Economic Partnership Agreement: Kenya

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB) [V]]

What a pleasure it was to hear the noble Lord, Lord McDonald, and what a good foretaste of what he will bring to our debates. It is obviously a great pleasure to follow him. We have heard how well he manages suaviter in modo; I can assure the House that he is also pretty good at fortiter in re. He is quite tough: after all, he endured a couple of years working for me in Washington. He went on to hold very senior jobs across Whitehall, not just in the Foreign Office, and to be a distinguished ambassador in Israel and Germany. He may well have got the suaviter bit from Patrick, Lord Wright of Richmond, his father-in-law, who was so liked and is so much missed here in this House. Like Patrick, and like me, he served five years as Permanent Under-Secretary. His were more challenging times than mine. He brings us considerable wisdom and experience, and I welcome him very warmly to this House.

I am very glad that we are having this little debate on the agreement with Kenya before it is ratified. Like the noble Lord, Lord Oates, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, for his assurance on 23 February on the Floor of the House that it would be inconceivable in future that we should not have a pre-ratification debate if such a debate were recommended by the committee of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith. I have long envied American negotiators their ability to argue, during a negotiation, that however admirable a suggestion from our side was, “It will never fly on the Hill.” Our negotiators now have a comparable weapon in their armoury.

In the time allowed to me, I can make only two very brief points about the agreement itself. First, of course the cohesion of the East African Community matters and, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, said, the compatibility of this new agreement with Article 7 of its common market protocol is not at all clear, but I do not believe that in practice the agreement threatens the cohesion of the EAC. Under the agreement, tariff reductions by the Kenyan Government, which might create a perceived need for customs checks inside the EAC, will start only seven years ahead. By then, I would hope that all five other members of the EAC would have acceded to this agreement or a comparable, improved version of it. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to confirm that that is indeed the Government’s aim.

Secondly, the IAC report drew particular attention to the scrutiny of amendments to agreements. It is important, if we are to avoid future disputes, to devise clear criteria for determining when an amendment—or, indeed, a memorandum of understanding, an exchange of letters or an agreed minute—is of sufficient weight to trigger CRaG scrutiny. I am encouraged by the sympathetic hearing that the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, has so far given to the concept of a criteria-based approach, and I urge him not to weary in well doing.