Agreement Establishing an Economic Partnership Agreement between the Eastern and Southern Africa States and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Motion to Resolve

Moved by

To resolve that this House calls upon Her Majesty’s Government, in accordance with section 21 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, to extend the scrutiny period for the Agreement establishing an Economic Partnership Agreement between the Eastern and Southern Africa States and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (CP31), laid before the House on 6 February, by 21 sitting days.

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity of speaking to these three Motions in my name. First I want to set a degree of context before addressing some of the issues of substance raised by the EU Select Committee. The intention behind the Motions is to give an airing to the first three of what the Government term rollover, or continuity, agreements, which we have negotiated and signed with countries that have an existing trading relationship with the UK by virtue of our membership of the European Union.

The House will be fully aware that it was the Government’s intention that before exit day—whenever that might be—all our existing trading relationships would be rolled over. Indeed, the Minister’s predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Price, stated that all the countries had agreed in principle to roll over the agreements. That was not the case, and only three have so far been scrutinised by the EU Select Committee. Next, the agreement with Switzerland will have to be considered.

I do not belittle our relationship with Chile, with the eastern or southern African regions or with the Faroe Islands—but they represent 0.1%, 0.1% and 0.1% of total UK trade. So there is a lot more to be done before exit day, if the Government intend to roll the agreements over. We know that some of them will not be rolled over, but there is still a considerable question mark as to whether, before exit day, we will see signatures on trade agreements with other countries.

The Faroe Islands, to give one example, are the UK’s 114th largest trading partner, and total UK exports there amount to just £6 million. To put that into context, that is one-fifth of the doomed ferry contract that Chris Grayling agreed. Again, I do not seek to belittle our relationship with those islands, but these are minuscule sums in the context of overall UK trade.

This issue was highlighted by the EU Select Committee in paragraph 5 of its report, which alerts us to a degree of concern that there is no prospect that the other agreements will be agreed ahead of the UK’s scheduled exit from the UK. It says:

I mentioned, on the agreement with the Eastern and Southern Africa States, that the committee made a specific point to which it is worth asking the Government for a response. The agreement states that,

“Madagascar, Mauritius, the Seychelles and Zimbabwe”,

are included. However,

“the Agreement itself also lists Comoros and Zambia as parties to the Agreement”.

However, the Government’s Explanatory Memorandum and accompanying report do not reference the link with Comoros and Zambia signing the UK-ESA agreement. The committee asks for clarification on our intended relationship with those two states, and it would be welcome if the Minister were able to respond.

The committee also asked for clarity on how the Government see their ongoing relationship with the wider Southern African Development Community. This is of particular interest, given the umbrella of the Cotonou agreement and our relationship with SADC as an economic community. In the context of SADC and others across the African continent becoming a single economic area, moving towards a single customs union, our relationship with that union, through SADC and others as they emerge, will be very important. There are considerable opportunities. Far be it for me to highlight a potentially good element of Brexit, but, if we are to have a stand-alone trade relationship with the emerging African customs union, it would be helpful if the Government would signal what their intentions are. I know that other African countries that have a partnership agreement with the European Union are keen to know what the UK’s relationship with that customs union is likely to be.

The other aspect raised by the committee may be technical, but it is worth airing and giving the Minster an opportunity to reply. It concerns the relationship with Crown dependencies and British Overseas Territories, and the status and applicability of the agreements we have signed. The committee was right to ask what the position would be of the other agreements in relation to those territories.

The agreement with the Faroe Islands relates to securing access to the UK market for the islands’ fisheries and having a tariff-free relationship as regards imports to the UK worth £23 million, mostly of fish and crustaceans. I can understand that the imperative from the Faroe Islands’ perspective was to secure access to our market, rather than the other way around. That will be purely beneficial and I have no issue with a free trade agreement between us and the Faroes. However, the committee said that there was a difference in the preamble to the agreements, which is an issue of interest. The committee highlighted that the preambles to the agreements, while not having the legal force of the agreements themselves, set the context for them. The committee highlighted during its scrutiny that there was a difference in the text of the preambles. It may simply be that the language could not be directly replicated across, but the committee asked why the reference to the existing fisheries agreement between the Faroe Islands and the European Union, which will be ongoing after our exit, was not replaced by an alternative text in our preamble with them. It would be helpful if the Minister could respond.

