My Lords, I endorse what was said by my colleague on Labour’s Front Bench: standards define us. They reflect our values, and we in turn put them into our contractual relations and our law. It is vital that, in any urgency to acquire trade deals, we do not in any way lower those standards.
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Concerns have been expressed in this House about maintaining standards in agriculture, food, the environment, employment protections for workers, the healthcare of our citizens, encroachment on our proud National Health Service, the misuse of the data of patients and those who use that service, and the protection of our children, who are at the mercy of big tech companies—more powerful now than most other companies in the world. I really listen to the words of the Minister, who seeks to reassure us that there will be no reduction in standards as we go forward into trading deals, having now left the European Union.
I added my name to this list to speak in support of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, who raised issues that should be a source of real alarm to this House. It was a source of regret to me when I saw that she was not receiving the support of my Benches for her amendment, because the protection of our children is absolutely paramount. She gave the recent example of the US-Mexico-Canada trade deal, and how Canada found that what looked like the innocuous phrasing of a contractual commitment was unable to protect it from the encroachment of pornography on an incredible scale. It is one of the things causing such disturbances and unfortunate consequences among our young, because accessing it is so easy. It was interesting that she made the parallel with the wording used in our own recent Japanese trade deal. Some noble Lords will not know this, but I am a criminal lawyer. I alert the House to the fact that Japan is one of the great producers of pornography, and that wording—lawyers are trained to do this—that may look innocuous but which is sufficiently vague can be used to block the many things that concern us about standards.
The legal firepower of big corporates is such that it is very difficult to meet it—I promise noble Lords—particularly when you are talking about the big tech companies, so I put a warning before this House. I listened to the reassurances and I trust the understanding of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, of the full measure of those commitments; I have not attended those meetings.
This will be quite a treacherous path in securing trade in the months and years to come, because it is where the lawyers step forward. As a lawyer, I can tell noble Lords that when it comes to the negotiations and the drafting of the trading agreements, it is very difficult to nail down standards in the way that we seek. I hope the words of reassurance do not come back to bite the Minister in time to come. I too wait to hear what the Minister has to say when he returns to the screen. Had Amendment 6B been put forward, I
would certainly have supported the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, but if she chooses not to put it to a vote, of course I accept her judgment.
On other matters, maintaining standards is one of the things the British public expect of government—and it is mighty difficult, when you are involved in negotiations, not to retreat even slightly from them.