Trade Bill

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th October 2020 Lords Chamber

I do not believe that having less scrutiny than existed when we were members of the EU is an acceptable position. I am clear in my unequivocal support for both these amendments, for the establishment of an international trade commission that builds on the work of the existing trade commission—which is temporary in nature—and for it to be put into statute in the Bill.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I am glad to have this opportunity to say a few words about these two amendments. I can be a bit simpler than I had intended to be because my noble friend and the movers of the amendments say that these are probing amendments. To that extent, I want to add one or two questions of my own; I look to my noble friend the Minister for his response.

I have a feeling that, once again, these are amendments that fall into the category of trying to put into statute that Ministers should not do things that they do not wish to do. I am not quite sure why that is necessary. In this particular instance, the amendment proposes—in a number of areas relating to the environment, animal welfare and SPS—to take out of the hands of Ministers the business of negotiating the nature of the trade agreements that we are to enter into, largely tying the hands of Ministers. Ministers have been immensely clear, repeatedly, about their intention not to enter into trade agreements the effect of which would be to dilute the standards applicable by us in this country in all these respects.

What we have here says, in effect, that when we seek to enter into any agreement with other countries, we have an extraterritorial application of own standards to them. I fear that, in practice, that would mean an inability on the part of the United Kingdom Government to enter into trade negotiations with countries that apply different standards to our own. I am not sure that the signatories to the amendments have addressed the issue. They talk simply in terms of the impact in this country of the import of goods that are subject to different standards. That is a matter of domestic legislation; that is something we can stop. There is absolutely nothing that requires us to import goods that are produced to animal welfare standards that are different to and lower than our own, or that have environmental consequences that we would not accept. We are perfectly free to say no to that. The implication of these amendments, however, goes beyond that to the idea that we should not enter into trade agreements with countries that supply standards that are not our own.

I am not sure that noble Lords necessarily need to answer this, but I am not sure where the words “or higher than” have come from. What is this international trade commission supposed to do? Should it look at our standards and say, “They’re not good enough. We are going to apply higher standards to other countries than we apply to ourselves”, and seek to enforce them through the terms of an international trade agreement that we enter into with them? That seems inherently and deeply unlikely.

Finally, it was asserted by the noble Lords who put their names to the amendments that this amendment would put in the Bill something that is primary legislation and is therefore wholly applicable. What they are talking about are standards. They are not talking about regulations. In truth, what really matters is the implementation of international trade agreements in the form of regulations. For example, in a later debate, we will talk, I hope, about the implementation of our unilateral scheme of preferences with developing and least-developed countries, many of whom would find it intensely difficult to maintain standards—for example, of animal welfare or food safety and traceability—comparable to our own.

Is it noble Lords’ intention that the international trade commission should require that such regulations should have the same standards built into them, and that we would not accept goods from those countries if they were incompatible with the standards set by the ITC? That is not what these amendments say because they talk about international trade agreements. There is no international trade agreement required for us to offer unilateral preferences to these countries; therefore, perhaps it is their intention simply to exclude developing and least-developed countries from the issues they talk about. I do not think that that is their intention, but that is not the effect of their amendments.

I suggest that, in so far as these are probing amendments, let us recognise that there are some glaring deficiencies. If we come back, as I know we will on Report, to the question of how we maintain our standards in this country, let us think carefully about how we do it and recognise, with a degree of humility, that international trade agreements should not be a mechanism by which we seek to apply extraterritorial jurisdiction for UK standards to other countries throughout the world.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I will take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, in a moment. In the meantime, I would like to say what a pleasure it has been to work with the noble Baronesses, Lady McIntosh, Lady Henig and Lady Ritchie. I am delighted to support these two amendments.

I really congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering. It is almost like having a third member of the Green group sometimes. I am sure that she hates that thought and that the Minister might as well. It has been quite a slog for us during this Bill. We have repetitively talked about these issues and it is getting a tad boring.

This amendment is a mechanism to maintain trade standards that are as high or higher than domestic UK standards. For the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, that means that it is okay to trade with countries that have higher standards, even though they are not the same as our standards; that is the point of this part of the amendment. He asked why this is necessary. It is necessary because we simply do not trust the Government. If he can put his hand on his heart and say that he trusts the Government—go on; no?—I will be astonished. We have fantastic Ministers here—we even have a fantastic government team—but we do not trust the Government.

