My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady Blower and to have added my name to Amendment 18, drafted by certainly the foremost labour lawyer in your Lordships’ House, if not the country. I will try to be plain and succinct in support of Amendments 18 and 11 by logical correlation, and I need not read out my remarks; this is simple stuff.
In an ideal world, I would have loved a Bill that clipped the wings of the Executive and ensured that it entered into only trade agreements that comply with international human rights and other international obligations, but this Bill is not that. I accept that because it is very clear that its Long Title and scope are about implementing trade agreements, some of which might be of concern to me and to others on the basis of who those trade agreements are made with. Notwithstanding the assurances that this Government—and no doubt future Governments—care about the rule of law, so we cannot clip the wings of the Executive in relation to the royal prerogative on what agreements they enter into, we can say, without being creative or mischievous and without diverting by one iota from the Long Title of the Bill, that when regulations are made under its provisions, they must comply with the international rule of law, the domestic rule of law and, in particular, obligations that we have long ratified on workers’ rights, children’s rights, women’s rights, sustainable development and so on.
Put simply, if the Minister in his response will neither happily agree to Amendments 11 and 18 nor offer explicitly to come back at the next stage of the Bill with something like them, that will raise a serious question as to why not. It is not enough to say, “But of course we would never make regulations that breach our international obligations.” That can happen by accident as well as by design. Without being insensitive about this, I remind your Lordships that, in recent weeks, the Government have lost their most senior legal adviser and one of their most senior law officers over this very issue of setting a course whereby we put our international legal obligations and domestic statutes into conflict.
In summary, what is wrong with children’s rights, workers’ rights, non-discrimination at work and sustainable development goals? The Government would say—and have said—that there will be no levelling down, only levelling up. If that slogan means anything, any regulations made under the Bill when it becomes an Act must comply with our obligations. That must be on the face of the legislation to ensure that any regulations that
accidentally breach our obligations will be ultra vires this Bill. It is very simple. I really look forward to the Minister’s reply.