, Mr Deputy Speaker. I was just removing a mint from my mouth.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Did you think I was going to go on for longer?

[Jim Shannon]

Yes, I would expect the hon. Gentleman to do that—but what a pleasure it is to follow the hon. Gentleman, who brings knowledge to these debates and, probably, to every debate. Let me also to say how pleased I am to be able to throw some of my thoughts and those of my party into this debate.

As a proud Brexiteer—that is no secret—I am pleased to see the opportunities that can and will come from Brexit, and we in Northern Ireland hope that we too will benefit from them. We await the Government’s endorsement of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, which will give us the same opportunities as everyone else, but that is for a future debate rather than this one.

The potential of the Australian and New Zealand trade agreements is exciting for me and many others. The agricultural and fishing sectors are vital for my constituency, so my request to the Minister will be to provide the support to enable our agricultural sector to be protected. We in Northern Ireland are fortunate, in that we export food and drink products worth some £5.4 billion, and we export some 65% of that produce to the EU and across the world. We are already the epitome of what the Government are trying to achieve through this deal, and we are doing that right across the whole world. Lakeland Dairies is a good example. It is already moving to sell its produce in the far east, the middle east, Africa, south America and the USA, so it is very much to the fore. We also have Mash Direct, a buoyant company that is seeking markets overseas, and Willowbrook Foods and Rich Sauces, which likewise have farmers who feed into them. So we have a strong agri-sector in my constituency. The Minister knows that already; I am not telling him anything he does not know. He is always very astute and does his research so he will know what I am referring to, but I seek that wee bit of reassurance that my agri-sector in Strangford will be in a position to have those protections, and that we can be part of that export push that the Government clearly want to bring about.

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[Geraint Davies]

My comment would be that Britain should be taking a lead, as it claims to, on mitigating climate change. The way to do that is to take best practice, from Singapore or anywhere else, and hardwire that into current and future agreements. That has not been done, because our economic, climate and other interests have been thrown to one side in order to just tick a box and say that we have got a trade agreement.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

My hon. Friend mentioned carbon border adjustments. Is it not the truth that both Europe and America are now leading on these discussions, because they understand that trade deals without proper carbon and border adjustments are just ways of exporting jobs out of countries—degrading those countries, their workers and the environment in one fell swoop?

[Geraint Davies]

I am certainly a big supporter of what the EU is doing on carbon border adjustments, for instance ensuring that we have a level playing field for steel made in south Wales, which emits half the carbon of Chinese steel, and that there is an incentive to invest in green production domestically. The EU has taken a lead and we need to catch up. The United States is subsidising green industry and, as my hon. Friend will know, there is a tension between the two different strategies when it comes to ensuring a sustainable and greener future for all.

Turning to procurement, clearly it is not exactly a new idea that big multinational corporations will use unelected, private, often secretly held tribunals to try to fine democratically elected Governments who want to pass laws to protect the environment and public health. We saw that in investor-state dispute settlements. Most obviously, at the moment, we have got the Energy Charter treaty, which binds countries for 20 years to being sued if they try to pass laws to help the environment.

People will know that Germany, France, Poland, Spain and others are trying to withdraw from that treaty, although we have not heard much for the United Kingdom—because of its fossil fuel interests, I assume. My question is: why, when we know those companies will be quick on the draw in taking us to court and suing us, do we allow them a way in on procurement, so that when they do not get the business with the NHS, they can suddenly sue us? That concern is covered in new clause 1, which I very much support.

Finally, it is obvious that, out of the carnage of the botched Brexit deal, while obviously we want deals with Australia and New Zealand, the haste with which we have approached these deals has left us in a situation where they get all the benefits and we face a prospective loss. That is absolutely disgraceful maladministration from the Government, and I support the amendments to try to mitigate some of the harm done by their hopeless negotiation.

Australia and New Zealand Trade Deals

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I entirely agree that it is the UK Government who are carrying out the negotiations, but they should not just carry out the negotiations and inform the devolved Administrations about them but take their views into account before the negotiations begin. I hope that the Minister will be as good as his word. I am sure we will see that in the months to come.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

This is a very interesting and useful conversation. Is it not right that other countries do this very differently? Belgium includes its regions in the negotiating teams, which are therefore in the room. The USA includes representatives of trade unions and businesses in the negotiating teams, who are therefore in the room. Australia, in this instance, excludes any matters that the states are responsible for, so they are not touched on in this trade deal. Is it not the case that this Government are the weakest of all the partners?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that there is a better way to do that, as he eloquently sets out.

On the theme of scrutiny, Lord Grimstone said in May 2020 that the Government do not envisage

“a new FTA proceeding to ratification without a debate first having taken place on it”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 23 February 2021; Vol. 810, c. 724.]

Clearly, that has not happened, and that is why this debate is in such odd circumstances. There are crucial elements to both these deals that deserve wider debate and scrutiny.

I want to highlight the real challenge in the Committee for the Bill that the Minister referred to, which was not a Bill about giving effect to a whole range but a specific, narrow Bill on public procurement provisions. The nature of the Bill meant that, under the entirely appropriate rules of this House, finding areas of debate in Committee was very difficult. It was prohibitively narrow: climate change, workers’ rights, consultation with devolved Administrations and animal welfare were not within the scope of the Bill. The agreements were signed before they came before Parliament, so the scope for meaningful debate was fatally curtailed. There has been no scrutiny worthy of the name.

The International Trade Committee rightly criticised the process on the Australia deal and the Government’s premature triggering of the 21-day process under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 without the full Select Committee consideration being available to Members. When pressed, the Government refused to extend the process. All the while, in a number of urgent questions, the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan), swerved I think eight invitations—I will be corrected if I am wrong—to attend the International Trade Committee. I wonder whether the Government’s reticence to open themselves up to scrutiny is because, ultimately, they know they are falling short.

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[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

The first thing to say about international trade deals nowadays is that they are not just trade deals. They are comprehensive agreements on how countries will co-operate and how they will grow together. They are dynamic deals that will set the future course of the respective countries. They are, of course, very similar to the deals we had with the European Union in many respects, but with less scrutiny, less oversight and less public participation.