Regarding Chile, the elements raised for consideration that will also have a consequence for other arrangements are the parliamentary committees and joint consultative committees that come alongside these reports. This was a point I raised in Committee on the Trade Bill. Many of the European agreements we currently enjoy have a parliamentary and dialogue system that sits parallel to the trade agreement. They operate with the European Parliament and they have been a very useful vehicle for ongoing parliamentary scrutiny of the implementation and impact of the trade agreements. When it comes to the EPAs with Africa, the link with the European Parliament and member states’ parliaments and assemblies has been very useful. Major lessons have been learned about some unintended consequences and negative impacts of trade agreements because of parliamentary scrutiny of the implementation. It has meant that, when feeding back to the Commission and the Council of Ministers, the negotiations of new partnership agreements have been different from earlier ones.

There is an existing parliamentary committee and joint consultative committee with Chile. It would be interesting to know how the Government see the opportunities for these to carry on. I understand and appreciate that it is not for the Government to say to our Parliament what the parliamentary relationships would be in these trade agreements. To some extent, it is up to our Parliament to be thinking proactively about establishing parallel parliamentary committees or dialogue groups to sit alongside these agreements. It will be important for the continuity agreements because, as we stated repeatedly in the Trade Bill, they are permanent. They are treaties, and they will be indefinite. While the regulations that arise from them may have a lifetime of three years that can be continued, they are treaty agreements and therefore a parliamentary relationship with those member states will be important. It will be interesting to know whether the Government have a view on this, in the context of the recent Command Paper discussing what the Government anticipate will be a beneficial role with Parliaments.

The final element with regard to the committee’s report is, in conclusion, that I hope that the points that have been raised can be addressed by the Government. It would be unwelcome to have to use the extreme measures under the CRaG process to try to delay the implementation of some of those agreements. That is not my intention; my intention is to bring this to the Chamber to allow there to be a debate in which these issues can be aired. Finally, I hope, as I said when I started, that when it comes to other agreements the Government intend that there will be an opportunity for them to be laid in the Chamber so that Members will have an opportunity to raise them. When it comes to agreements that represent more than 0.1% of UK trade, there could be major issues that we would need to discuss beyond simply having a report mechanism and moving an extreme action against the agreements. I hope that the Government will consider these issues as constructive and will welcome the opportunity for them to be raised. In so doing, I again pay tribute to the EU Select Committee, which has done a sterling job in making sure that these issues have been properly scrutinised.

My Lords, I rise as a member of the European Union Select Committee, which has reported on these agreements, and as chair of the External Affairs Sub-Committee, which considered the Chile and eastern and southern Africa states agreements. The committee’s 31st report is tagged alongside the three Motions. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, for recognising the hard work that the Select Committee does. There are one or two areas that he mentioned that I may refer to during my brief intervention.

I begin by pointing out that tonight’s debate is the first of its kind. Since parliamentary scrutiny of treaties was codified in statute in Part 2 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, neither House has debated a Motion like those that are being debated tonight. It was due to Brexit and the need for the Government to roll over a large number of existing EU international agreements that the Procedure Committee recognised the need for Parliament to scrutinise these agreements and decided that the European Union Committee should take on that task.

It has been a major task, and staff from across the EU committees have worked long and hard to ensure that we could deliver on that task. Today, we published our sixth report in six weeks. It scrutinised another, still more complex, agreement: the UK-Swiss trade agreement. This is demanding work for the committee, so it is important that noble Lords engage more widely in our findings. As a committee, we welcome tonight’s debate regardless of whether, as individual members, we support the Motions introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis. Having this debate shows that the House understands the importance of these agreements and that it is prepared to commit time and resources to doing a proper job of scrutiny. It also puts down a marker for the future, when the Government may enter into fresh negotiations on major new trade deals with the United States or with other countries, that the House of Lords intends to be fully engaged. I hope tonight’s debate will be the first of many.

My Lords, the question of FTAs must be taken extremely seriously and we must give them appropriate scrutiny, recognising that they are now very important to the United Kingdom. To borrow the words of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, this is a brief but important debate.

The Government have long iterated on the importance that they place on parliamentary consultation and scrutiny. This afternoon, no lesser a person than the noble Baroness, Lady Fairhead, informed us of the Government’s vision of engagement with Parliament. We have learned the consequences of not being fully utilised as an experienced resource, so I urge the Minister to embrace these three straightforward Motions. In this regard, the parliamentary ratification processes moving forward should be expedited. The record of government thus far is patchy.