My Lords, as one of those who sponsored this amendment, I will make a few brief points. Its subject matter is very familiar to Members of this House, because we went over all this ground during the Trade Bill last year. We sent to the Commons an amendment that had very similar effects to this one, only this one is in the different context of negotiating the new relationship with the EU, and it has remained there untreated ever since. However, the view of the House was expressed by a very large majority, with support from all corners of the Chamber.
This negotiation with the EU, which will go far beyond purely the trade area, must do so because, if we allow the non-trading goods areas that are at
stake—I will not list them, as it is a very long list—to go over a cliff at the end of this year, when we have only a trade agreement, that would be pretty disastrous. It is a very important and wide negotiation, and it is perfectly reasonable to try to set bounds to the rules of the road in legislation about how the Government will relate to both Houses of Parliament during its course. I do not think there is anything unreasonable in this.
Moreover, as my noble friend Lord Kinnoull pointed out, drawing attention to the European Parliament’s position, which is completely different, it would be pretty anomalous if this Parliament, which is meant to be taking back power, had much less influence over this negotiation than the European Parliament. That is not a very happy situation; it was one that existed during all the negotiations of the last few years and did not turn out terribly well. I do not quite understand why the Government are fearful of subjecting themselves to this fairly reasonable amount of oversight and mandating when they have a very large majority in the other place, which will of course prevail in support of the Government’s views on how the negotiations should be conducted.
Yet they tabled the text that we now have before us when they could not be sure of that at all. That is a bit odd as well; I think I can understand perfectly well why it has happened, but it is still odd. This is not only about the European Parliament. For example, one of the major trade negotiations not covered by the Bill will be with the United States, where Congress will play a far greater role than the one that the Government envisage for this Parliament. That is also pretty unhealthy.
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I went to a briefing meeting held by the noble Lord, Lord Callanan. I am most grateful to him for it; he has been extremely assiduous in briefing us on the Bill. In reply to a question on this issue, he said, “That doesn’t matter much because we’re just going back to what existed before.” I am not sure that “back to the future” is this Government’s motto, but it is nevertheless worth remembering that when he says that we will go back to what was there before, he means what was there 50 years ago. Neither this Government nor any British Government have conducted a trade negotiation for 50 years. To suggest that the world has not moved on in the oversight and mandating of trade negotiations is simply to close your eyes to reality. So I really think that there is a case for this amendment.
Finally, I can at least take comfort from the fact that the Minister will not be able to rise to his feet and tell us how badly drafted the proposal is because he drafted it himself.