This amendment addresses the criticisms raised in previous iterations of the Bill, when noble Lords suggested that defining UK standards and equivalent standards would be a difficult legislative exercise. The amendment would create a specific body to undertake that exercise, and would grant it the necessary resources to do so. That might be a bit of a sticking point but, quite honestly, it is possible to move resources around, so I do not see that as an essential problem.

My colleagues, the three noble Baronesses, have covered almost every aspect on which I should have liked to speak, so all I will say is: will the Minister commit to working with us, perhaps to find a compromise amendment ahead of Report? Otherwise, there will the inevitable Division and government defeat, which will obviously be quite exciting for many of us but probably less so for the Minister and his team. So it would be wonderful if we could see a positive way forward.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Alderdice) (LD)]

My Lords, I have received requests to speak after the Minister from the noble Lords, Lord Lansley, and Lord Purvis of Tweed. I call the noble Lord, Lord Lansley.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for his response to the debate. I want to make one point. I fear that the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, may not have understood my point about the unilateral scheme of preferences in developing countries. It was simply that, since Amendment 54 bites only on those international trade agreements that are subject to the CRaG process, it would not bite on the unilateral scheme of preferences at all. So, it does not do what the mover of the amendment is looking for it to do; when they look again on Report, noble Lords should—as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, suggested —take it away and think about how they can support the Government to maintain and deliver our standards, rather than seek to go around them.

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

My Lords, I have nothing to add to those perceptive comments from my noble friend.

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[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hain, as a co-signatory of these amendments. Coming from Northern Ireland and the island of Ireland, where I was born, grew up, was educated and served as a Member in the other place, a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly and a Minister, I am only too well aware of the impact that the European Union had in Northern Ireland. Clearly, we do not want to see borders in the Irish Sea or on the island of Ireland.

I cast my mind back to the early 1990s and the Maastricht treaty, which allowed the border to be evaporated in many ways and opened up the whole island to trade with each other and with the island of Great Britain. The Good Friday agreement established the infrastructure that facilitated north-south co-operation, the Northern Ireland Executive and the Assembly and those important east-west considerations through the British-Irish Council.

The noble Lord, Lord Hain, has elaborated quite considerably the impact of these amendments, which I fully support and concur with. They deal with the need to protect the Northern Ireland protocol, which ensures that there will not be a hard border on the island of Ireland and protects the intrinsic quality and content of the Good Friday agreement as characterised in the Northern Ireland Act 1998 to prevent the return of a hard border on the island and the protection of Northern Ireland free trade agreements in the GB context.

Amendment 58 means that, in any trade agreement with the EU, there must be compliance with the protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland to prevent that hard border. Being part of the EU ensured the eradication of that border; there was seamless trade which bolstered the economy of both parts of the island, particularly the counties which straddled the border, which is some 300 miles long, as the noble Lord, Lord Hain, referred to. It would be impossible to have tariffs, as there are so many crossing points and the costs of such infrastructure would be highly prohibitive and a disincentive to our economy and society. We have grown so much together; the very fact that we have the restoration of those political institutions is characteristic of that ongoing work.

The bottom line is the UK’s commitment to north-south co-operation, the guarantee of avoiding a hard border, including any physical infrastructure, and the checks and controls that must be compatible with the overall withdrawal agreement. That is how we understand the Northern Ireland protocol. It is important that it not be undermined by the internal market Bill which comes to your Lordships’ House next week for Second Reading.

Amendment 59 addresses the need for the continuation of north-south trade and the prevention of customs arrangements at borders. It means honouring the Good Friday agreement and the Northern Ireland Act, and the withdrawal Act—both of those are international treaties, and the internal market Bill should not be allowed to override them.

Amendment 60 is Northern Ireland-GB specific. All trade agreements must benefit every part of the UK equally, with no exclusions. This is needed to avoid the risk that Northern Ireland is excluded from future UK free trade agreements due to the complexity of its differential arrangements. There is a condition that no free trade agreement can be concluded by the UK if it does not apply equally to all regions and nations of the UK. This is to prevent Northern Ireland being excluded, as the noble Lord, Lord Hain, said, from free trade agreements. This was raised last Thursday in the fourth session of Committee.

Amendment 65 intersects with the Northern Ireland protocol. As Northern Ireland goods will be produced in accordance with EU rules under the Ireland/Northern Ireland protocol, this amendment will ensure that Northern Ireland goods will not be discriminated against as a consequence of any new UK free trade agreements.