That can be more acutely demonstrated when we compare these trade deals with the deals the European Union is busy getting on with now. We can see that the European Union’s deal is much more advantageous to the European side than this deal is to our side. Why is that?

[Anthony Mangnall]

Speak up for this country!

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

My colleague on the International Trade Committee says I should speak up for this country, as if I should be some ambassador for the Government, ignore how they are running down this country and only talk about the good things. I am afraid that is not the role of the Opposition and of Opposition parties. What we do is lay out how we would benefit our country if we were in power, and what we would do better for our country where the Government have failed.

Let us talk about things that could have been included in this deal, but were missed—first, food standards. In this deal, animal and food standards are frozen in Australia, because this deal gives Australian producers a competitive advantage. While they will not go backwards, why on earth should they desire to improve their standards above ours? That gives them no advantage. Rather than saying, “We will slowly reduce barriers as you meet the standards that we are getting to,” it says, “You have absolute access to our markets, and don’t worry, you don’t need to change your standards either”—that is, apart from some wishy-washy wording about some long-term desire; mañana, mañana. We all know what those clauses mean: nothing. The only thing that matters is hard trade law, hard tariffs and quotas, and on that, we have been let down.

In fact, when we asked the Australian negotiating teams what they thought of this, they said, “All our red lines were met; we compromised on almost nothing. It is a fantastic deal.” Well, yes, it is a fantastic deal for Australia. If one side has all of its red lines met and the other does not, it is clear who the winners and losers are.

We could have gone further on free movement of people. The extension of our current visa arrangements for the free movement of students from two years to three years is pretty pathetic. Free movement should be afforded to countries that are of a similar economic situation to us—that is why we had free movement with Europe—and that have similar flows. We have similar numbers of people going to Australia and of Australians coming to us. The expansion by only one year is pretty pathetic and will not make much difference for most young people, who already had the right to two years and could extend it in Australia if they worked on a farm. It is pretty miserable and unambitious.

The same can be said for climate change. In the Australia deal, the wording is weaker than, and does not go beyond, the Paris agreement. Australia is a country of similar economic and legal profile, and it now even has a Labour Government—unlike us, but not for much longer, I hope—so why can we not negotiate something better? The clauses on climate change are the kinds of things that we would expect from negotiations with countries that are much harder to negotiate with, such as China or India—countries that are much more problematic on climate change.

[Drew Hendry]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful point about climate change. Does he not find it incredible that all the concerns that might have been raised about climate change and the Paris agreement were scrubbed in the haste to get the Australia deal through so the Government could meet some arbitrary deadline?

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Exactly. I must wrap up— [Interruption.] Oh, I will continue, then. I thought you were giving me the eye, Madam Deputy Speaker.

That is exactly the problem. If we have higher climate change standards, workers’ rights or environmental standards, and we have free trade with another country that has lower standards, all we are doing is exporting British jobs, opening the door and saying to companies, “Don’t worry about our climate change rules, our carbon trading or the standards we expect you to meet. Go and set up your companies in that other country, and we will still import all the goods and services.” That is an unemployment note for British workers, and the Government are signing it constantly, with country after country, because they are obsessed with getting deals over the line rather than with the quality of those deals.

[Tony Lloyd]

The environment chapter ought to have been capable of actually changing the climate change debate in Australia, so it is disappointing that it has, quite frankly, no teeth whatever. What does that say to countries with which we might want to negotiate to stop deforestation, mining coal and so on?

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Exactly. Australia is a deep friend of ours. I spent hours outside the Australian embassy for the last elections, canvassing and campaigning for the Australian Labour party, which is now in government—although I do not think that success is all down to me. I regularly meet our counterparts in the Australian Labour party, and I am proud to say that not only are they friends, but my senior researcher is from that party and now works for me. There are strong links between our systems and our people. If, with friends, we cannot negotiate a deal that has teeth on environment and climate, we have no hope whatever when dealing with much more difficult countries.

This is partly because of the Government’s refusal to have proper parliamentary scrutiny. First, there was no need for them to trigger CRaG, because the agreement cannot be put in place until we have passed the enacting legislation, which has not even come back for Third Reading. The Government forcing through CRaG without parliamentary scrutiny was just arrogance on the part of Ministers and the Government—there was no other reason for it. They show the same arrogance to the International Trade Committee, which, time and again, they refuse to come and speak to. I cannot ascertain whether it is the arrogance of Ministers or the arrogance of senior civil servants—maybe it is a bit of both—but it is clear that the Department for International Trade has shown in this process that it is not fit for purpose and needs a real overhaul.

I am quite in favour of some of the ideas that the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) set out. We should have a Department of trade, of foreign negotiations, or probably of foreign affairs—a Foreign and Commonwealth Office, one might say—that co-ordinates expertise in other Departments, such as the former Department for International Development. I was in DFID negotiations on the environment and on the Rio process year in, year out, all through our European period, and our colleagues in DFID led many of the discussions on the oceans and biodiversity. It had real expertise in those negotiations. We should have been using it. We have failed in the environmental chapters of this agreement because we did not leverage the fantastic negotiators as well enough as we have in other Departments.

The right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth was also right to say that proper scrutiny in this place can help the Government’s hand. I remember when I was a trade unionist, and we would want our members to lay out strong, hard lines to us so that when we went into negotiations with the employer, we were able to say, “Look, I am the reasonable one here—I am trying to get to an agreement—but my members are livid; they are angry; they are fuming. You need to give me a bit more so we can strike this deal and avoid any action.” It is the same process in trade deals, but the Government’s refusal to use us means that they have sold this deal short.

Finally, I will touch on procurement. In the Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill Committee, we heard that some of the wording on procurement puts British companies in a worse position than they are currently, and I will briefly explain why. There is already a global agreement on procurement under which British companies already have the right to bid for procurement contracts in Australia. Those agreements require that if a company has worked up a credible bid that is then rejected, the company can claim certain costs. This trade agreement excludes those particular words. Of course, a company will probably go to the Australian courts or to our courts, where they will be able to argue their case, but the insecurity of different wording in different agreements now means that although a French company would have a 100% cast-iron guarantee of protection, because it is part of the same global agreement on procurement, a British company would be insecure in that protection.

