Trade Bill

Debate between Tom Randall and Stephen Kinnock

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tuesday 19th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con) [V]]

There are several amendments to be considered today, but I propose to speak only to Lords amendment 3—the so-called genocide amendment—which I have particularly considered.

After Brexit, the country appeared to divide into two camps: those who saw Brexit as a problem to be solved and those who saw it as an opportunity to be embraced. I am firmly in the latter camp. We can now develop our own trade policy in a way that we have not for some time. It also gives us the opportunity to export our values —if hon. Members will excuse the phrase—as well as our goods and services.

I hope that Britain’s trade policy in the 21st century will be like that of the 19th—the Britain of the West Africa Squadron, unafraid to stand up for what we believe in around the world. However, we have to take the world as it is. Not all countries are western-style democracies, and as we stride the world at large it is inevitable that we will want to trade with some countries that are perhaps not quite the same as ours, but there are obviously limits. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda described genocide as

“the crime of all crimes”.

Rightly, this country will not seek to make trade arrangements with countries that commit it.

In that light, Lords amendment 3 has much to commend it. It could apply to any country, but discussion of the amendment so far has centred on the People’s Republic of China and its treatment of ethnic minorities. As the vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Hong Kong, I have become much more aware of and interested in China’s activities, and the amendment would send a very powerful message to China that her actions are unacceptable.

I have a great deal of sympathy with those who are minded to support the amendment, and I applaud the work of the Board of Deputies, the Muslim Council of Britain and others that have raised the profile of the amendment and the surrounding discussion. However, lawmaking is not just about sending messages; it is also about creating a set of workable rules. In that respect, I regrettably have some doubts about the Lords amendment.

A free trade agreement is likely to take the form of a treaty that has been through Parliament under the procedure set out in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010. The amendment would effectively revoke a trade agreement on a ruling from a High Court judge. That introduces a judicial element that may or may not be desirable, but needs to be considered at greater length and very carefully. Is it desirable that a judge considers an international agreement that has already been considered and approved by Parliament? If a free trade agreement is being considered with a country that is suspected of committing genocide, which I suggest is a situation that is not going to arise, is this House not capable of considering that and voting it down? Is a court able to amass the relevant evidence to decide whether genocide has occurred? Can the Government or Parliament not do so? Perhaps the Government are better placed to do those things.

I am not sure how the amendment might work in terms of our international law obligations. Would our domestic legislation be overturned while our international obligations, which the trading partner could still enforce, were still in place?

I have not fully addressed those questions in my own mind, and it is for those reasons that, with considerable regret, I do not feel that I can back the amendment as it stands. I urge the Government to consider this matter carefully, use this amendment as a first draft and turn it into a workable safeguard to ensure that, in the future, Britain continues to hold our head high on the international stage.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

I rise to speak in favour of the amendments tabled in the names of the noble Lords Alton and Collins, the driving purpose of which is to root our foreign and trade policies in the values and principles that our country and our constituents hold dear.

According to the British Foreign Policy Group’s polling, more than eight in 10 of the UK public believe that the UK should sometimes or always lead the way on global issues, while across this House we know that if global Britain is to mean anything, our country must have the moral authority to lead by example. That authority will be fatally undermined if we end up sacrificing our ethics and values on the altar of tawdry trade deals with genocidal states.

The term “genocide” evokes harrowing memories of Bosnia, Rwanda, Cambodia and, of course, the holocaust. If ever there is a time for Britain to show global leadership and stand up for our values, it is at the very moment when we witness those early, chilling signs of genocide. On that note, the nation was collectively aghast when we saw Andrew Marr show the Chinese ambassador a video of shaven-headed Uyghur Muslims being forcibly loaded on to trains, the video accompanied by moving accounts of women being sterilised and the horrors of forced labour camps. The Jewish community knows all too well that comparisons with the holocaust should be used sparingly, so when the President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews writes to the Prime Minister to draw parallels between events in Xinjiang and Nazi Germany and then calls for the Prime Minister to support the Alton amendment, the Government must surely take note.

I turn now to the profoundly misleading and disingenuous arguments that the Government are deploying against the Alton amendment. First, the Foreign Secretary claims that the amendment is unconstitutional because it would allow the High Court to frustrate trade agreements. That is nonsense, as it has been the settled policy of UK Government for decades that judges, not politicians, rule on genocide; so the Alton amendment is entirely consistent with that principle. The only difference is that we would be empowering, through that amendment, our esteemed British judges to make such a ruling, rather than the judges in an international court.

Secondly, the Foreign Secretary claims that the evidentiary bar for genocide is simply too high, and that the Government would set their own threshold far lower, by which to determine whether the UK would be entering into trade deals. Well, fine—then the Government should cease their attempts to defeat the amendment, as the amendment should surely be seen as purely an insurance policy against future backsliding. Moreover, if it is indeed the case that the Government are seeking to adopt an even more progressive approach, then Conservative MPs should also be supporting the Collins amendment, which rightly sets out why the UK Government should apply a human rights assessment to all negotiations.

Thirdly, the Foreign Secretary argues that the amendment would give rise to vexatious claims—again, disingenuous nonsense. The High Court has a well-established process for filtering vexatious claims out of its system. For far too long, the international community has allowed authoritarian regimes to hold the international human rights legal order hostage. Russia and China wield their vetoes cynically and ruthlessly, and that is why the UK Government have never succeeded in recognising a genocide while it is ongoing since the Nuremberg trials, 75 years ago.

If this House votes with the courage of its convictions tonight, we will be grasping the opportunity to lead the world in standing up to those regimes and breaking the stranglehold that they currently have on our system. Let us show some global leadership. Let us back Alton and Collins this evening. Let us send a message to the world about the type of country we really are.