The trader support service, which supports businesses moving goods from Britain into Northern Ireland, will simply be temporary. Amendment 82 would ensure long-term commitment to it. At the moment, as the noble Lord, Lord Hain, said, it will be for only two years. However, putting it into legislation as a long-standing commitment from Britain to Northern Ireland would be essential to security and long-term planning for the Northern Ireland economy. It would also be of assistance to free trade agreements, because the trader support service is for goods that enter Northern Ireland from Britain that are coming from any third country. It would also involve no extra costs and would cover the cost of export health certificates. We also have to take note of the changed circumstances because of the rising levels of poverty, which the noble Lord, Lord Hain, referred to, and the growing reliance on food banks at the time of the Coronavirus pandemic.

I urge the Minister to give very positive consideration to these amendments and to support them. If we do not get support today, we will come back on Report. It is important that the intricate sets of relationships that have already been created on the island of Ireland and between Ireland and Britain, which have allowed free movement of people and trade and have bolstered the economies on both islands, are allowed to persist and continue. Those intricate sets of relationships need to be developed because they break down barriers in the minds of people and on the islands, and the last thing we need is the establishment of new borders and new islands.

I can remember travelling to the Republic of Ireland as a child. You were stopped at the border, and customs clearance guys on either side asked your parents very deep and pressing questions about what might have sounded like trivial matters. Thankfully, that day has long gone. We do not want to see a restoration of that or the imposition of any such barriers because it simply injures trade, stops important business, and prevents local communities, which have so many connections with each other, growing.

I am very happy to support these amendments, and I recommend them to your Lordships’ House for positive consideration. I hope that the Minister will consider approving them.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with Amendment 58 and I hope all noble Lords agree with it, because it is our shared intention. I am pretty sure that it is the intention of those negotiating on the part of the European Union that they will enter into an agreement that is thoroughly and completely compatible with the protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland.

However, the main point I want to make, apart from a subsidiary one on Amendment 82, is that this is neither necessary or, in truth, effective. Noble Lords will recall a number of occasions in Committee when we discussed carefully the distinction between on the one hand the ratification of treaties and on the other their implementation into domestic legislation. In this instance, we already have in domestic legislation the enforcement of this principle. It is in Sections 21 to 24 and Schedule 3 to the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020, which says, not least in Section 24, that Ministers of the Crown can make no alteration to the Belfast agreement. Therefore our domestic legislation already provides for our compliance with the Northern Ireland Act 1998. The point is that the purpose of this is to say that we will not ratify an agreement with the EU if it does not say that. I hope it will say that, but if it were not compatible, in any case it would have no effect in domestic law because domestic legislation already says that.

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Moved by

[Lord Lansley]

64: After Clause 2, insert the following new Clause—
“Trade promotion
The Secretary of State must lay a report before Parliament in relation to each year from 1 January 2021, prepared as soon as practicable after the end of that year, including—(a) the measures adopted by the Secretary of State to secure the benefits of the international trade agreements entered into by the United Kingdom, and which are in force during the course of that year; and (b) the trade and export promotion strategies which the Secretary of State proposes in order to realise the economic benefits of those international trade agreements to enterprises in the United Kingdom.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause would require Ministers to report to Parliament on how the benefits of new Free Trade Agreements are to be realised, including the trade and export promotion strategies they intend to adopt.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I am glad to have this opportunity to move Amendment 64, the purpose of which is to seek from Ministers an annual report, starting after the end of 2021, showing what measures they have taken to exploit the benefits of the trade agreements into which the UK has entered and setting out how they propose to maximise the realisation of those benefits in future.

I should say that I was recently appointed the vice-chair of an all-party parliamentary group for trade and export promotion. Happily, it has gathered support from all sides of this House and the other place, led by the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, and Gary Sambrook in the Commons. It is timely that we should come together in this new all-party parliamentary group since it is important that we support businesses as part of the global Britain exercise to realise the benefits of trade and exports across the world. In many respects, globalisation has stopped. The expansion of global trade had stopped even at the end of 2019 and has gone backwards in 2020, for obvious reasons. The difficulties of achieving export activity and entry into markets in the midst of a Covid crisis are palpable. Businesses need our support and help; I hope that one thing we can do is ensure that the voice of business and those organisations that speak for and represent it will be heard here in this House.

