Trade Bill

Lord Duncan of Springbank Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 8th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, it is exciting to be on the speakers’ list twice—once physically and once virtually—but I will trouble noble Lords with my thoughts only once. I start by giving a warm welcome to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn. I was glad to hear him mention the contrasting miracles of graphene and “Strictly Come Dancing”. He will be a great addition to our House.

This Bill is not very different from the Bill introduced in this House in 2018 on which I spoke at some length. It provides for the continuity of EU trade agreements where possible on a bilateral basis and sets up the UK-only arrangements for procurement and an independent trade remedies authority. Not much has changed, although some of the Lords amendments have been stripped out.

However, the context is very different. Boris Johnson has become Prime Minister—a welcome change—and won a decisive election victory. We have left the EU and the nature of any FTA with the EU makes our international trading arrangements even more important. Continuity arrangements have been agreed and scrutinised effectively by the EU Committee of this House. We have produced 22 reports on 50 different Brexit-related agreements, and I thank our brilliant clerks.

Trade negotiations with Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the US are very active and the Department for International Trade has been strengthened enormously, most recently with the addition of former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, whom I had the pleasure of meeting on an earlier visit to the UK. I am now chairman of the UK-ASEAN Business Council—one of my interests in the register—and can assure noble Lords that in the ASEAN region, which is dynamic and growing, he is well regarded for the important trade agreements he concluded in Asia.

We have also welcomed my noble friend the Minister, with his global business experience, to his role, and at last today we heard his maiden speech. He has an amazing record and network, but for me the most important qualities he highlighted were clear thinking and decisiveness. These should be much valued in our Government today.

I welcome the return of this Bill and the Minister’s clear introduction and look forward to supporting its rapid passage through our House. I have a particular interest in data and intellectual property and thank the Alliance for IP for its usual briefing. I know that these areas are important to the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson and Lord Clement-Jones, and I look forward to working with them on the usual cross-party basis.

I sympathise with many of the points made about parliamentary scrutiny and hope to bring to our debates my experience on trade issues within the EU in the European Parliament and on the European Union Committee. I also endorse everything my noble friend Lord Naseby said, his practical ideas on export promotion and the intriguing ideas of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, on rail rolling stock. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull, I care a lot about the role of small business in trade.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

The next speaker is the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg. I am sorry but we cannot hear him at all. We may have to move on to the next speaker and return to the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, afterwards. I call the next speaker, the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Sheehan (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I start by welcoming the maiden speeches of the Minister and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn, whose focus on inequality is very welcome. The Secretary of State for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has stated:

“With democracy and human rights as the central principle of the FCDO mission, we can bring together the UK’s values, its global mission, and its responsibilities as a world-beating international development institution.”


Those are fine words indeed, but they would have greater force if underpinned by the opportunity presented by the Bill, but that has not happened. Not only that, but Parliament’s role to set objectives, scrutinise deals and evaluate the impact on fundamentals, such as public well-being, climate requirements, human rights and international development, has been diminished. The second time around for the Trade Bill means that some of the essential safeguards won last time may be lost, given the Government’s majority. However, this House has a responsibility to uphold parliamentary sovereignty, and I will support amendments that seek to do so. To date, we have had nothing but promises from Boris Johnson to protect us from the vagaries of countries such as the US or Brazil while they are led by men whose principles and values we do not share.

I move on to the dual challenges of climate chaos and Covid-19. Some 50% of the UK’s carbon footprint appears elsewhere in the world. The Bill is an opportunity to do more to invest in green trade and use Aid for Trade support to help developing countries transition into renewables. The upcoming leadership of COP 26 gives us a real opportunity to lead on fossil fuel subsidy reform, starting with the UKEF. In 2019, the Environmental Audit Committee stated that UK Export Finance supported fossil fuel projects to the tune of £2.6 billion over the previous five years, the vast bulk of it going to low and middle-income countries, compared with just £104 million for renewable energy. It is not enough to stop subsidies for coal production. The parlous state of planetary ecosystems dictates that subsidies for oil and gas should also be consigned to history.

I end by speaking about equitable access to treatments and vaccines for Covid-19 for the developing world. Jeremy Farrar, the director of Wellcome, has said:

“For as long as COVID-19 is present somewhere, it is a threat everywhere … Governments, industry and philanthropy must pool resources to pay for the risk, the research, manufacturing and distribution.”


