Trade Bill

Debate between Robert Neill and Sarah Olney

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 22nd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD) [V]]

As the shadow Secretary of State for International Trade pointed out earlier, we have had many debates in this place about the Trade Bill, but today there is only one question before us: should the UK have trade deals or agreements with countries that practise genocide on their own people? It seems very clear to me and my fellow Liberal Democrat Members that we need to grab this opportunity to make that very clear statement. We welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement earlier today about the Magnitsky sanctions, but we absolutely must follow that up and make it so clear in everything we do that we do not tolerate genocide in any shape or form.

The Liberal Democrats therefore remain unflinching in our support of Lord Alton’s amendment. We welcome the fact that their lordships have once again returned the Bill to the Commons with this amendment. I urge the Government to listen to all the cross-party voices on this issue and allow the amendment to stand. Time is short, so I will not rehearse all the reasons why this genocide amendment is so necessary in combating the actions of regimes against their own people, such as we are currently seeing against the Uyghurs in China at this very moment.

It continues to baffle me that this Government, which fought so hard for the rights of the UK to agree its own trade deals, have so little to say about how they plan to use that power. They have resisted calls from across the House to use the power of our trade deals to demand environmental, social or human rights improvements from our trading partners. How can we ensure that our goods and services will not be cheaply traded away if the Government will not even allow this amendment? The Government’s objections to the original amendment have been ably addressed by their lordships, and we will be voting this evening for the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani).

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I would have no hesitation in voting against a trade deal with a state that commits genocide, nor would I have any hesitation in voting against a trade deal with a state whose oppressive behaviour and conduct fell short of the legal definition of genocide. But either way, those are political decisions and should be taken here; therefore, we need a political process to deal with those.

That is why, despite the changes, there still remain difficulties with the latest iteration of this Bill to come back from their lordships. The problem is given away by the language, which was recognised by the shadow Secretary of State when she referred to a finding by our country’s most experienced judges. That is the rub of the wording of the amendment. When it talks about a “Parliamentary Judicial Committee” and “a preliminary determination”, later defined as “a public finding”, that is the language of courts rather than of Parliaments.

The tension is further revealed by the provisions specifying the procedure by which judges may be appointed to the parliamentary judicial committee. That is constitutionally inaccurate, never mind anything else, because once former members of the judiciary sit in the other place, they sit there as former members, no longer as judges. They have ceased their judicial function. To pass this amendment with its current wording would be constitutionally illiterate. Although the expertise of the former members of the judiciary is very great and very welcome, it is surely objectionable in principle to create a parliamentary Committee on which only one class Member of either House can serve by reference purely to their previous occupation.

Secondly, it seems to me undesirable that, by statute, we should seek to circumscribe so closely both the membership of a Committee of either House or the proceedings by which such a Committee operates, which normally should be a matter for Standing Orders. I would have thought that that was much the better way to go.