My noble friend the Minister and I probably hark back to the days when we were responsible for trade policy in the British Government. I remember that, when I was a civil servant in the Department of Trade and Industry, I was responsible for the chemicals and petrochemicals aspect of the generalised system of preferences. We had shared competence with the European Commission in those days before we lost it altogether. The point is that those of us who have experience of managing trade policy in the British Government have to be, almost by definition, in our 60s or older. So we are learning afresh; happily, the Department for International Trade is learning fast and operating on a broad canvas.

However, the bandwidth inside the DIT for this task is taken up with the business of putting trade agreements in place. That is a vital job but we cannot afford to lose sight of the job that is also an essential part of the DIT: leading our trade and export promotion activity. The DIT does not do that alone—it does it with other departments across Whitehall, not least the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office—but it is not down to all of us, not just government, to achieve this. It is down to businesses, chambers of commerce—including the International Chamber of Commerce and bilateral chambers of commerce around the world—and trade associations to make this happen, but they need to know what the government strategy is to do so.

I want to say in passing that there is a tendency—President Trump is particularly guilty of this sin—to take a mercantilist approach to trade deals. When we make a trade deal, he seems to think that he can directly manipulate the volumes of trade between countries as a result of that deal. In fact, he is beginning to find that that does not happen; in truth, we should not expect it to. We are, I hope, facilitating, liberalising and expediting trade, but that requires the activities of businesses and traders to make it happen. The volume of trade is a direct result of their activities, so we need to enable them to exploit trade deals.

Also, it is far from the case that what is written into a trade deal necessarily results in exploitation by businesses. Preferential rates are often not used by many businesses. Tariff rate quotas are often not used by businesses in one country even though they are available for trade in another. The use of these trade deals is instrumental; we need to make it happen.

Unlike the amendment that we were talking about earlier, I hope that this one asks Ministers to do something that they want to do: set out the strategy for realising and exploiting the benefits of the trade agreements that we will, I hope, increasingly enter into—not just the continuity agreements that are the subject of this Bill, but the many international free trade agreements that are to follow. As we do that, I hope that a flexible strategy will come forward from Ministers soon.

I reiterate those two points. First, I hope that it is soon because we should have such a strategy in place before the end of the implementation period at the point at which we are operating once again as an independent trading nation. It is necessary for business to be able to see what “global Britain” looks like when we have not only left the European Union but exited the customs union.

Secondly, the strategy must be flexible. None of us knows how we will be able to access global markets easily in the course of the next year, possibly even the year after. These are intensely difficult times for traders. Some of the conventional ways of doing things—you do your market research, go into a market, participate in a trade mission, attend a trade fair, meet people, create relationships and build your business—will not be able to be done as easily as they have been done in the past. That is why it is all the more important, as we are hoping to do through the all-party group, for the Government to work with and through organisations such as chambers of commerce, bilateral chambers, trade associations and those who are able to work in-market alongside our embassies—in particular, to work in-market and in a commercial sense to create market opportunities for businesses.

For example, when I was at the British Chambers of Commerce 30 years ago, we took on responsibility from the department for the export market research scheme. It is important that we have a strong export market research programme in the years ahead and in the strategy to come. I hope that Ministers will publish a strategy in the weeks, rather than months, ahead to show how they will exploit markets and how “global Britain” is going to work. I hope that that will be clear about the sectors that can look to the Government for support and the nature of the support that they will receive. I hope that it will be equally clear about how we are going to operate in markets where priority markets exist and how the Government are going to do that.

I declare my interest in the register as the UK chair of the UK-Japan 21st Century Group. A good example is the UK-Japan economic partnership agreement. It goes further than the existing EU agreement in respect of digital trade; I understand that our embassy in Tokyo has for the first time appointed a digital attaché. I hope that we will see a build-up of activity in markets by the Government, but also by the business communities, to make these trade agreements not only real, in the sense that we spent a lot of time discussing them, and not just signed, ratified, authenticated and implemented. Implementation is not a legal process; it has to become a market-orientated process.

I hope that my noble friend will be able to say that these amendments are not necessary because the Government are firmly fixed on renewing their trade and export promotion strategy—the last time they did so was in 2018, I think, but so much has happened since then—and setting it out soon in a way that really engages business organisations and the business community in making real the ambitions of global Britain, to which I think we all subscribe. I beg to move.

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[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Lansley for his amendment and his wise words in his introduction, honed by his years of experience.