A recent YouGov poll commissioned by Wellcome found that most people think that Covid-19 treatments and vaccines should first be made available to those who need them the most, wherever in the world that need is greatest. Does the Minister agree, and does he agree that trade arrangements have their part to play to deliver this?

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

We will attempt to return to the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg.

Trade Bill

Lord Duncan of Springbank Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments & Ping Pong (Hansard) & Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 2nd February 2021 Lords Chamber

As noble Lords can see, this is not a party issue but a parliamentary issue. I urge my noble friend the Minister to acknowledge this and accept the principles at stake—and give Parliament its say. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

Two Members have requested to speak in the Chamber, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I support Motion A1. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, on his introduction, because I thought it was very calm, considered and thorough—and, above all, it was reasonable, which is something I care very much about. The Government’s attempt to throw out all our amendments epitomises the problem that we have. This is not a democracy. The Minister is very well respected and extremely honourable, but his speech made me laugh out loud. The Government have enhanced their transparency, he said. In what world have they done that? He was good enough to remind us of the rule that we should not overrule the elected Chamber and so on, and the will of the other place. But let us face it, with an 80-plus majority the Government just decide what is going to happen and stamp on those Members of the other place who choose not to follow the party line. What the Government are trying to do is to limit scrutiny of this.

There was something else—oh yes, the Minister said that this Motion would limit the Government in getting the best deals. Judging by the way in which they have handled the deals that they have done so far, I would argue that they are not very good at getting the best deals anyway. Perhaps they would benefit from your Lordships’ House getting involved in giving scrutiny to their so far abysmal deal-making.

I strongly support this Motion and hope that the Government can see sense about it. It is not a democracy when you have two Chambers but the second Chamber is left not to comment when, let us face it, the other place does not have the time to scrutinise in the same way as your Lordships’ House does. We have the time and the expertise to scrutinise things, and that is what we should be allowed to get on with.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, before I comment on the amendment, I join the growing list of people who are very concerned about the procedures of the House. In the last week, we received a letter from the Clerk of the Parliaments, telling us to stay at home, and we had another missive from the Lord Speaker telling us to stay at home, yet the Procedure Committee insists that we break all the rules that the Government want us to obey to come here to speak on an occasion like this. I hope that the Lord Speaker, when he returns tomorrow after his birthday—and I wish him many happy returns of the day—comes back reinvigorated, with the determination to persuade the chairman of the Procedure Committee to bring the rules up to date, although I know that he himself is not in charge of that committee. It is ludicrous that we are put in this position.

I am very happy to support my noble friend Lord Lansley. Modern trade deals are much more complicated than they used to be and cover huge areas of public policy—areas of concern to all of us. It is a different world from when we used to do trade deals, before we went into the EU. My noble friend the Minister, in typically emollient fashion, put forward a good case, but it was not good enough. He said that it was the first opportunity for the UK to decide its own trade deals for 45 years. Yes, that is true, but it is not the first opportunity for Parliament to have a guaranteed say in what is going on. Surely my noble friend the Minister has absolutely nothing to fear from Parliament. I take a different view from my friend the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. I think that the Government’s trade deals are very good, and I am confident that they will get even better, so my noble friend has nothing to fear, if he continues to produce good trade deals.

It is perplexing to many of us that there is no guaranteed vote by the House of Commons on a trade deal, whereas there is for the Parliaments of America, Japan and the European Union. We are portrayed as undemocratic, which is a sadness. This is a great opportunity to enhance the role of Parliament and the House of Commons, and one that ought to be seized with both hands. As I said, my noble friend the Minister has nothing to fear.

My noble friend Lord Lansley has moved considerably to try to meet the Government’s concerns on this issue. He has listened and adapted his amendment and I hope that your Lordships will support him, to give the other place a chance to look at a different amendment and a hugely important one for the way in which our constitution works.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

Does anyone else in the Chamber wish to speak? No—good. That is that “name that Peer” round over, so that is excellent. I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Earl. On this issue we share a great deal of common ground, although on other issues perhaps not, and I agree with his remarks about the procedures on these stages.

It has been a pleasure to work with the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, who suggested that this was like “Groundhog Day”. That fantastic film had an element of things changing in each of the days that the character relived. If that was the equivalent of the Trade Bill, we would see the incremental changes that make for a happy ending at the end of the movie. If the Government see sense and accept the noble Lord’s wise words, we will see that incremental change with a happy ending, as in “Groundhog Day”.

