Working Practices (International Agreements Committee Report)

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town—my noble friend, for these purposes—on her introduction to this debate and on her chairmanship of the committee. As a member of the committee since its formation—and, indeed, with the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, of its predecessor committee—I join her in thanking the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, for all the work that he did in helping to establish these working practices.

It may seem slightly self-indulgent for any committee to have a debate that is, essentially, to discuss how we do our job but, in truth, I think that in this House we should devote significant attention to this in the same way as the House has demonstrated its capacity to add value in parliamentary terms to what the other place does in relation to statutory instruments and delegated legislation. Where international agreements and treaties are concerned, this House has a special role to play. We are not a standing committee on treaties, such as there is in, I think, New Zealand, but on international agreements. It is a wide-ranging role and not confined to trade. Although we have a small overlap with the International Trade Committee in the other place when we conduct inquiries, we have a significant role that is not that committee’s role—and it has a lot to do that is not our role. We do not have a trade committee here; the other committee may look at tariff schedules, the generalised scheme of preferences or the Trade Remedies Authority, but that is not our role. We have a duty to look at international agreements in a detail that the other place does not. We have to make sure that our scrutiny is really effective—not least, as the noble Baroness said, because the European Parliament no longer looks at treaties, particularly trade treaties, to which we are a party. It is our role to do that.

I do not think that it is too self-indulgent. What we are doing here is very important; even since we published this report there have been things, such as the negotiating objectives on CPTPP, the AUKUS defence agreement and the Ukraine export credit deal, which gave the House the opportunity to debate military support to Ukraine in literally the first or second week after the new year—I cannot recall, but it was pretty much as soon as we came back. We have demonstrated that there is a wide-ranging and important role for the committee.

What the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has been able to announce today by way of the exchange of letters with the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, is really important. It cements the structure for the scrutiny of free trade agreements and, in that context, I hope that the first part of it, on the scrutiny of negotiating objectives, is really taken up both by the Government and the House. For example, we are in the throes of seeking evidence on the India negotiations; they are very important negotiations and the Government are already in the third round of those. It is really important that we debate in this House what it is that we are seeking to achieve from negotiations, not least so that when we are presented with the results, under CRaG, and the formal processes of scrutiny take place, we are able to look and say whether the Government have been able to achieve what they set out to achieve. It is also important for the Government to respond to the views of both Houses, I hope, in undertaking their negotiations.

Like the noble Baroness did, one can argue that the bottle is either half-full or half-empty. I am slightly in the “It is half-full and getting fuller” camp; I hope that we can fill the bottle over time but, in order to do that, there are number of things that we need to do. I say gently to my noble friend on the Front Bench that I know how civil servants always write into every Minister’s brief how much Ministers welcome the scrutiny of both Houses; that is demonstrated occasionally in reality, but sometimes reluctantly. I have to say that it has been evident in the way in which my noble friend Lord Grimstone, as the Trade Minister in this House, and his officials have co-operated and worked with us in the scrutiny of trade negotiations and trade deals—we, as a committee, pay tribute to him for that. It is not so evident in relation to the work of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and other departments. It is really important that they take this on board and work actively with us.

In terms of the practicalities, the noble Baroness mentioned a number and I will quickly reference three. The first is amendments to treaties. I will not go through what is in paragraph 71 of our report, but it is very clear that in order for the scrutiny of the development of international agreements and treaties to be effective, the Government must be open and transparent about not only the deals that have been entered into but the amendments to those deals—they can be very significant.

My second point is about the sequencing of legislation. We referenced it in the report. It is not easy to get this right, and we should acknowledge that the Government have a job to do. Sometimes, there can be a significant gap in time between the signing of a treaty or agreement and the point at which it is ratified. There may even be a significant delay between signature and the point at which it is laid under CRaG. That does not mean that we should not sometimes be able to have it implemented. If it requires implementation in domestic legislation, it may be appropriate to use statutory instruments and secondary legislation, where those are available, to bring agreements into force—I do not object to that.

However, we should ask the Government to ensure that, if this House is to be asked to implement an agreement or treaty in primary legislation, then this House, under CRaG, should have been given that agreement or treaty to scrutinise, and to debate it where necessary, where it is reported for that purpose, before the point at which the House is asked to agree the necessary primary implementing legislation; otherwise, I think that we get it the wrong way around and are then at the point where the Government are seeking to implement a treaty before Parliament has had its proper opportunity to scrutinise it—and indeed, where the other House is concerned, not just to scrutinise it but to have the potential, constitutionally, not to accept it and to delay it. We should never get into such a position; I know that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, as our chair, was very clear on this point. We should not arrive at a position where Parliament could deny its support for ratification of a treaty but the Government have gone ahead and implemented it—that should not happen.

My third and final point is to reinforce what the noble Baroness said about the importance of memoranda of understanding. As we say in the report, the Government appear to be moving towards using these as a preferential method for undertaking international agreements. The third limb of the Ponsonby rule was clearly not overridden or displaced by CRaG. I do not think it will hurt to quote, as we did in our report, what was said about the Ponsonby rule and the third limb:

“Parliament should: ‘also exercise supervision over agreements, commitments and undertakings by which the nation may be bound in certain circumstances and which may involve international obligations of a serious character, although no signed and sealed document may exist.’”


What that tells us is that the third limb means that international agreements, in whatever form they may take, if they are of significance, should be reported to and scrutinised by Parliament.

Here we are with a memorandum of understanding with Rwanda—well, I do not know what it is exactly; there is an agreement. On 13 April, the Home Secretary signed it in Kigali. On 14 April, it was published but, because it says in Article 1.6 that it is not binding in international law, it does not fall under CRaG. So the Government’s attitude appears to be that it is not CRaG-worthy and therefore not subject to scrutiny by Parliament. I am afraid that that is not true. It should be scrutinised by Parliament. The Ponsonby limb should apply to it, as to all such agreements or memoranda that are of significance, and it will be our job in the International Agreements Committee to ensure that that scrutiny takes place. I very much support what the noble Baroness had to say about that agreement, and I hope that this demonstrates to Ministers that MoUs should not be a route around parliamentary scrutiny.

We are not in the same relationship to the Executive as the European Parliament was to the European Commission. However, just as Ministers say that they welcome scrutiny by Parliament, I hope that they will welcome a partnership between the International Agreements Committee and all Government departments to scrutinise agreements in future.