As discussed when I met my noble friend to speak about this amendment, international trade agreements are not worth the paper they are written on if businesses and consumers are not educated and enabled to take advantage of their contents. I also fully agree with the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, about the need to operationalise those agreements. He and I were in complete agreement when we discussed this. I therefore agree that it is right that the Government should regularly review the benefits realised through the measures adopted for the international trade agreements they negotiate and the trade and export promotion strategies that they deploy. The strategies are vital, and I and all my ministerial colleagues in the department are well-seized of this.

The new all-party parliamentary group for trade and export promotion is an important development, and I am pleased to thoroughly endorse it. The energy of the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, as co-chair, and its eminent sponsors will surely lead to its success.

Coming to the substance of the amendment, I hope that my noble friend will be pleased to hear that my department already has plans to publish such a report every two years. I hope that noble Lords will appreciate that the two-year period is appropriate because to do so more regularly would be overly burdensome for the department to pull together and would provide insufficient time to monitor the benefits realised. I assure noble Lords that the fact that the period is two years rather than one year in no way means that we do not agree on the importance of this topic.

The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, referred to the trade access programme. I am well aware from my contacts with SMEs how valuable many of them find it, and I will write to give him an update on its present stature.

I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, that we are fully seized of the points he makes and that my domestic and international colleagues work closely together on this. If at any time a conversation with me or my ministerial colleagues would help him, we would be happy to have one.

I hope that my noble friend Lord Lansley is reassured that the Government share the objective behind his amendment and that our proposal for a biannual report meets it in a proportionate way. Consequently, I ask that the amendment be withdrawn.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

I am most grateful to the Minister for his response and to all those who took part in the debate. Everyone expressed their views in a positive way, and there was widespread support for the amendment’s objectives. I particularly thank my noble friend for his support for the objectives of the all-party parliamentary group. We look forward to working with him, his ministerial colleagues and officials in trying to ensure that we engage fully, not only here in Parliament but with the business community, in making that happen.

I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, not least for referring to the Federation of Small Businesses. In the report it published earlier in the year relating to SMEs and more recently when Make UK published its report on exports, it was abundantly clear how important it will be for us as a country to bring small and medium-sized businesses into export markets, not only in Europe, to which many have been accustomed, but beyond it. Thirty years ago, I set up an active exporting scheme through the British Chambers of Commerce that mentored small businesses to help them get into exporting activity. I hope that we can look at schemes of that kind because it is important to make that happen.

It was a very interesting debate about the nature of reports. I gently say to my noble friend Lady Noakes that the amendment refers to “the Secretary of State” because “the Secretary of State” is every Secretary of State, not just the Secretary of State for International Trade—so it can within the amendment be a cross-governmental report.

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[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to speak to Amendments 70 and 95. The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, had very much hoped to speak this evening, as he has very kindly co-signed the amendments, for which I thank him. One of the idiosyncrasies of our procedures meant that he was not able to get on to the right Marshalled List. I know that he will be following proceedings very closely and I thank him warmly for his support. I look forward to hearing my noble friend Lord Lansley speak to his amendment on free zones. Free ports are something that I support, and anything that we can do to increase people’s understanding of free ports and the fact that we could join and create as many free ports as we liked while we were members of the European Union is all to the good.

The purposes of Amendments 70 and 95 are straight- forward. They look to introduce a short period of adjustment following the end of the formal transition period at the end of this year, particularly in relation to any free trade agreements with the EU, but also with our economic partnership agreements and rollover agreements under the Bill. This would allow industries in the farming sector to make business-critical changes following the outcome of these negotiations. Also, for business viability, it refers to the introduction of measures to facilitate trade with our partners, both in the EU in a future trading agreement and our current economic partners, with the EEA, EFTA and others, in the rollover and continuity categories of agreements. Also, again, it looks to the minimisation of compliance costs for the farming sector, including minimising veterinary checks and physical inspections on large volumes of food products moving between the UK and our partners, particularly the EU.

I know that many of these issues were touched on in the earlier amendments moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hain, so I take this opportunity to stress that we are dealing here with perishable goods, particularly fresh meat and produce. This is a particular source of concern to the British poultry business, which hopes that we will continue to have tariff-free access to the EU market to ensure quality, affordable British food. We should realise how important poultry is as an industry: more than half the meat we eat in the UK is poultry and 1 billion birds are reared for meat every year. The UK is the fourth largest producer of poultry meat in the EU and is about 60% self-sufficient.