In some areas, the agreement not only falls short of what we want, but actively sells our country short. That is why the agreement is such a shame; that is why we should have gone further; and that is why, if we had had earlier debates, none of this mess from the bungling lot on the Government Benches would have happened.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Bowie]

My right hon. Friend has an incredible amount of experience in this field. I would be happy to take up the issue with him outside the Chamber following the debate.

Our deals include a range of protections that allow us to apply higher tariffs to protect UK farmers, including tariff rate quotas for a number of sensitive agricultural products; specific additional protective measures for beef and lamb products, which will provide further tariff protections to our farmers; and a general bilateral safeguard mechanism that will allow the UK to increase tariffs or suspend their liberalisation for up to four years in the unlikely situation that the farming industry faces serious loss from increased agricultural imports. On top of all that, there is still the option of global safeguards under the WTO.

I will now turn to the points raised about environmental, animal welfare and food standards. I stress that we will never compromise on these critical protections—

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

You have!

[Andrew Bowie]

No, we have not. That is why our trade deals include specific measures to uphold them.

Before I go on, I must quickly correct the record. Earlier, the Minister for Trade Policy, who unfortunately has a prior engagement in his constituency, said in response to an intervention from the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) that the climate change agreement in the deal was Australia’s first. It is not; it is actually Australia’s second. It also has an environmental chapter in its agreement to the CPTPP. In addition, the Trade and Agriculture Commission has separately confirmed that our free trade agreements do not require the UK to change our existing levels of statutory protection in relation to any areas.

I now briefly turn to scrutiny, which is incredibly important. Contrary to the description of the right hon. Member for Warley of the scrutiny process, and always remembering that CRaG was introduced by Labour, the Government have made extensive commitments to support robust scrutiny of all new free trade agreements. These commitments greatly exceed our statutory requirements and we have met every single one.

I hear and understand the concerns of the hon. Member for Rochdale and I accept the challenge to go further and do better, but the Australian FTA was examined by Parliament for more than seven months and the scrutiny period featured reports from three Select Committees. I praise the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) and it is sad that the Chair of the International Trade Committee, the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil), is not in attendance today.

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

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th October 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Gareth Thomas]

To be fair to the Minister, he sort of touched on the issue in very loose terms. Perhaps my hon. Friend may be reassured that amendment 5, which we are inching towards, would require much more consultation down the line. Perhaps that is a way to try to improve things for SMEs across the UK.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is not the big problem—my hon. Friend rightly pointed this out earlier, but the Minister did not really reflect on it—that we are giving away negotiating elements for future deals? Opening this up to all GPA countries means that no GPA country will need to put it on the table. We have opened up our markets for them, and they have not opened up their markets—fantastic. We have cut off the nose to spite the face of all our small and medium-sized businesses, but other countries have not acted similarly. If we do this repeatedly with all areas of trade, in the end we will have unilaterally opened up all our borders but received no benefits for our small businesses. That is the basis of the Conservative negotiating strategy, and it is a disaster, is it not?

[Gareth Thomas]

I appreciate that Conservative Members will be focusing on other mistakes that the Prime Minister has made, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right. One wonders whether, in the rush to get a deal with Australia, Ministers essentially decided just to give up their negotiating leverage on these issues and hoped to push it through quietly without too much attention. None the less, we have aired these issues. We will reflect on what the Minister says, and we may well come back to this matter on Report. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

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[The Chair]

After that big bang, I am very tempted to call the ghost of Christmas past, but instead I call the very living and very present, Lloyd Russell Moyle.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I will take that in the good manner that it was meant. Thank you, Mr Pritchard.

I speak to amendments 5, 7, 20 and 22 for three main reasons: first, because we heard evidence of great concern from businesses and other organisations about the consultation that this Government will do when bringing forward regulations and the trade deals themselves. The Government have established the Trade and Agriculture Commission, but it is able to produce reports only after the trade deal is signed, defeating one of the main points of its existence—it produces a long report but we go and ratify the trade deal anyway, after the horse has bolted. That is same with the International Trade Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bill Esterson]

My hon. Friend makes good points about the way that France and European Union scrutinise trade agreements. In the context of agriculture, the other really good example is the United States. Recently, the United States trade unions had access to negotiating texts during the negotiation period and were able to insist on improvements to employment rights in the recent United States-Mexico-Canada agreement, which, crucially, protects workers in Mexico who face draconian approaches and attacks on trade unionists. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should have a similar process in this country? In the absence of that process, the amendments are a desperately needed back-up.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I totally agree. The US is a much better example than us of scrutiny and engagement. It engages its elected representatives early on. We see a Democrat Government there—one of our sister parties—putting trade unions and small businesses front and centre in their ongoing prosperity, rather than trying to run roughshod and have corrupt practices, which the previous party of Government in the US was all in favour of.

There is a better way of doing this. The amendments are not the ideal. I am, desperately unfortunately, missing my Select Committee inquiry this morning on international trade agreements and how we how we process them. I am sure I will read the transcript of the evidence hearing with fascination this evening. The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee’s inquiry makes it clear that the current ways that we produce trade deals and scrutinise their implementation—what these amendments are about—are inadequate. They are inadequate because they were created in an age when most of it was farmed off to the European Union and we had strong scrutiny processes of secondary legislation that came via the European Union—Committees that looked at that and debates in Parliament.

All that was swept aside—I will not get into the rights and wrongs of leaving the European Union. We have then just relied on a CRaG process and no other proper form of ongoing scrutiny process, which we would have accepted under the European Union, or which every other country has now developed, because trade deals are dynamic.

Gone are the days when trade deals were fixed in one piece of writing; they are ongoing, living, breathing documents. That is quite right, because trade deals really are multilateral deals on numerous issues: on not just direct trade but intellectual property and procurement, as we are discussing today. They affect the domestic implementation of issues, affecting how councils and public bodies are able to go about their day-to-day business, and the ability to consult.

[Gareth Thomas]

I apologise to my hon. Friend for missing his opening remarks. However, as he was reflecting on the weaknesses of the CRaG process, does he not think that perhaps part of the reason why Government Members genuflected towards the CRaG process so much, despite all its weaknesses, is that it was initiated by a Labour Secretary of State, Arthur Ponsonby, albeit 100 years ago? Perhaps that is what gives them some comfort. However, I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that it is time to uprate and modernise it.

