Trade Bill

Debate between Lord Purvis of Tweed and Viscount Hailsham

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 6th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Hannay and Lord Stevenson, for working collectively to condense a number of amendments in Committee into one composite amendment. It captures the two broad areas that were left outstanding in the Government’s Command Paper, the presentation of which I and others welcomed. The first area explores how the Government see the prerogative power of the Executive taken forward in a new, more complex world. The second concerns the devolved Administrations. Both areas are deficient in the Command Paper, as has been said already.

To illustrate the first point, I was born in 1974, when there were four regional trade agreements in the world. In 1992, there were 24 and in 2019 there are 471. That shows the massive growth in breadth and complexity of trade agreements that have been notified with the WTO. Nine been notified to the WTO during the tortuous process of our consideration of this Bill, which shows how trade moves fast but also widely and with growing complexity. Therefore, reverting, in effect, back to a consideration of the prerogative power before our membership of the EU is not really sufficient. It is why the International Chamber of Commerce, in a meeting I chaired, was so disappointed with the British Government seeking,

“to address the issue of 21st-century trade with 19th-century constitutional practices”.

This amendment seeks to address this fundamentally.

There is no direct replication of the relationship between the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament. The European Parliament has formally notified and engaged from the start of a trade negotiation 12 times. We are seeking to maintain this as the same form of platform of relationship, and if there is no direct read-across from what we have at the moment we will seek to use that as an opportunity to enhance the role of Parliament, rather than enhance the role of the Executive. That is why the first element seeks a role for Parliament in supporting the mandate or the negotiating objectives. The Government may say they have an issue with the word “mandate”: we are just taking the word of the Prime Minister when she sought and secured, “the mandate I need” when it came to negotiations with the European Union recently. When that passed the House of Commons she said she was,

“armed with a fresh mandate”.

This is the Prime Minister’s language and if the Government are opposed to it, they need to explain why the Prime Minister’s language is wrong.

On the second area, we have changed the use of the prerogative power over recent years. Canada still deploys troops without parliamentary approval—we do not. We have moved to fixed-term Parliaments. We have changed, adopted and modernised the prerogative power and that is why it is appropriate that Parliament has a role in setting the negotiating objectives and mandate and also has a vote on the final ratification.

My final point concerns consultation with the devolved Administrations. This formal statutory underpinning of consultation was sorely lacking in the Command Paper. It is welcome that there will be a process through the concordat, that there will be a forum and that there will be ongoing discussions with Ministers, but just to give the current example of the Faroe Islands trade agreement, the draft text was not shared and the level of consultation with devolved Ministers was not appropriate. We seek to address those two areas in this amendment, with consultation with the devolved Administrations, an updating and a more appropriate role for Parliament. I hope that the Government will see this in the spirit in which it was tabled—that we wish to build on the Command Paper and improve it—and that they will accept it.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly simply to explain why I do not feel I can support the proposed new clause, although generally speaking I agree with the views that have been expressed in its support. I shall indicate what I could support with some changes to the new clause. I shall deal first with proposed new subsection (9), which makes the ratification of the agreement subject to approval by resolution of both Houses. This provision, in fact, goes much further, as the noble Lord will appreciate, than the procedure set out in the 2010 Act with regard to the approval of treaties, but I welcome the principle and I have no difficulty with it. However, I have a question which I hope the sponsors of the proposed new clause will address. I may have overlooked the answer—it may be staring me plain in the face. What happens if the Lords decline approval but the Commons approve the trade agreement?

There is no provision in the Bill to deal with that situation, and it would be profoundly unattractive if the House of Commons were to approve the trade agreement and the House of Lords were to refuse it, the result being that the trade agreement could not pass. This is actually dealt with specifically by Sections 20(7) and 20(8) of the CRaG Act of 2010, but there is no similar provision in the new clause. Because the procedures between the new clause and CRaG are fundamentally different, I do not think you could simply import the procedures in CRaG to the new clause. Perhaps I might seek guidance from the mover of the amendment on how to resolve a difference of opinion between the two Houses.

To move very quickly to proposed new subsections and (1) and (4), so far as the former is concerned it is very good idea that the negotiating mandate should be placed before an appropriate committee and discussed in both Houses of Parliament. It is a splendid idea, and I also agree with the supporting procedure set out in the proposed new clause. The one thing I do not agree with is that the negotiating mandate should be made subject to approval of the committee or the House. That is an undue restriction on the ability of the Executive to negotiate. I would say yes to consideration and discussion, but no to express approval.

The same point relates to proposed new subsection (4). I see no reason why the agreement of the appropriate committee should be obtained before the matter is put to a vote under subsection (9), because that subsection is already a parliamentary lock on the agreement. Why, therefore, should there be a pre-agreement by the appropriate committee before it goes to both Houses of Parliament? It seems to me that that restricts the ability of Parliament to do that which it thinks is right, and it is unnecessary because the parliamentary lock already exists.

To summarise, I cannot agree with this new clause, but I could agree with it if the principle of consideration and discussion were substituted for that of express approval in subsections (1) and (4).