We are here to talk about a very small part of a much wider trade Bill. To some extent, we are only talking about it because the Procurement Bill has not been brought to this House from the other place. If it had, we might not even be talking about some of this Bill’s clauses at all. Is that not a disgrace? Almost no other country has such poor scrutiny of its trade arrangements.
Of course, Britain did not have such poor scrutiny of its trade arrangements before we left the European Union. In this place, we were able to use the negative resolution procedure at several stages, including the pre-stage. The European Parliament had the right to vote down the deal at the pre-negotiating stage, as well as the final deal, and our Government could do so through the Council.
Now the Government, in all their ineptitude, are the ones who decide. They forced the CRaG process through, which in itself was unnecessary because ratification cannot be fully implemented until all the legislation has been laid down. There was no need for the CRaG process to happen last year without any substantive debate or vote in this place, because the trade deal cannot be fully brought into force until this Bill has passed.
The Government’s whole about-arse process on trade —we have heard all the criticisms made by the former Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice)—shows that they have no real plan and no real idea about how to negotiate. When I ask my Australian colleagues what they may have compromised on and what we may have gained, they say, “It’s a pretty good deal for us—we wrote it.”
Through the amendments on procurement, there are several things we can do to ameliorate the mess that the Government have made of this deal. First, we can ensure that Parliament has scrutiny over how the details will be implemented. If the deal goes through, as we heard in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) and in my intervention on him, it might weaken the protections on procurement.
Ensuring that the statutory instruments laid before the House are not written as poorly as the Bill and the trade deal, so there is no wiggle room on procurement, should be our first step. The way to ensure that is by holding Ministers’ feet to the fire. In the Bill Committee, the Minister seemed a bit unsure about how the affirmative procedure and the negative procedure work. It is clear that if statutory instruments are made via the negative procedure, there will almost never be a debate in this House. They will go through without debate, because Members of this House will not be able to pray against them in time; sometimes we have seen Governments deliberately laying statutory instruments when the House is not sitting and cannot pray against them. That is the reality.
The only way to ensure debate and discussion, either on the Floor of the House or in Committee, is to ensure that the affirmative procedure is applied. That must be the bottom line. It is not hard, and it will not delay the process, because the Australians themselves need to go through an affirmative procedure when they implement measures. This is asking for nothing more than our counterparts are getting; to offer anything less would be to devalue and degrade Britain. We know that the Conservative Party is doing quite a lot of that at
the moment, but come on; let us, at least on this one, show that Britain counts. Britain should be able to get something as good as what is available to Australia and other countries around the world. Underselling Britain is disgraceful, and we need to reverse that.
Secondly, we need clarity on the legal clauses. It needs to be made clear that they will not undermine the current protections around the world. As I said in my intervention, it is not a question of whether, in a court of law, we might reach a point at which British companies would be successful; that is irrelevant. The question is, would it be necessary to go to a court of law to determine whether British companies would be able to obtain compensation, or would everyone be so clear about the fact that a French company would be able to obtain compensation that a French competitor would be given a marginal competitive advantage? That is the question that arises from the poor wording in the Bill.
If a marginal advantage is given—even a theoretical advantage that in practice does not come about—multinational companies that can channel their trade either through their British company or through their French company for large procurement deals will do it through the French company, and then where will the tax be paid? Where will the revenue return? It will return to France, and Britain will lose out again. It is therefore vital for this clause to be included.
I am also deeply disappointed—and I wish the Government would accept some of the amendments that deal with this—about the fact that for Australia, the procurement requirements do not count at state level because Australia is a federal system. All its procurement, in respect of education, roads and building, universities and community facilities—I could go on—is at state level, so this trade deal does not bind the Australians. Because of the way this Government have negotiated the deal, they want to tie the hands of our devolved authorities and local government in a way in which Australian hands are not tied; again, selling Britain short. What we could see is the proper integration of our devolved authorities and local government, particularly big strategic local government—for instance, London-wide government and Metro Mayors. We could include them in the negotiations, or, even better, ensure that future negotiations do not allow an asymmetrical position in which we are included and others are not.
This is a poor deal, as we know from the other side. This is a poor Bill, which accepts everything from one side and protects Britain not one jot. The Opposition new clauses and amendments go some way towards ameliorating that. Ministers should accept them, thus ensuring that we can truly champion British businesses that are trying to trade around the world. That is what I genuinely believe we all want.