[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.

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

The Minister has just informed the Committee that the chief negotiator met the DAs 25 times in the run-up to this trade Bill being put down. Will the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown inform the House, if he knows the answer to this, how many times the chief negotiators from the EU consulted the devolved authorities in the UK and, indeed, the UK Government and Members of this House when trade deals were being negotiated, given that he seems such a fan of the way the EU conducts itself in trade negotiations?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I am sure that my Committee’s report will include a fantastic comparison and I will ensure personally that the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine gets a copy of it when it is out. I can tell him, though, that when we were in the European Union, the devolved Administrations met the different sections of the European Union weekly, because the devolved Administrations had representatives in Brussels who would meet weekly on trade issues, and they would meet daily with the European Union officials. Anyway, we will move that to one side.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

It may help to underline the hon. Gentleman’s point to quote Ivan McKee, the Scottish Government’s Trade Minister, who said:

“Once again we were not consulted by the UK Government before the introduction of proposed legislation that as currently drafted, bypasses the Scottish Parliament and undermines Scotland’s powers. That is…disappointing, but sadly no longer surprising.”

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I think that is the case here.

These amendments, particularly amendments 2, 20 and 22, which relate to the devolved Administrations, provide a failsafe for the devolved Administrations and English regions to know that they will be consulted. They provide a failsafe for the businesses, including small businesses, that we heard in evidence to know that they will be consulted beforehand. Of course, with all consultation, the Government can still go away and say, “We have listened to you. We have heard you. We have put forward our suggestions. You don’t agree with them, but we are still going to push forward, because we think that is necessary.” That is democracy; of course that has to be allowed, but what we cannot have is people being bumped into things at the last moment or presented with things as faits accomplis, and that is the situation at the moment.

I rose to support the amendments. I think that they are vital; more importantly, they are vital in preserving our Union. I know that some colleagues have a different view, and it is people’s own right whether they want to leave or not—it is not my choice—but I would like to see the Union preserved. I think that those on the Government Benches would like to see the Union preserved as well. I am afraid that if we do not start treating the devolved regions and nations of this great country with more respect and more humility, people will be out the door and it probably will be understandable.

[Gareth Thomas]

I rise to support amendments 5, 7, 20 and 22, which were tabled in my name and which my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli spoke to. In so doing, I want to indicate, as I hope my interventions on the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts indicated, my strong sympathy with her two amendments as well. I hope that amendments 5 and 22, in that they are more wide-reaching because they cover Northern Ireland, Wales and the English regions as well as Scotland, might be sufficient to encourage her support for them.

Amendment 5, as we have indicated, seeks to lock in the opportunity for more consultation with the whole UK about particular regulations that might emerge around the procurement chapters. As I said in my opening remarks, the Australia free trade agreement is more than 2,500 pages long, and it is quite easy for the bits on procurement to be largely missed. The opportunity to lock in a bit of consultation at this point—before implementing regs have to be made—would help to ensure that there is specific focus on the procurement chapters in both deals.

Trade Deals: Parliamentary Scrutiny

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered parliamentary scrutiny of trade deals.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Elliott. I am delighted that I have been able to secure this debate, and I am particularly grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for granting me the opportunity to talk about trade deals and the scrutiny process that goes with them. I am also very grateful to right hon. and hon. Members, who have heard me pontificate on this subject at great length on a number of occasions over the last two years. I should say that I am a member of the International Trade Committee.

I welcome the Minister back to his position as a Trade Minister. He is a friend and an extremely able Minister, and we are all delighted to see him back in his position, where he so rightly belongs. We very much look forward to working with him, both in Committee and in the main Chamber, where we will, I hope, have more opportunity to debate our trade deals.

I should start by saying that I am universally pro free trade and in favour of the Government’s agenda in the trade deals that they are signing. Our trade agreements have been an absolute litany of successes. Not only have we rolled over 70 trade agreements since our departure from the European Union, but we have signed deals with Australia and New Zealand. There are discussions under way about joining the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, and signing deals with the Gulf Cooperation Council, India and Canada. We have successfully signed a trade agreement with Singapore on a digital partnership basis, which is viewed as the gold standard in digital trade. We have signed a trade agreement with Japan, which is already opening up new markets and setting benchmark rates around digital concepts.

Those are all incredibly important agreements, and they matter because they make a huge difference to our economy, to how the Government interact with their allies around the world and to the businesses in our respective constituencies. They offer each and every one of us the opportunity to trade, to create global harmony and to open up opportunities for those who live and work in the United Kingdom, and those with whom we have signed trade deals. This is an important part of what was promised when we left the European Union, and I believe that we are being extremely successful in tackling the new trade agreements, although there have obviously been a few pitfalls along the way.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Anthony Mangnall]

I would be humbled and delighted to do so.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

The hon. Gentleman and I sit on the International Trade Committee, and he is making a very good defence of the Government’s work. We heard in the Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill Committee only an hour or so ago—it finished only 20 minutes ago—that British firms bidding in Australia will have disadvantageous terms compared with those of French companies, because the Australian deal weakens the global baseline.

These things are probably technical errors. They are things that were probably overlooked and that I hope are great mistakes; if they are not, someone in the Government should be hanging their head in shame. I think these mistakes would have been picked up with proper parliamentary scrutiny during negotiations, before the deal was signed or even ratified—just as happens in America and the European Union, and just as the French, Germans and most developed countries get in their national Parliaments. The International Trade Committee should be involved in the detail of the work on the negotiations before the text is published in camera, but this Government continue to refuse to allow that.

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

I hope that this is an opportunity to reset our relationship. It is no secret that the relationship between the International Trade Committee and the previous Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan), was toxic. It was bad. She held the Committee in disregard and, frankly, the Committee held her in disregard. Let us be honest about it. The officials around her gave her bad advice. They gave her arrogant advice, and she encouraged it by responding and goading them to give her that advice. That needs to end, and it needs to end now.

The advice needs to be that the new Secretary of State has to make time in her diary to make sure that we are seen in a timely manner. The promises have to be fulfilled. The Secretary of State cannot expect to get away with what has been done in the past, because it was quite frankly embarrassing for everyone. Of course, it does not have to be like that. There are many other Departments that have very good relationships with their Secretary of State. I have sat on many other Committees in this House, and I have never seen such a dysfunctional relationship.

