I am grateful to those noble Lords who contributed. I would be most grateful if my noble friend could extend his invitation to the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, to myself and the other co-signatories of this amendment, and perhaps also invite the noble Lord, Lord Purvis. This formula worked extremely well with his predecessor, the noble Baroness, Lady Fairhead, who I am sure would commend it to us.
I suspected, even though I raised this in the House yesterday, that my noble friend would not have the figures on the Trade and Agriculture Commission’s budget. He will be pleased to know that I have the topical Oral Question on Thursday, when I am sure he will be able to provide those figures because they are the subject of the Question.
The International Trade Secretary herself referred to Kenya as a wonderful new country that we are going to do deals with. It subsequently found itself in a spot of bother with avocado pears; we will certainly wish to revisit that.
I do not think that any of the signatories to these amendments intend to tie the Government’s hands; indeed, I do not. The purpose of the amendments was to understand the thinking on the role of, and resources available to, the current Trade and Agriculture Commission. I have no doubt that current members of the commission do not wish to carry on, so this is an opportunity to either reappoint new members to the Trade and Agriculture Commission or revamp it into a new body, such as the one in the US calling itself an International Trade Commission.
4.15 pm
To help my noble friend Lady Noakes, Amendment 55 specifically calls for an international trade commission to give advice and reports to the department, the Government and Parliament. It was helpful that my noble friend again clarified, in summing up this debate, that he sees statutory protections as being statutory instruments. I beg to differ. I believe that we need, fairly urgently, primary legislation in this regard, which cannot just be swept away by a negative resolution, as was addressed earlier.
I beg leave to withdraw the amendment at this stage with the promise, if possible, of an amendment with my noble friend and the other co-signatories—the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson and Lord Purvis—so that we can progress these matters.