My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Earl. On this issue we share a great deal of common ground, although on other issues perhaps not, and I agree with his remarks about the procedures on these stages.
It has been a pleasure to work with the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, who suggested that this was like “Groundhog Day”. That fantastic film had an element of things changing in each of the days that the character relived. If that was the equivalent of the Trade Bill, we would see the incremental changes that make for a happy ending at the end of the movie. If the Government see sense and accept the noble Lord’s wise words, we will see that incremental change with a happy ending, as in “Groundhog Day”.
The noble Lord referenced previous stages, and I quote from a previous stage in Hansard, where it says:
“We talk about taking back control, but Parliament has got to stop giving its decision-making powers away. If we want to be respected in this Parliament, we have to be the ultimate arbiters of the decisions and direction of travel of our country. We can have those powers. I say to the Minister for Trade Policy that we have had these discussions. I hope that the Government will bring forward mechanisms that allow the House to have much greater scrutiny at the outset of a trade negotiation to set those ethical parameters”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/1/21; col. 812.]
That was not from me, although I have called for similar during previous stages in the Trade Bill. That was from Dr Liam Fox on 19 January, when the Government rejected Lords Amendments 1 and 5 and gave the same reasons for rejecting both. I hope that, as there is growing consensus on this issue, the Government can at least listen to Dr Fox, if not to myself or to the noble Lord, Lord Lansley.
Dr Fox also said:
“Those who had discussions with me when I was Trade Secretary will know that my preference … was for us to have a meaningful debate on a motion that was amendable at the outset for the mandate of trade discussions. That would have enabled the House to set the ethical parameters within which we would operate, and then the Government would have gone ahead and carried out the negotiation”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/1/21; col. 811.]
That is very interesting to have learned. There has clearly been a position within the Government whereby they look to see how open they are at the stage of setting the parameters or mandates for opening negotiations. So I hope that the noble Lord’s amendment
is not that far from a great deal of thinking within the Government, if that had been the position of the Trade Secretary then.
It is not just Dr Fox—yesterday, on the very good and open Zoom meeting that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, hosted on the amendments that we will discuss in the next group, Sir Iain Duncan Smith said that Parliament should give the go ahead on a trade deal. He made it clear that it would not affect the prerogative power. So I think that there is cross-party support in this area, on a greater setting of the mandate. Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Dr Liam Fox and many Members of this House during the passage of this Bill have expressed a belief that it is in the Government’s and our country’s interest, so that these negotiations are stronger.
On the next element of the consultation, I welcome what the Minister said about the new page on GOV.UK on the ministerial forum, which we have debated during previous stages of this Bill. What the Minister mentioned is to be welcomed, but I think that the Government could still, in looking at legislation for international trading agreements, move the same mechanism that they put in place in the internal market Bill for our domestic trading relationships. In that Bill, there was a time-limited period of consultation with the devolved Administrations for regulations for the implementation of trading arrangements. However, I hear what the Minister said, and I hope that aspect is something on which, at this late hour, the Government could still think again.
4 pm
I turn to the final stage, which the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, referred to very well, with regard to debating agreements that have been negotiated by the Government. The Government believe that the prerogative power to start, negotiate and conclude trade agreements is a restricted prerogative power. This is the Government’s policy, not mine or anyone else’s, because they support the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010. They are not set to amend it. They believe that there is a restriction on the prerogative power. The Minister referred to that restriction in his speech today and in the letter regarding genocide that he sent to noble Lords this afternoon, which says that the Commons are capable of
“effectively acting as a veto”
under the power in the CRaG Act. That power is beyond that which exists in other Westminster-style democracies. Canada, Australia and New Zealand have been cited. They do not have this power, so the UK has decided to be different from other Westminster-style democracies. I think the Minister referred to it as a UK proposition. So this is our starting point, not a new position.
The issue then becomes operability—as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, indicated, whether there are loopholes now that we are operating the CRaG Act for trade agreements, which we had never done. When Jack Straw, then Leader of the House of Commons—one of the noble Lord’s predecessors—was introducing that Bill, he indicated that there were separate procedures for EU agreements, so it has never been tested for trade agreements. So how operable is this veto power,
as the Government say? Incidentally, I never said that the House of Commons has a “veto power” over trade agreements; I simply asked for a resolution in the Commons for a vote. I have never used that term but this is the Government’s language so I will accept it.
The Minister said that that power operates subject to available time, so how operable is a veto if it is subject to available time? It is not an operable veto if it is up to the business managers to make time available for it. That is clearly a loophole. I think that is an unintended consequence which the noble Lord’s amendment is seeking to resolve. I believe that it would resolve it because his amendment states that if a committee has asked for there to be time it has to be provided and, in effect, the clock cannot be run out on any of the agreements. The mechanism is for the agreement to be debated on a Motion—not a take-note Motion or a neutral Motion, but a Motion on which there can be a Division so that MPs can decide.
It is interesting that from information from the International Agreements Committee and its predecessor committee I have found out how many times trade agreements have been drawn to the attention of the House and are still awaiting debate. It happened on the Japan agreement and we debated it. The Motion was neutral and we took note. On the agreement with the United States on spaceports, no debate has been granted yet. On Norway and the Faeroe Islands on fish, no debate has been granted yet. On Canada and the FTA, no debate has been granted yet. On Singapore, no debate has been granted yet. On Kenya, no debate has been granted yet. There is a bit of a backlog. Given that we debated the International Relations Committee report in Grand Committee yesterday, 18 months after the committee published it, we are justified in considering the mechanism proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, to make the CRaG veto operable.
There is one final aspect. As the noble Lord indicated, in extreme and exceptional circumstances Ministers would be able to ratify outwith this situation, which we would fully support because ultimately there may have to be exceptional circumstances.
I want to close on one element which the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, mentioned. He said that there was a further parliamentary power, which was, in effect, not to bring forward implementing legislation for an agreement the Government had signed. If our amendment had given an indication that we would block legislation implementing an agreement that a British Government had signed in the international arena, it would be scandalous that we would seek to use that as a mechanism. None of us wish to be in that situation. I hope that the cross-party consensus is that there is a greater voice for Parliament at the outset, that during negotiations there is greater input, that once those agreements have been reached we guarantee time, and that ultimately the House of Commons, as the elected Chamber, is able to form a view. I hope that this House sends a signal that we ask the House of Commons to consider this very carefully.