[Julie Elliott (in the Chair)]

Order. It is usual that if a Member is going to directly criticise or mention a Minister, they give them advance warning. I am not sure whether that has been done, but if it has not, I would certainly be putting that right after this meeting.

[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.

[Julie Elliott (in the Chair)]

May I remind Opposition spokespeople that in one-hour debates, the convention is five minutes? I call the SNP spokesperson, Anum Qaisar.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 6th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely clear that our NHS should never be on the table in any trade negotiation, but that is one of a number of significant issues that could have been properly raised and ventilated had there been a proper process of scrutiny.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that the Bill, not just the trade treaty, allows, through the negative procedure, Ministers to change procurement rules? We can say here that the NHS is not for sale and not on the table, and Ministers can say that, but this House does not have a cast-iron guarantee that we would have a vote before any change in procurement rules. An amendment to the Bill to allow that to be done through the positive procedure would be one commitment the Government could give to ensure Parliament gets a cast-iron guarantee.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If the Government do not give that commitment, we will bring forward an amendment in Committee to seek that commitment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Is my right hon. Friend concerned about the fact that we should allow British authorities to put conditions on procurement that pertain to labour rights, trade union rights, local recognition and the employment of workforces at a rate that is higher than the national minimum wage? It is important that the Government do not provide foreign companies with easier access to bid for British contracts than that which British companies would have.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend makes two very good points: first, we should ensure that our British firms have the support that they need to compete in the procurement process; and secondly, this should not be some sort of cloak beneath which there is a race to the bottom on workers’ rights. Both those things are important.

The concerns that have been raised about these two deals and the process of scrutiny amount to a problem with the Government’s approach to trade policy. There is no core trade policy and no clear strategy or direction. That criticism has been echoed by the International Trade Committee.

There has been a lot of talk from the Conservative party, but the delivery on trade agreements has been noticeable by its absence. There is no US trade deal in sight, and we await the India deal—as promised by the now previous Prime Minister—and the meeting of the target of 80% of UK trade being covered by FTAs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

An additional amendment that might be useful would be to change the requirement for secondary legislation so that we enable the Secretary of State to introduce it only when they “must” comply according to the trade deal and not at their whim, whereby they “can”. That change from “can” to “must” will be vital to ensure that there is not an open door for Executive action.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend makes another very good point about the inadequacies of the scrutiny process.

Access to British markets is a huge prize for many other global economies. The Government have to stop selling us short and put in place a proper, core trade strategy that will allow our world-leading businesses to thrive and, for once, truly deliver for communities across the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Garnier]

Yes, I agree. It is incredibly important that we have a basis on which we can improve and that is absolutely the case. We would not be able to improve on these deals if we did not have them in the first place.

The Japan deal was a relatively easy one to scrutinise, because it was basically about looking at whether we had secured better terms than the European Union, based on the fact that we all started at the same time with that deal. It was a cut-and-paste deal with added lines, but the important point is that it was a modification of a roll-over deal.

These two deals are massively important, because there are two fundamental things that we need to consider. First, what are the UK Government’s negotiating objectives? We have never really understood what they are. A number of documents have laid out bits and pieces here and there, but there has never been a cohesive document to tell us what we are negotiating against or how we are doing relative to the outcome that we want.

The second important point is that this is the very first time that we are looking at the process of ratifying a trade deal, and it falls short of what we really need. I welcome this debate, which is an incredibly important one, but it is not the debate that we should be having. This is a debate about enabling certain legislation to ensure that the trade deal goes ahead. The Opposition have already said that they will support the Bill, but in the unlikely event that the Bill did not pass, that would leave us in breach of our international obligations under the trade deal. The trade deal has happened, so we would now be in trouble if we did not pass the Bill. It is incredibly important that we understand that this is an enabling Bill; it is not about how we scrutinise the deal itself.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

The hon. Gentleman highlights the point that we have passed CRaG before passing the enabling legislation, which is quite an unusual thing to do; normally in this country we pass enabling legislation and then ratify treaties. Does he think that perhaps the Government should have done things in a different order to ensure that the right scrutiny would happen and that there would be no risk, not even a minuscule one, of our breaching international agreements?

Australia-UK Free Trade Agreement: Scrutiny

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jayawardena]

My hon. Friend is rightly thoughtful in this area. Food security remains important. As a result of the challenges faced in the last 26 months because of covid and the war in Ukraine, I have seen this for myself. It is right that we back our farmers. It is really important that we seek new markets in which they can secure greater value for their products, which will encourage them to continue to farm more land more productively. I assure the House that the Trade and Agriculture Commission said that the deal does not require the United Kingdom to change her existing levels of statutory protection in relation to animal or plant life, or health, animal welfare and environmental protections, so there is no threat in that regard.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

I sit on both the International Trade Committee and the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. The latter is doing an inquiry into CRaG. We heard clearly from legal experts last week that it is unprecedented for the Government to ratify a treaty before the implementing legislation has been passed. The fact that the Government are trying to ratify the treaty through the CRaG process before that is surely problematic. In addition, the fact that CRaG only allows a treaty to be stopped through a debate and then a vote in this Parliament means that the denial of a debate is the denial of the CRaG process, in the spirit in which it was written. I beg the Minister to reconsider his foolish urgency on this matter, delay CRaG by 21 days—that would not delay the ratification of the treaty, because the implementation legislation is still needed—and give us a debate.

[Mr Jayawardena]

I do not think that seven months is rushing anything. This agreement can be ratified only once Parliament has scrutinised and passed the implementing legislation in the usual way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jayawardena]

I am very happy to set out the process of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act, introduced by the last Labour Government. For the first time, it gave statutory effect to the opportunity for parliamentary disapproval of treaties, and the process is—

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

How?