We are very heavily dependent on trade. It is generally understood that, for trading purposes, your closest market is your best market, because obviously the cost of transport will be lower, and with this being fresh produce and, as I said, perishable, it is extremely important that we remove as many barriers as possible.

These are intended to be probing amendments, and I hope that my noble friend Lord Younger of Leckie, when he comes to sum up, will be able to put my mind at rest that it will be part of an objective in negotiating trade and continuity agreements as well as any eventual agreement with the EU to secure such an implementation period, allowing industries with just-in-time supply chains, including the farming sector, to make these business-critical changes.

I am acutely aware of the impact of this particularly on the Northern Irish border with the Republic of Ireland, so any light that my noble friend can shed on this would be extremely helpful. Equally, when I ask, in Amendment 95, to look at

“the minimisation of veterinary checks and physical inspections on large volumes of food products”,

I am aware of the shortage of veterinary scientists in this country. Has my noble friend and his department addressed this in this regard?

I therefore seek to achieve a commitment that the trade will be as frictionless and seamless as possible, as we were promised when we decided to leave the European Union. This will continue to be the case with the EEA, EFTA and the EU. With those few remarks, I beg to move Amendment 70.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I am glad to have the opportunity, in this group, to follow my noble friend Lady McIntosh. She will forgive me if I do not speak to her two amendments but instead confine myself to Amendment 93 in my name, which relates to free zones and free ports. These are essentially the same thing; they are called free zones in the legislation that establishes the procedure for making them.

I draw noble Lords’ attention to the debate on 4 February 2019 on the previous Bill that was brought forward. I had a debate whose purpose was to propose a consultation on the future designation of free zones; of course, there were and are no free zones. The Minister at the time, my noble friend Lord Bates, replied to me on that subject then. I was asking for a consultation, and he said that he was not able to offer one but that

“The idea has been advocated”—[Official Report, 4/2/19; col. 1349.]


by himself and a number of others in the north-east, including the local MP Rishi Sunak. I see that time has moved on.

I am raising the same subject but do not need to ask for a consultation on the part of the Government, because they have now had one and are readying themselves, I hope, to respond to the product of that consultation. Back in February 2019, my noble friend said at the end:

“I am not able to be more helpful than that to my noble friend at this point, much as I may wish to be”.—[Official Report, 4/2/19; col. 1349.]


So I am looking to my noble friend on the Front Bench again today to be as helpful as he wishes to be.

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In many ways, this is a constitutional issue and, in such issues, I am on the side of Parliament, as you might imagine. However, there is a practical side as well: no chair who could not command the respect of the committee is going to run this authority successfully or have any credibility in the international community. A pre-appointment hearing would be a meaningful forum to establish those principles of operational independence and impartiality to which I referred earlier. I beg to move.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, at this late hour, I draw noble Lords’ attention to the debate on the predecessor Bill on 4 February 2019, in which I made similar points to those that are reflected in the three amendments in my name in this group. Regarding what the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, said, I do not think Amendments 104A and 108A are tidying up. They are there to delete the possibility that the chief executive of the Trade Remedies Authority might be appointed by the Secretary of State in the first instance where the chair of the Trade Remedies Authority has not been appointed.

We are in a situation where, if the Bill were to pass into law before the end of the year and if it were to be commenced rapidly, we already have a chair designate of the Trade Remedies Authority. We happen not to have a chief executive designate. We are in the unhappy position where the Trade Remedies Authority has been legislated for for a couple of years but has not actually existed because this Bill was supposed to have become law alongside the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Act. In that time, it has had a chair designate, who then stood down to be replaced in February this year, and a chief executive designate, who stood down in April this year and has not been replaced, so it is not a happy story so far. We cannot have a situation where the first chief executive of the body proper is not appointed by the chair designate who is in place, and I see no reason why that provision of Schedule 4(2) should not now be taken out and, as a consequence of that, paragraphs 17 to 23 of Schedule 4 can be removed since they all relate to that possibility.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, said, what is more important is the issue of the appointment of the chair and that, in order to reflect the importance of the role and the impact it can have in the public domain —including, obviously, from a business point of view, the economic domain in particular—and because of the requirement for independence, this should be an appointment where, before it is made, the Secretary of State should seek the views of the International Trade Select Committee in the other place.

