My Lords, I certainly support all that my noble friend Lord Lansley said about the importance of trade promotion and export promotion. Clearly, this is vital to underpin our success in a post-Brexit world. I also support the intention that underlies the amendment, which is to facilitate holding the Government to account for their delivery in those areas. I find it difficult, however, to support the amendment itself.
All amendments that call for reports need to be treated with a certain amount of scepticism. There is already a vehicle for delivering what the amendment asks for, which is the annual departmental report. If my noble friend had expressed his amendment in terms of a government-wide delivery on his aims, I could understand the need for it to be a free-standing report, but his amendment focuses on the Department for International Trade. Therefore, the annual report for the Department for International Trade should suffice.
There is also the International Trade Committee in the other place. We tend to be somewhat dismissive of the other place’s ability to scrutinise legislation well, but one of the things it does do well is to hold individual
government departments to account. If you take the combination of a departmental report and the International Trade Committee in the other place, we have the mechanisms to achieve the very noble intents lying behind this amendment.