[Mr Jayawardena]

I am very happy to set out the process, Mr Speaker, if you allow me the time. There are four points. First, the Government may not ratify the treaty for 21 sitting days—days when both Houses are sitting—after it was laid before Parliament. Secondly, if within those 21 sitting days either House resolves that the treaty should not be ratified by agreeing a motion on the Floor of the House, the Government must lay before Parliament a statement setting out their reasons for nevertheless wanting to ratify. Thirdly, if the Commons resolved against ratification, regardless of whether the Lords did or did not, a further period of 21 sitting days is triggered from when the Government’s statement is laid. During that period, the Government cannot ratify the treaty. Fourthly, if the Commons again resolves against ratification during that period, the process is repeated. That can continue indefinitely, in effect giving the Commons the power to block ratification. Of course, that is what the Opposition want—to block the opportunities of Brexit from this trade deal.

Gender Recognition Act

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Monday 21st February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Elliot Colburn]

I agree with the hon. Lady, who leads me towards points I will come on to later.

If we allow this toxicity to continue and refuse to lead from the front, we will end up in the situation we are in now, where we have ridiculous public conversations about erasing language or trying to figure out if certain words are offensive, and where we label anyone who expresses concerns about the protection of sex-based rights a TERF—trans-exclusionary radical feminist— or transphobic, rather than actually talking about the issues. If we allow that to continue, we abdicate our responsibility as a House and, most importantly, we forget the people in the middle of all of this: the hundreds of thousands of trans people living in the UK, who, like the majority of us, just want to live their lives. They do not want this massive, toxic debate about their existence going on. They just want to be able to live their lives.

I plead with colleagues to use today’s debate as an opportunity to change that narrative. Let us lead from the front, have more respectful discussions and debates with one another and explore these issues without the need to rip each other’s throats out. From looking around the room, I know that there are strongly held views on both sides of the debate. Colleagues will no doubt want to focus on appalling things that have been said and done on both sides of this debate and talk about the more nasty and absurd parts of the far ends of the debate. However, I urge colleagues to just take a moment.

People say that this House is at its best when we come together in total agreement on an issue and get things done, but I would like to go further. I genuinely believe that this House can demonstrate its strength and the strength of the democratic process by coming together on an issue where there is not agreement, creating space to talk about that respectfully and finding a way forward. That demonstrates the best of what this House can do.

I hope today will be that opportunity. We do not do ourselves any favours by taking the easy road of appealing to those who we think are shouting the loudest. Please, colleagues, join me in rejecting the Twitter-isation of this debate, where our arguments are condensed to miniature soundbites. We can find the answers and a way forward together, rather than tearing each other apart.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Member is making an important argument to frame the nature of the debate, but does he agree that it is sometimes important that we do not talk in big, grand narratives about our political beliefs one way or another? This debate is specifically about the GRA and the process of applying for a gender recognition certificate, so colleagues should not be having these big, grand debates about trans issues and feminism. Instead, we should talk about the practical things that the GRA and GRC do. It does two practical things, and nothing else. It does not give someone rights to anything other than the following two changes: a birth certificate and pension rights. We should limit the debate here to that. That will provide civility.

[Elliot Colburn]

The hon. Member has second-guessed what I am about to move on to. I truly believe that there is a way for the House to come together on this issue. As a member of the Women and Equalities Committee, which conducted a very recent inquiry into reform of the GRA, I was struck by how much agreement there was on both sides of the debate on many of the practical issues this petition is calling for. There was also repetition of what the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) said, specifically on the issue of the application process for the GRC. After all, that is what the petition is all about. Much of the discussion has centred around access to such things as single-sex spaces, but those are not catered for in the GRA or included in the scope of this petition; they are instead governed by the Equality Act 2010, which sets out provisions around single-sex spaces. It is right that we make space for that discussion to happen, because part of the reason that the debate has become so toxic is the confusion around the application of the Equality Act and its relationship with the GRA.

--- Later in debate ---

[Miriam Cates]

I understand the hon. Lady’s point, which is why I said that there are these rare abnormalities. People who are intersex should be treated with the compassion they deserve during every medical treatment from birth, but that is different from saying that someone who is born male can choose to be female or vice versa, which is why I said that that is rarely the case. Normally the determination at conception is either male or female, and that is the biological, genetic fact.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Miriam Cates]

No, I will make some progress. At the moment of conception, the new cell for a unique human being—the zygote—is the blueprint for every single other cell in that person’s body. The zygote divides again and again until there are trillions of cells making up a complete human being. These cells have different functions—muscle cells, nerve cells and blood cells—but every single one of the 37 trillion cells in an adult human has the same genetic code, including the same sex chromosomes.

[Miriam Cates]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. As I said, I recognise that there are rare genetic abnormalities. I am simplifying and talking about the majority. The debate is not about people with genetic abnormalities; it is about people who are identifying as a different gender from their birth sex. They are two very different things, and I am talking about the latter.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Miriam Cates]

No, I will make some progress. Every cell in the adult human body has the same genetic code. However much an individual may want to change their sex through surgery, hormone treatment or by changing their lifestyle, it is just not scientifically possible because our sex is written in every single cell.

Sex is immutable. Not only is it immutable, but our sex determines and influences a large part of our identity as people: our biology, psychology and life choices; whether we can become a mother or father; and what diseases we may suffer from. These are established and proven scientific facts, not a matter of individual beliefs or feelings, however strongly they may be held—and I absolutely accept that they are strongly held.

To allow somebody easily to change their sex in law would be to accept as a society that this material reality is not important or that it can be changed in a straightforward way. I do not believe that that is a wise route to take, and it would have wide-ranging repercussions in other aspects of law.

[Miriam Cates]

I will come to that. I believe that what we currently have is a good compromise, and I will explain why.

As well as the broader picture, there are specific impacts of GRA reform that would be significant, such as threatening sex-based rights. There are sound reasons of privacy, safety and dignity for women’s requirement for single-sex spaces and services. When using changing rooms and sleeping accommodation or for those in prison, women and girls have a right to expect that there are no males using those spaces. Self-ID could threaten those sex-based rights. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington that we are awaiting guidance on the matter. It could row back decades of progress on women’s equality.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I am curious to know whether the hon. Member supports the current GRA and GRC, because what she is talking about in prisons already exists; people can have a GRC but they are not automatically put in the estate based on it. I can give her numerous examples. They are placed depending on an assessment by the prison authorities. What is wrong with the current situation, where the prison authorities make an assessment regardless of the GRC?

