My Lords, I thank all concerned for contributing to this debate, which has been of a very high standard. We should all acknowledge and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Fairhead, for deciding to use this opportunity to speak to the Committee about her experiences on the 2018-19 Bill. I was sorry to hear about the blood and sweat, although I can confirm that there was just as much on our side of the table as I am sure she was correct in describing was on hers. If there were any tears, I do apologise for that; we did not have those, and I am sorry if we were guilty of inflicting them.
Because we have a range of amendments here around this topic, we have a variety of suggestions for the Government to consider on how they might engage formally with Parliament. The common thread for all of them is that they build on steps already taken and, as others have said—I support this—many of these are very welcome indeed. Amendment 35 in particular sets a very high standard at the top end of the scale, where all approvals and all considerations of final remit have to be done by both Houses of Parliament, with full engagement with the devolved Administrations. There are some very good points in this amendment, which, broadly speaking, goes with the grain of where we are coming from. However, as other noble Lords have said, this may well not be the time to repeat this amendment back to the Commons, because it was considered and defeated at that stage. I take very strongly what the noble Baroness, Lady Fairhead, said: namely, that there are elements in what is in front of us today that would allow for some progress to be made. I hope very much that the Minister will be able to signal his willingness to engage further with us when he comes to respond.
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Perhaps I may speak to the amendments which are in my name or related to them. Amendment 47 has a slight change of gear. We know that most rollover agreements are still being done in very short order—we heard about the new one today. There are a lot still to come, but further negotiations may well also be required once they are done. This amendment tries to pick up that thought. Once we have passed the transition period and the free trade agreement with the EU, if there is one, is signed and implemented, and once the broader picture emerges of where the UK stands on international trade, it is almost certain that we will be
back in negotiations on nearly all of the 40 rollover agreements that we have already approved. So the suggestion in Amendment 47 is that there would be a five-year review period of those agreements, particularly to facilitate our engagement there.
Amendment 53, which is in my name, sets the scene for a much more ambitious rolling programme of five-year reviews of the functions of each of the FTAs approved under the Bill, which can include all of them, not just rollovers. It lists an ambitious range of considerations to be brought into the review, which I hope will commend itself to the Minister. I look forward to his positive response. In particular, it focuses on our involvement with developing countries, as specified in Section 10 of the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Act 2018, which we have not had the opportunity to discuss but which is relevant to the whole process of trade. It perhaps needs more attention than we have given it in this debate so far.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, for her support of Amendment 98. Despite the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, it is not about refighting Brexit; she may not have noticed but we have left the EU. This amendment tries to put Parliament back in the picture to debate the outcome of the current negotiations with the EU on a free trade agreement. We do not really know where we are on this. We understand that progress is still being made and that both sides are still discussing, but each side seems as skilled as the other in disinformation and threats. We are not therefore certain about where it is going.
But I think it is fair to point out that in their election manifesto the Government put forward the suggestion that they would be able to negotiate a deal easily, which they described as “oven-ready”. It is only appropriate that, if there is a deal, Parliament should have the chance to debate and approve it; or, if there is no deal, Parliament should still have the chance to debate and approve that. This is not about refighting old battles. It is suggesting that Parliament should have a place going forward in these issues. I look forward to the Minister’s response to this suggestion.
In a quick tour d’horizon of this group, I come to Amendment 57, which is in my name and supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, whom I thank. I would also like to talk about Amendment 63. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Fairhead, I see quite a lot of commonality in the approach to this issue through these amendments. I wonder whether we could have further debates about this outside Committee. Amendment 57 would build on the amendment agreed by the House of Lords in March 2019. As I hope the Minister agrees, it also builds on the work the Government have done in involving the Select Committee on International Trade and the EU Sub-Committee on International Agreements. In saying this, I endorse the comments made by my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith, who spoke very powerfully earlier in the debate.
As other noble Lords have said, Amendment 57 tries to finesse the current ad hoc arrangements, brought in by agreement between the Government and the Select Committees, and the very limited parliamentary scrutiny that the Government can provide under the
CRaG Act of 2010 which, as everyone has said, suffers mainly because it is ex post hoc and because it is nuclear in terms of how it can be dealt with. In this regard I welcome Amendment 63 from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley; crucially, it would secure the time for a debate on any future trade deal because it would ensure that the Government honoured their commitment to provide the space for the committees, and Parliament, to have the appropriate debates. It does not get over the question of why we are dealing with this in an ex post hoc arrangement, but it does give us the timeframe that is missing from the debate.
So I say to the Minister that Amendment 57 may well be too detailed, and that the current arrangements for how committees consider all the documentation and paperwork provided are sufficient to ensure that proper scrutiny is given. But, as others have said, I wonder whether this is the time to get this into the Bill and ensure that it is appropriately laid out for the future. There is no other country which denies its Parliament the opportunity to scrutinise trade Bills, and no other area of public policy which is off-limits to Parliament. These omissions stand starkly exposed by the debate today.
I have been trying to step back from the individual words of the amendments and to understand why the Government are so adamantly against agreeing to open up deals to better and, more importantly, appropriate parliamentary scrutiny. With a majority of 80, they have control over the elected House, so it cannot be a matter of simple arithmetic. They have already promised most of the collaboration requested of them by the committees and their attempts to engage with wider civic society is heading in the right direction. They say that the CRaG Act 2010 gives Parliament the final say, even though it is patently obvious that, by controlling the timetable and framing the debate around a negative procedure, this is in truth a conditional and not a wholehearted engagement.
This boils down to the simple question of whether, by changing the CRaG Act process and agreeing to parts of what is in Amendment 57, you can get something that would be workable in the short and medium terms and for the long term, subject always to the experience that has been gained as we go ahead. When you add in the credit that the Government would get for stepping away from the absurdity of using the royal prerogative powers, the increase in credibility at the negotiating table that would come from the requirement to get parliamentary approval for deals being negotiated, the better decision-making and input that could flow from using the skills and expertise of both Houses across the wide range of topics that are now included in trade deals and the strengthened position in negotiations that would come from all the devolved Administrations, you have to ask what is really going on here. When people struggle to explain why they are trying to shore up their weak position and will not engage, there has to be another agenda. What is it?
The whole purpose of Parliament is scrutiny and the process requires active engagement. The Government are hiding behind the royal prerogative in order to behave like a despotic ruler of ancient times. This debate has once again demonstrated that the status
quo on parliamentary scrutiny is just not acceptable to this House, to civic society or to the people of this country. I am sure that we could find a mutually acceptable way forward and I appeal to the Minister to use the time that we will have before Report to find a common, sensible solution and a way forward.