The noble Lord referenced previous stages, and I quote from a previous stage in Hansard, where it says:

“We talk about taking back control, but Parliament has got to stop giving its decision-making powers away. If we want to be respected in this Parliament, we have to be the ultimate arbiters of the decisions and direction of travel of our country. We can have those powers. I say to the Minister for Trade Policy that we have had these discussions. I hope that the Government will bring forward mechanisms that allow the House to have much greater scrutiny at the outset of a trade negotiation to set those ethical parameters”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/1/21; col. 812.]


That was not from me, although I have called for similar during previous stages in the Trade Bill. That was from Dr Liam Fox on 19 January, when the Government rejected Lords Amendments 1 and 5 and gave the same reasons for rejecting both. I hope that, as there is growing consensus on this issue, the Government can at least listen to Dr Fox, if not to myself or to the noble Lord, Lord Lansley.

Dr Fox also said:

“Those who had discussions with me when I was Trade Secretary will know that my preference … was for us to have a meaningful debate on a motion that was amendable at the outset for the mandate of trade discussions. That would have enabled the House to set the ethical parameters within which we would operate, and then the Government would have gone ahead and carried out the negotiation”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/1/21; col. 811.]


That is very interesting to have learned. There has clearly been a position within the Government whereby they look to see how open they are at the stage of setting the parameters or mandates for opening negotiations. So I hope that the noble Lord’s amendment is not that far from a great deal of thinking within the Government, if that had been the position of the Trade Secretary then.

It is not just Dr Fox—yesterday, on the very good and open Zoom meeting that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, hosted on the amendments that we will discuss in the next group, Sir Iain Duncan Smith said that Parliament should give the go ahead on a trade deal. He made it clear that it would not affect the prerogative power. So I think that there is cross-party support in this area, on a greater setting of the mandate. Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Dr Liam Fox and many Members of this House during the passage of this Bill have expressed a belief that it is in the Government’s and our country’s interest, so that these negotiations are stronger.

On the next element of the consultation, I welcome what the Minister said about the new page on GOV.UK on the ministerial forum, which we have debated during previous stages of this Bill. What the Minister mentioned is to be welcomed, but I think that the Government could still, in looking at legislation for international trading agreements, move the same mechanism that they put in place in the internal market Bill for our domestic trading relationships. In that Bill, there was a time-limited period of consultation with the devolved Administrations for regulations for the implementation of trading arrangements. However, I hear what the Minister said, and I hope that aspect is something on which, at this late hour, the Government could still think again.

--- Later in debate ---

I will vote for the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Alton. I will not press my amendment to a Division—although it would marginally improve that of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, by putting in a couple of dates and concentrating the mind in that way—no more than my noble friend Lord Forsyth will move his. But I will vote with determination. I hope that the other place heeds the advice that we seek to give and that together, as a Parliament, we can be proud of what we are doing in creating global Britain.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

My Lords, nine Members have asked to speak. I will list them, so that noble Lords know the order in which they will be speaking: the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, the noble Baronesses, Lady Altmann and Lady Neville-Rolfe, the noble Lord, Lord Polak, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and the noble Lords, Lord Adonis and Lord Shinkwin.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I may begin by being the first person in this Chamber to pay tribute to the late Captain Sir Tom Moore, who died a few minutes ago, I understand. He was a great British hero and, even if I were to live to 200, I could never hope to emulate his courage, his thorough decency, his niceness and his sheer pizzazz. No doubt there will be proper tributes, in this Chamber and elsewhere, in due course, but I simply say this—we shall remember him.

I also commiserate with my noble friend the Minister, who I believe is self-isolating. I did it for four months and one week last year and, despite getting a letter almost every other week from the Secretary of State warning me that I must not go outside but I could open a window for fresh air, I am dashed if I am going to do that again—so here I am.

Of course I support my other noble friend Lord Alton’s excellent Amendment 3B. He has a long and noble history of advancing the case against genocide, wherever in the world it may occur. I pay tribute to his highly persuasive speech today, and also to my noble friends Lord Forsyth and Lord Cormack. I only say to my noble friend Lord Forsyth that I wish I had known his ploy a couple of days ago, before I spent hours trying to figure out the difference between the amendments —goodness knows how many pages of paper I wasted printing them out to compare them. I agree with both noble Lords that we have to look at our House procedures to make sure that this problem is overcome.

I cannot hope to be as persuasive as my noble friends who have spoken, but I wish to direct my remarks to Conservative colleagues who may have a few concerns about supporting these amendments. First, the Government oppose the new clause sent to the other place on the grounds that

“it is not an effective means of dealing with cases of state genocide.”