[Miriam Cates]

There is a lot wrong with what is happening in prisons at the moment, but that is beyond the scope of the debate. As I said to the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), I will come to why I think the current law is a good compromise.

Self-ID could threaten these sex-based rights and row back on a lot of progress in women’s equality, but the effect on children would also be hugely damaging. We are already seeing a situation in schools and online where vulnerable young people—often girls, often same-sex attracted, often autistic—are being told that the answer to their problems is to change sex. This is manifesting in a concerning rise in girls who are not only identifying as trans or non-binary, but who are going on to make serious and permanent changes to their bodies that will result in lifelong medical, sexual and psychological problems.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

I agree with some of the things that the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) said; we sit on the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee and work positively together. I agree that the debate has become toxic and that we need to find a way forward and to show leadership, but we also need to step back and work out why, over four years ago, there was a call for change. That call was made because the current Gender Recognition Act and gender recognition certificates were not working.

One of the reasons was that the World Health Organisation was going through a process of removing gender dysphoria as a registered diagnosis. As of this year, the World Health Organisation no longer recognises gender dysphoria as a legitimate diagnosis from any doctor in the world. We now require our doctors to break WHO guidelines to continue to abide by the Gender Recognition Act. I am not even talking about the barriers to getting gender recognition, the social problems, the trauma that the issue causes people and the fact that the Act perhaps does not properly reflect lived lives and biology, because it reflects only the mental health diagnosis. Putting all that aside, the very fact that we in this country now require our doctors to give a diagnosis that is no longer internationally recognised should mean that we change the Act, even if it means changing the diagnosis and what a doctor or medical professional looks at.

If we are going to change the Act, it is incumbent on us to consider what a doctor would diagnose. Is it acceptable for it still to be a mental health diagnosis or are other indicators more important, such as someone’s self-declaration, the evidence that they might provide, or someone’s commitment to live in a particular way going forward? Perhaps those are better indicators for how someone lives.

I am happy to have a debate. Some people might say, although it might not be my position, that we need other indicators to do with how neighbours or friends see us, as we do when we get a passport photo signed off to confirm that it is a true likeness. I can understand why people might want to make sure that there is other documentation.

Clearly, the documentation provided at the moment is insufficient and does not work. The other day, for example, I heard about someone who provided two years’ worth of statements. It took six months to hear the case, which the panel then rejected because it said that the two years of statements were six months out of date. It is a Kafkaesque situation: someone submits documentation and there is a delay, so it is rejected. It is no wonder that so few people feel able to submit. In the end, the person had to resubmit, effectively providing evidence in the future, as it were.

There is a problem with the system, and that is the starting point that we have to come from. The Government had that as a starting point but four years ago, unfortunately, they opened a Pandora’s box, and the worst fears and nightmares of everyone on all sides of the debate were ploughed in. Rather than showing leadership, they allowed that to fester. Now they have suggested that they will remove the fees, ignoring the fact that people often have to pay for a diagnosis and doctors’ letters. It still costs hundreds of pounds; the barriers are rather high. They then talk about going online, but that might make it harder, not easier, for some groups of people. We need to step back and look at the process.

We might have different philosophical views on the wider issues, but I hope that we all agree that this small minority of people should be able to change their gender from the one assigned to them at birth. Their gender will usually have been assigned based on a visual check, with no further requirements for anything else to go on the birth certificate. That means that many people will grow up feeling very different.

I also think that we should recognise that “self-ID” is a particularly difficult term. It is not particularly useful. Most of our gendered spaces are already down to self-ID. There is no law in this country about who uses what toilet—and quite rightly: when such laws have been introduced in other parts of the world, it has been a nightmare. If there were such laws, it would probably be cisgendered women—the term that I would use, although I am happy to discuss terms that others prefer—who would end up getting criminalised: they would tend to use men’s toilets in public events, because there is often a huge queue for the women’s. That is what would happen if we had laws saying that it was a criminal act to go into the toilet of the wrong gender. Clearly, it would be bonkers and stupid to do something like that.

Most of those spaces are already down to self-ID, so we are talking about only a small number of spaces that might need protections, and they are already protected. We need better, proper guidelines as to how these protections should be interpreted, but those guidelines need to be written with the trust of all in the community. They need not be seen as some political backlash one way or the other; they need to bring everyone on board.

That also means not trying to rewrite or undermine the progress that many people feel they have already achieved. We cannot suddenly take people’s lived lives and their rights away from them. For many trans people, that is what they feel the debate is doing. They feel that there has been some progress, but that people are now trying to shove them in the box. I am not saying that that is anyone’s intention, but it is how they feel. We need to address that and move forward with them. I would use the term “positive declaration identification”. Maybe that is too wordy, but finding a new term beyond “self-ID” is probably useful in this debate, because we are talking about a legal process.

Finally, it is important that we ensure that we have fairness in this country and that we do not pit different groups against one another. This is not an argument about one or the other.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Freer]

I appreciate that the hon. Lady was not here for the bulk of the debate, but I am very conscious that some Members have trans children and trans siblings. I know from my own experience in the debate about equal marriage that what changed the whole tone of that debate was MPs standing up in the main Chamber and talking about their personal experiences as a gay man or as a lesbian woman, unable to get married. However, it is a very personal decision for a Member to stand up and talk about their personal life; some people are comfortable doing it and some people are not.

So although I firmly recognise that many Members, many members of staff and many House officials will have trans siblings and trans children, it must be the individual’s decision whether they come forward to help change the debate. I urge them to do so; I would love them to do so, because it changes the whole tone of a debate when people can visualise and personalise, rather than hearing some abstract policy about what a trans person might be. However, that is a very personal decision.

I accept all the criticisms that I have heard today that we have not always got the tone right. That is absolutely true. I am sorry if I get a thick ear from some of my ministerial colleagues for saying so, but it is true that we have not always got the tone right. This is sometimes an emotive issue where we sometimes get it wrong. However, I can tell Members that the Secretary of State is absolutely committed to ensuring that trans rights are firmly embedded in our programme. That is why I and Lord Herbert of South Downs have joined the team, and it is also why we have Iain Anderson as the LGBT+ business adviser.

