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.