Okay, so what is an effective means? The Government have not advanced any credible alternative means. All UK Governments, as has been said repeatedly, have hidden behind the excuse that they cannot declare a genocide because only a court can do that. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister has said it on a couple of occasions, the Foreign Secretary has said it and David Cameron also said it when he was Prime Minister.

Of course, the court they have in mind is the International Criminal Court—but, as we have also heard, the ICC cannot take a case unless it is authorised by a resolution at the United Nations, where Russia and China can exercise their veto. Thus, it seems to me that UK government policy is to rely on a motion approved by Russia or China, which will never happen. We have therefore subcontracted the UK’s morality to two regimes which the new head of MI5, Ken McCallum, says are a threat to the United Kingdom. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, gives the Government a way out, because it asks a UK court to make a preliminary determination on whether genocide has occurred.

Is there anyone in your Lordships’ House who thinks that our United Kingdom courts are less able to do that than the ICC? Indeed, was it not top UK lawyers who prosecuted and adjudicated at Nuremberg and set up the ICC? Are we seriously suggesting that noble and learned Lords, with whom that part of the House is normally awash, or their successors now in the High Court, are incapable, or not as good judges as those in the International Criminal Court? Of course they are—and of course there are technical difficulties in hearing evidence, but the courts are in a better position to do it than any Select Committee. So I believe that the revised amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has removed that principal objection the Government had, that only a court can do it.

The Minister—I pay tribute to him—is a highly intelligent and very able Minister and he has had countless meetings on this. He knows that the brief he has to defend today is utterly illogical. The typical FCDO letter that has been circulated today is incredibly feeble. We all know that the Foreign Office does not want to say “boo” to any evil regime, wherever it may be in the world, whether it is in China, Zimbabwe, Burma/Myanmar, Venezuela or wherever. We have a government policy that only a court can decide on genocide. Then we have an amendment giving our High Court a power to decide on genocide, but the Government says that it is not effective. How illogical is that?

The suggestion that the Government favour a Select Committee making a pronouncement instead is utterly wrong. There is nothing to stop a Select Committee doing that at the moment, but the idea that a Select Committee, meeting for a couple of hours a week, could give the same consideration as the United Kingdom or the English High Court taking evidence day after day, week after week, is for the birds. Of course, no matter what the Select Committee decided, the Government could ignore it on the basis that “It is not a court”.

There is another worry many Conservatives have—I shared it initially—and that is that we cannot have a court determining foreign policy which is rightly the preserve of the Executive. I agree, and I have believed for some time that judicial activism in this country, especially judicial review, has gone too far. That is an argument for another day, but this amendment is quite different from what we debated before, because it does not permit the court to determine government policy. If the court makes a preliminary determination that genocide has been committed, what does the court then do? Absolutely nothing—the court’s work is now done.

Trade Bill

Lord Duncan of Springbank Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

My Lords, it is a difficult day for me to stand up and speak from the perspective I will speak from. I know I will disappoint many in this House, not least my noble friend Lord Alton. Noble Lords will know of my long-standing and academic interest in foreign affairs and human rights. I am, therefore, compelled to revert, I am afraid, to first principles and be the only voice to speak in favour of the Government’s position.

The noble Lord, Lord Alton, passionately believes in two propositions. The first is that the international human rights system is broken, and the second is that we must create a vehicle to punish China in a generic Bill that is intended to define the process by which we scrutinise trade deals. That has been the tenor of most of the speeches we have heard today. I shall briefly set out why, with enormous respect for him, I oppose both approaches.

The noble Lord will know that Lemkin and Lauterpacht did not work on the conventions on genocide and crimes against humanity for their unilateral use. They were designed to be multilateral instruments to protect the international human rights system. That system, largely created by the United Kingdom, is now in its 70s. It is problematic and does not have the tools to deal with violations whereby state parties are themselves major enforcers of the system while carrying out egregious violations. We cannot challenge them due to the mere fact that they sit with us on rule-making bodies such as the United Nations Security Council. The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, alluded to that. It is therefore left to the rest of the world to take action jointly and multilaterally. That action is still there for us to take, irrespective of the fact that China sits as a permanent member of the Security Council. It is the route that the Government wish to take; at least, that is my understanding of their intentions.

