The hon. Lady anticipates some things I am going to say a bit later. What she says is entirely consistent with what I said about the environmental aspects of the Bill.
There is widespread recognition across society that parliamentary scrutiny is essential in international trade agreements. The hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) and his colleagues deserve credit for their sterling efforts to build consensus. Their new clause 4 has many elements of good scrutiny practice that a modern, confident, outward-looking country should want to adopt: scrutiny of, and a vote on, the negotiating mandate; assessment against domestic standards; consultation with the devolved Administrations; and a vote on the deal by both Houses. These are a good place to start. We can also learn from good practice elsewhere. For example, a very different approach is taken in the United States, where advisory committees have access to negotiating texts, trade unions are represented as well as employers and confidentiality agreements ensure that consultation is at an appropriate level. The result is that agreements can be amended, as with the recent United States-Mexico-Canada agreement, of which a strengthening of the labour chapter is intended to end union busting in Mexico.
How do we compare? Oh dear. So-called expert trade advisory groups—ETAGs—in this country are completely different. The Government do not tell us the criteria for membership or who the members are, and trade unions are excluded from a number of groups that were not set up to scrutinise trade deals. Talk now of a room-next-door
approach has raised concerns because of the over-restrictive nature of the non-disclosure agreements, which, as drafted, would prevent sensible consultation and analysis of the text, even by the existing self-selecting and very limited memberships of the ETAGs.