Interestingly, I have asked the chair of the International Trade Select Committee in the Commons whether it has seen the chair designate of the Trade Remedies Authority and, as of last week, it had not. It seems to me that the department has been somewhat remiss not to put the chair designate in front of the Select Committee and to seek its views, and, not least because we had this debate back in 2019, it could easily have done it when it came to appoint a new chair designate in 2020. However, it has chosen not to do so. I think that the time has now come for Ministers to agree that this role should be one where the Secretary of State takes the views of the Select Committee before making the appointment.

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak in favour of Amendments 78, 79, 104 and 114, in the name of my noble friend Lady Kramer and in my name.

Amendments 78 and 114 would amend similar wording in Clause 6 and Schedule 4, where in both places the Bill has the provision that the Secretary of State must

“have regard to the expertise of the TRA and to the need to protect … its operational independence, and … its ability to make impartial assessments when performing its functions.”

We have heard several times in this House, including from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, that “have regard” has no force, so these amendments are intended to get the operational independence and impartial assessments out from governance by the weak words “have regard”. I will not labour the point any further save to say that the independence of the TRA is very important for international credibility, and indeed not only with regard to the Secretary of State.

Amendment 104 also goes to the matter of independence, as my noble friend Lady Kramer has already explained. It would explicitly put into legislation things that have been said, understood or only indirectly recited. I believe that in the other place the Minister, Greg Hands, said that if there was no recommendation, that was the end of the matter. However, it would be good to see it in the Bill. Likewise, I am curious about whether there could be an order for an instant reopening in the event of no recommendation. It seems a good idea to clarify that the end means the end unless circumstances change.

Amendment 79 is a little different in that it relates to funding and inserts into Clause 6 that when the Secretary of State seeks advice, there must also be regard to the capacity and funding of the TRA. Although I regret the omnipresent “regard”, that is important, because TRA funding is determined by the Secretary of State, as is stated in paragraph 29 of Schedule 4. We wanted to probe a little to make sure that the TRA will have sufficient funding.

With trade matters coming under UK control, success and funding are linked. It will be no good if the TRA finds itself in the situation that it cannot do things for fear of cost or the cost of litigation, which has hampered other regulators and authorities. That might please some if they think they come under less scrutiny from a supervisor, but this is not a supervisor but batting for the UK. Will there be a formula that relates to workload, and is it appreciated that workload is not under the control of the TRA? Workload happens because of actions in other countries, and what the TRA does or does not do can be hauled up before the Upper Tribunal as well as the WTO.

I understand that the Secretary of State has shied away from having the arrangements of the CMA, which are seen as much more costly, and I have to say the salaries on offer in the advertisements for TRA posts are low by international standards. Will that be reflected in lack of experience and possibly in staff retention once staff are trained up and the private sector beckons? Will these matters be seriously kept under review or will the TRA just be told to suffer the squeeze? Would the TRA be allowed to raise funds of its own? I have some concerns there around the issue of independence, but I think we ought to know. I appreciate that these probing questions go further than the amendment, but the last thing we want is the TRA explaining to Select Committees or the Upper Tribunal how it has funding for only half the job.

I also agree with the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and although he does not seek a committee approval of a nominee for chair, I have personal experience of holding the power of approval over appointments and reappointments of chairs and chief executives for all the European financial services authorities, and pre and post-appointment hearings for potential candidates for the board of the European Central Bank. Although those powers were resisted in the first instance and my committee had to wring them out of the Commission, the European Council and Eurogroup, almost immediately those bodies decided that these were rather constructive things to have. They were always phoning me up to ask more about what the Parliament thought, and the UK should be brave enough to follow suit.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

I apologise. I think the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, would like to speak after the Minister. I got that message late.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

I am grateful. Just for the avoidance of doubt, will my noble friend the Minister agree that it is not without precedent for pre-appointment hearings to take place for appointments made by Ministers? I think that under the Cabinet Office guidance there are about 50 of such. I was not proposing that the chair of the Trade Remedies Authority be included, although, frankly, the fact of it having public impact, being important and being required to be independent would justify including it in that list. Will my noble friend go away and consider whether this appointment should be subject to pre-appointment hearing?

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, for that question. I have some skin in this game, because I was the author of the public appointments code in which these requirements appear. I shall certainly consider the point that he has raised and write to him about it, but, frankly, with no great confidence that I will agree with him when I do so.