An amazing addition to our team and the work we do is Dr Michael Brady, as national adviser for LGBT health. If anyone has in any doubt as to what we need to do, they should spend time with Dr Brady and go to the clinics that he works in, because the work that he and his team do is truly amazing. If anyone has any doubts, any fears or any worries about what the trans community are, they should go and see for themselves, and talk to Dr Brady and his team.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I will bring the Minister back to a point he made earlier, when he said the Government would remove the gender dysphoria language. Can he give a bit more explanation, based on the advice that he is getting from Dr Brady and others, about what they will replace that language with concretely? Will it just be a different word, or will there be a slightly different process that trans people will need to go through with their doctors? Will those doctors only be specialists, or will there be an ability for people to go to general practitioners and so on? Answering those questions might provide some movement that would be welcome.

[Mike Freer]

The hon. Gentleman asks quite a complex question, so, as he would expect, I do not have the answer now, but I will write to him. I can say that the word “disorder” will be removed; regarding exactly what it will be replaced with and how that will be implemented, I will write to him to give a full answer.

I will just mention the issue about some of the processes we have talked about. On trans health, progress is being made on adult gender identity services. Five pilots in a variety of settings have been developed, and these will be evaluated to give an insight on improving delivery. As I said at the outset, the fact that people have to wait three to five years to access services is simply unacceptable, and we are committed to ensuring that the whole client/patient—whatever term we want to use— process is streamlined and made faster, more effective and client-led.

[Mike Freer]

I am in the enviable position of being able to promise lots because I do not actually have to deliver it—I am not the Health Minister. I can commit to having conversations with colleagues across Government to deliver all the changes in the bits of Government and processes that impact LGBT people. That issue is firmly on my agenda, and I will take away that specific request and discuss it with my colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care.

The issue of under-18s is often where people have the most concern, but I want to stress that it is the Government’s view that the under-18s are properly supported in line with their age and decision-making capabilities. That is why Dr Hilary Cass is leading an independent review into gender identity services for children and young people. We will receive the interim recommendations soon. I have met Dr Cass and her team to discuss their work, which is rightly independent of Government. I believe that many concerns that Members and the public have about services for under-18s, which are firmly an NHS responsibility, will be addressed by the interim report by Dr Cass.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I wonder if it is the Minister’s opinion that older teenagers under the age of 18 have the capacity to guide their own pathways—just as with the Gillick responsibility.

[Mike Freer]

The decision-making rules on under-18s will remain as they are. That decision making has to be informed by the client, clinician and the wider support framework, and all parties must have a voice.

To conclude, discussion around the previous consultation has been, rightly, intense, and issues raised today are fraught. The shadow Minister called it a Gordian knot, and I think we will struggle to address some of the issues. However, I share her view that we actually agree on many issues. With a lot of good will, we can address many of the issues that have been raised today. We have to remember who we are doing this for. It is to ensure that the trans community are supported with kindness, which is a word that I hate, because it sounds patronising, but the trans community must be supported as they go through what is an incredibly difficult process.

Protecting Britain’s Steel Industry

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

What a ridiculous speech we just heard; let us get back to reality.

On 19 May, only 19 days after the passing of the Trade Act 2021, which updated the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Act 2018, the Secretary of State, who failed to amend the Trade Bill, said:

“The rules of the TRA were set in legislation in 2018, and I think we are in very different times now. We have had a global pandemic. We are much clearer about the issues of supply chains. I have briefed the Committee”—

the International Trade Committee, on which I serve—

“on…the way we are analysing critical goods.”

She went on to say that she would review the case of the TRA and see whether additional safeguards were needed. That was in May. A month and more later, what has the Secretary of State done? Did she review the safeguards that she acknowledged were weak? Did she change the system that she acknowledged was flawed, under which she can only ratchet down? No, she did not.

Last year, the Under-Secretary of State for International Trade, the hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena), who opened the debate on behalf of the Government, said blatantly that the

“system works…It is already delivering in a number of sectors, including steel”.

He must be on a different planet if he thinks it is working! He said that we have the ability “to act very quickly”. If we have the ability to act quickly, Ministers should do something rather than sitting on their hands!

Let us be clear what is happening: the US, the EU and our other major allies are taking action to stop their domestic markets being undermined; we are doing nothing. Just like when the EU took action and we were the ones dragging our heels when we were in the club, now that we are out of the club we are failing to stand up for our own businesses all over again.

I come to a fundamental point of the TRA. This is what the chairman of the TRA said: he has “sympathy” with the points raised around the environment, workers’ rights and extra protections, but he does not believe that the TRA should take any action on those things. He said that the TRA’s guidelines do not allow him to do so. That is the fundamental problem. The Government have dropped the ball—or maybe they are so wedded to the ideology of “free market against protection” that they are willing to sell our steel and other industries down the river. We will not stand for it. We will vote against it.

Arms Trade: Yemen

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

The ongoing war is intolerable. Although we know that almost £7 billion has been spent on arms sales, the figure is probably more like £20 billion, because many of those sales are not even recorded with the open licences. Even the lower figure means that, on a VAT rate of 20%, £1.3 billion has been gained for the Exchequer, and we have spent only £1 billion on aid. If it is the larger amount, £4 billion has been made by the Exchequer on tax from those deals. The taxpayer has profited directly from the misery and the deaths of people in Yemen, and we have not even bothered to give a scrap of that back, let alone the full amount.

Of course, we now know that many arms agreements were illegally made. The Court of Appeal said that those licences were illegal and required the Government to suspend them. The Government failed to suspend them and broke the court order, so the Court required the Government to go back and apologise. Now, rather than actually changing anything, the Government have found a loophole to continue arms sales, and another court case will have to progress. I am afraid that anyone who says that officials or the Government are following the consolidated criteria—those great criteria that were partly developed by Robin Cook—is delusional. They are on a different planet, because that is not what the courts, the researchers and the people on the ground in Yemen are saying.

Most importantly, our allies are begging us to withdraw. Germany has suspended arms sales, and we saw the disgraceful situation of our Foreign Secretary begging Germany to continue to allow arms sales where parts were made for Britain’s weapons. The Biden Administration have now done the right thing and suspended arms sales, but the fact is that we train many of the fighter pilots.