My Lords, it is a sobering fact that, as we discuss this important group of amendments with regard to the UK adhering to international obligations, the European Union has today issued a letter of formal notice on a potential infraction where we have breached an international agreement. That is the backcloth against which we must consider all the groups of amendments to come: how we as a country want to be seen around the world as a nation that adheres to its national obligations. Those on climate change and the environment, as the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, indicated in opening the debate on this group so well, are obligations that the UK is a party to.
I want to speak first to Amendment 21 in the name of my noble friend Lord Oates who, as my noble friend Lady Northover has said, cannot be here today
because he is at a funeral. The amendment is also signed by my noble friends Lord Fox and Lady Sheehan. I shall also address the cross-party Amendment 40 which is also in the name of my noble friend Lord Oates but has been spoken to very eloquently by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott. I am sure that if the noble Lords, Lord Duncan of Springbank and the noble Lord, Lord Browne, had been able to take part in the debate on this group, they would have done so. I am grateful for their support.
I turn first to Amendment 21, which should be looked at in the context of other amendments to Clause 2 to expand the provisions of the Bill to agreements that have been signed as part of the EU and now, going forward, to new agreements. As such, the amendments limit the scope of the use of implementing powers to all agreements only with countries that are party to the Paris agreement. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change deals with greenhouse gas emissions, adaptation, mitigation and finance. As my noble friend Lady Sheehan indicated, the Paris agreement was signed in 2016. As of this year, it has been signed by 196 states, while 189 have become a party to it, with the only significant omissions being Iran and Turkey. As the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and others have said, in June 2017, the US President, Donald Trump, announced his intention to withdraw from the agreement. However, reassuringly for some of us, Joe Biden the Democrat candidate, signalled as recently as Tuesday night that if he is successful in the election, he will seek for the US to rejoin.
Our amendment is perfectly clear and I will show how to some extent it links with Amendment 40. The Paris agreement is now a foundation block for the global effort at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It is simply impossible to strip out the efforts to tackle climate change without also adapting trading practices. As the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, has indicated, this is an area where these can be seen in separate lights. It is worth reminding the Committee that low-carbon exports alone in goods and services from the UK in 2018 were worth £5.3 billion. If you add on top of that UK legal consulting, investment products and the UK’s global leadership in arbitration and the City of London with the financial options it offers for sustainability products, we are a world leader in global trade on the environment and sustainability. It is, I think, a simple fact that for the UK to be an independent global trading nation, any deep and comprehensive free trade agreement that we would be willing to enter into should be part of and consistent with our Paris climate agreement.
We have taken this approach as a result of being a member of the EU. If the Government do not consider that we should continue with this, can they explain why not? In essence, the Government seem to be seeking continuity in our trading relationships, but not continuity in the legal framework for climate that we have helped to shape and were a part of in the European Union.
I have in my notes a reminder to reference the fact that Ministers will probably say that they can be trusted, given the continuity agreements that we have signed already, and that it is government policy not to move away from those. But every time the Government say
that, in my view it strengthens the argument that if that is the consensus across the political parties, there is merit in making it a statutory function. At a time when the Minister is telling the Committee that we need have no concern about climate change commitments, Liz Truss appointed Tony Abbott as the UK trade commissioner. I shall remind the Committee what I said at Second Reading: in 2017, he told the Global Warming Policy Foundation that
“it’s climate change policy that’s doing harm. Climate change itself is probably doing good.”
I think that the UK approach should be stronger than that.
Until now, the approach has been that, as I have mentioned, the European Union has had in its free trade agreements so far a trade and sustainable development chapter. I want to address the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. He seemed to suggest that this approach, which is set down in European Union law, should no longer be the British approach and that British trade agreements should not have a trade and sustainable development chapter in them. I believe strongly that they should and that it is in our interests that they should. Why will the Government not replicate the approach of maintaining agreements with trade and sustainable development chapters in them? As the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, said, if it comes to the opportunity to enhance agreements, this is the chance to do so because it is the trade and sustainability chapters in the agreements, especially with the least developed countries and those with which we have EPAs, that are the mechanism of dialogue in order to enhance them.
I turn to the United States. I have reflected on what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. He seemed to suggest that these amendments would be restrictive. He may be aware of the Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities and Accountability Act 2015 which sets the parameters of US trade policy. Section 2 sets the trade negotiating objectives of which subsections (5) and (7) are
“mutually supportive and to seek to protect and preserve the environment and enhance the international means of doing so.”
That legislation by Congress, which the noble Lord says restricts the trade representative of the United States—I think it empowers them—states, as far as Congress is concerned, the remit of what the United States will negotiate. The consequence of what President Trump has said with regard to those international agreements has been significant, because the United States’ legislation states that it can agree a free trade agreement with a country only where both are party to the same international obligations.
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The consequence of our amendment is not that it would prevent an agreement with the United States if it is not party to the Paris Agreement; that consequence is from Trump’s decision to remove America, which means that we would not be able to have an agreement with America if we say that we want a trade and sustainability chapter in our agreement. If I am incorrect, I hope that the Minister will correct me when he sums up this debate.
The American decision is, in effect, putting us in a bind. Do we continue with the position we have had up to now, which is to have a trade and sustainability chapter aligned to the Paris commitment, or do we accept what President Trump has said, which is, “That is ruled out if you want an agreement with us, because I have withdrawn America from it”, and the congressional legislation says that America can be party only to an agreement that both parties are party to?
We see other countries with which we wish to grow our trade—China and South Korea, and Europe of course—investing in advanced materials, electronics, vehicle and other technologies. Over time, many expect those technologies to become commercially competitive and bring trade advantages. If we are pegging ourselves to be alongside Tony Abbott and Donald Trump, we are missing a huge opportunity for the British economy to take advantage of being aligned with the fast-growing sustainability economic markets around the world.
I conclude on this point: Amendment 40 is a sensible provision in our view to set the criteria of our international obligations for climate change but also to require an impact assessment of how it will be beneficial, or whether there need to be changes in the British economy. This is in line with reports already carried out through the European Union. To me, it would be an irony if we had rollover trade agreements from the European Union —identical to those by which the European Union is trading, which have an annual impact assessment of how trade and sustainability is being progressed—and then we, who have rolled them over, stop having an assessment of how they are benefiting both our economy and those of the other countries, especially the least developed countries. This amendment simply seeks continuity of the impact assessments that we have already agreed to within the European Union.
I hope that the Minister will be able to allay my fears with regard to the American position and state categorically that we are not adopting a Tony Abbott and Donald Trump approach, but want a British approach, leading the world on trade and sustainability.