Trade Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Monday 7th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register.

I rise to support Amendment 6 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis. I do so for two reasons. First, I believe that it provides a robust framework for the appropriate scrutiny of international trade agreements. The CRaG arrangements are not satisfactory. It is important that both civil society and Parliament have opportunities at the right time to scrutinise what is going through and what is being negotiated. I hope that the changes that have been made since we discussed these issues in Committee will convince the Government that they can agree to this amendment. I support it not just on the principle of parliamentary scrutiny but because the amendment sets out the areas to be covered in both the sustainability impact assessment in subsection (4) and the independent assessment in subsection (9).

In his contribution, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans reminded us that trade agreements cover a huge swathe of public policy. As was suggested during earlier stages of the Bill, there is a temptation to consider that there is a simple economic impact that is the criterion by which we judge trade agreements. I do not believe that that is sustainable. We run the risk of importing into this country goods and services that diminish our stated—and, indeed, our statutory—responsibilities in areas such as climate change and environmental protection.

Equally, we run the risk of losing opportunities in the huge green economy that is coming. We have seen that the Government recognise this. There have been some welcome recent developments, such as the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan and our raised commitments on climate change and emissions, but it is really important that we go from these high-level aspirations to ensuring that we implement and integrate these commitments—particularly on the environment and climate change—into policy and legislation. That is not some soft, optimistic, rose-coloured view of the world; indeed, the Prime Minister himself said:

“Green and growth can go hand-in-hand.”


If that is so, we must look at what trade agreements we implement and how they fit in with our responsibilities and aspirations.

In Committee, I was critical of the fact that there was no mention anywhere in the Bill of the environment and climate change. I ought to pay tribute to the Minister and the Government for making clear in the Written Ministerial Statement and accepting the argument that a wide swathe of policies are affected by trade deals, saying that, when they publish the proposed independently verified impact assessment, it will cover the economic and environmental impacts of the deal. As I understand it, the legal advice is that “environmental” would cover climate change—I am delighted to see the Minister nodding on that—so I hope that we can move from that progress, which I very much welcome and am grateful for, to accepting this amendment and making this a statutory requirement.

[Lord Tyler (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 6 in the name of my noble friend Lord Purvis of Tweed. I will also refer briefly to Amendment 12 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley.

I served on the Joint Committee that examined the draft legislation that eventually emerged as the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010—usually referred to as CRaG, as it has been during the debates on this Bill. On that committee, we were quite clear that we sought to correct the previous anomaly, which enabled the Government of the day to push through very significant international treaties with minimal or non-existent parliamentary scrutiny. There was a great deal of pressure for extensive ratification rights for both Houses, not least from Conservative colleagues who were, of course, in opposition then. However, we eventually resolved—for the sake of unanimity on the committee—on a minimalist compromise. Part 2 of CRaG therefore provided only for both Houses to have a statutory right to scrutinise treaties, with the Commons given a theoretical power to delay ratification. Under that Act, neither House had an obligation to debate the terms of a proposed treaty, let alone vote on it, but both could seek assurances and explanations from the appropriate Minister before consenting to ratification.

It is important to remind your Lordships that, in 2010, we were all in a totally different political and diplomatic environment. The United Kingdom was involved—and bringing extensive experience to bear—in combined treaty negotiations with our EU partners. However, our Government, and therefore our Parliament, were not engaged in the intricate details and the much higher level of trade discussions that now face us, with unprecedented complexity and significance for the future of our nation. In its report from April 2019, Parliamentary Scrutiny of Treaties, the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House put the challenge very well, saying that

“the provisions of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 were enacted in a time where leaving the EU had not been seriously contemplated.”

This was its primary conclusion:

“The current mechanisms available to Parliament to scrutinise treaties through CRAG are limited and flawed.”


That has obviously been repeated often this afternoon. I am sure that all members of that Joint Committee would join with me in accepting the wisdom of that contemporary view.

Moreover, it was endorsed by the EU Committee in its June 2019 report, Scrutiny of International Agreements: Lessons Learned, which stated:

“We therefore agree with the Constitution Committee that the CRAG Act is poorly designed to facilitate parliamentary scrutiny of treaties.”


In its following report, Treaty Scrutiny: Working Practices—dated July 2020—the committee went on to warn that cosmetic changes, with no statutory backing, would be unlikely to be sufficient. It said:

“If we cannot make treaty scrutiny work within the current framework, legislative change may prove the only means to ensure adequate scrutiny of international agreements.”


Ministerial Statements are not the same thing. Therefore, the first justification for my noble friend’s amendment—now supported by distinguished Members from many parts of the House—is that it carefully and comprehensively spells out the essential elements for detailed parliamentary scrutiny for all new international trade agreements. As my noble friend Lord Purvis stated earlier, in essence, this amendment updates CRaG to meet the dramatically different requirements of Brexit and establishes a critical, crucial constitutional principle.

In the debate on the committee report in your Lordships’ House, my noble friend Lady Bowles of Berkhamsted, drawing on her experience in EU negotiations, commented:

“The Government’s approach is overly biased towards maximising their secretive freedom, believing that that always enables playing their best hand. That is not my experience. The Government can be in a stronger negotiating position if Parliament is on their side on the journey.”—[Official Report, 7/9/20; col. GC 130.]


That view has been reiterated this afternoon.