The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, speaks of the lessons of history being historical. Yes, the lessons of history are usually historical, and today’s system has held for 70 years. There have been violations, which we have heard about in this Chamber. As to the idea that the United Kingdom unilaterally could have done much about them, I cast my mind back to my 40-something years in foreign affairs and remember only one occasion when the United Kingdom was able to intervene unilaterally—a small-scale invasion in Sierra Leone in the early 1990s. It was a brave attempt, which succeeded. However, on the whole, and with some caution, I warn people that if they think that by passing this kind of amendment we are going to be free to stomp the world unilaterally, taking on powers such as China, they need to think again.

My second point, which is about China, demonstrates exactly what is wrong with this debate. In the final analysis, I am unprepared to use generic legislation for specific ends. I refer also to the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, that the judicial committee advocated in the amendment would merely help us to ascertain the facts. Judges are not substitutes for intelligence reports, scrutiny undertaken by our Select Committees or academic scrutiny. We have all heard during the passage of the Bill about the numerous reports of the last three years, not least from the noble Lord, Lord Alton. That is a matter for us. It is a circular argument of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, whereby the facts show that genocide is happening in China, yet we need a committee to tell us of those facts.

I do not come to this House every day to pass legislation in order to pass on that responsibility to great judges, however learned they may be. These two Houses are the places where the law and changes to it must be deliberated upon and agreed. Each and every one of us carries that responsibility and it should not be outsourced to our colleagues. It is for us, as parliamentarians, to determine these matters for ourselves on the basis of our own intellect and conscience.

The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, had a good go at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. As noble Lords can imagine, if one has been involved in foreign affairs for some 40 years, one has seen people come and go. He says that the western world needs to stand up to China. I agree and have been saying so in this House for more than a decade. My first encounter with human rights abuses of the Uighurs in China was in 2004, the same year in which I entered this House, when I found out on a trip to that country what was actually going on. I agree with him that we need to stand up to China, but in doing so, we have no choice. We are a mid-sized power with a mid-sized economy, and our jobs, our people’s human rights, also matter. Not many people recall that human rights also include social and economic rights. Our jobs and our citizens’ human rights are at stake in these debates, particularly if we single out one country for action in a generic Bill. We might do that but it will serve as an impediment to other countries in doing trade deals with us.

If we want to stand up to China, we have no choice but to do it through working with the United States, the European Union, the Commonwealth and all the other strategic powers. Here, I concede that I do not see China as a strategic partner. However, along with other strategic partners, we need to decide how to amend and strengthen the existing global order to make China respect and uphold the values that we wish it to.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

My Lords, at this point I must ask if there is anyone else present in the Chamber who wishes to contribute to the debate. No? In which case, I shall call the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, characteristically, this has been another powerful debate with, inevitably, a degree of emotion—but less emotion and more considered judgment, which is appropriate at this stage of the Bill.

My view is that the UK can act; and when we act, many people still look at how we pass our legislation in this Parliament and at our behaviour around the world. We can lead by example and, in many cases, we have done so. If it were argued that proposals on human trafficking and forced labour should not reach beyond UK businesses operating globally, and that we should act only in a multilateral forum, other countries would not follow. The UK’s record on human rights has been good but should be better. This debate, because it is on the Trade Bill, is about how we interact with our views of human rights and what triggers exist to remove preferential trading arrangements from countries that are in gross dereliction of their duty on human rights, regardless, in many respects, of a flawed decision by an international tribunal. Ultimately, it is the UK that makes its decisions.

Five years ago, President Xi was addressing both Houses next door in the Royal Gallery. I shall refer to China first and then open up my argument to the wider area of human rights. A joint statement was issued by the UK Government and the Chinese Government, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, had his beady eye on it then. The communiqué, issued on 22 October 2015 stated:

“The UK and China commit to building a global comprehensive strategic partnership for the 21st Century. This visit opens a golden era in UK-China relations featuring enduring, inclusive and win-win cooperation.”


“Win-win cooperation” is a classic Chinese line. The statement continues:

“In the last decade, the bilateral relationship has flourished and matured with close high-level exchanges, deeper political trust, fruitful economic cooperation and wider people-to-people contact.”


Some of those factors remain the case but some have been significantly damaged, as noble Lords have indicated and as the Foreign Secretary highlighted. That joint communiqué highlighted seven co-operation agreements, covering £30 billion of trade, strategic partnership agreements and joint alliances providing preferential relationships. However, it did not include a free-trade agreement. We have more than £30 billion of trade covering a whole separate area.