To move that this House takes note of the Report from the International Agreements Committee Working practices: one year on (7th Report, Session 2021-22, HL Paper 75).
My Lords, I beg to move that the House notes the Working Practices: One Year On report, published back in September last year. This was, of course, produced under the distinguished chairmanship of my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith—no, not the Minister, the original one—to whom I pay tribute for his sterling work in setting up and leading the International Agreements Committee, aided and abetted by Alex Horne, our specialist adviser, and our brilliant team led by Jennifer Martin-Kohlmorgen.
As colleagues know, our remit goes well beyond trade. But in regard to that, I pay tribute—if it does not end his political career—to the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone of Boscobel, for his unfailing courtesy in answering our many questions, appearing before us both virtually and in person, and ensuring that his departmental officials were on hand to deal with some of the very fine detail of trade agreements. I especially mention his official who delivered four box files of the Australia deal to my home on Boxing Day; the grandchildren were not equally thrilled.
There are five points that I would like to make in opening this debate. First, on trade deals, what became known as the Grimstone rules, which emerged during the passage of the then Trade Bill though this House, have, I am delighted to report to the House as real news, just been confirmed today in an exchange of letters between the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, and myself. These are now the official record of the earlier commitments, engineered by my noble friends Lord McNicol and Lord Stevenson at the time of the passage of the Bill, and they will remain in place unless our committee, alongside the International Trade Committee in the Commons, with which we worked, agrees to their amendment.
Secondly—here I have to move to “more work yet to come”—this welcome exchange of letters covers only trade. Treaties can emerge from the Home Office, such as on the Istanbul convention, family issues and immigration; from the Ministry of Justice, on prisoner exchange; from the Department for Transport, on the recognition of licences and navigational aids; and from the Ministry of Defence, as with the UK-US-Australia deal and provision of weapons to Ukraine, which we also dealt with. All those departmental treaties are overseen by the Foreign Office, but on those we have been given no such assurances as to how the relevant department will interact with Parliament to ensure effective scrutiny, given that the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act, or CRaG, is insufficient for the task, particularly when it comes to complex agreements.
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town—my noble friend, for these purposes—on her introduction to this debate and on her chairmanship of the committee. As a member of the committee since its formation—and, indeed, with the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, of its predecessor committee—I join her in thanking the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, for all the work that he did in helping to establish these working practices.
It may seem slightly self-indulgent for any committee to have a debate that is, essentially, to discuss how we do our job but, in truth, I think that in this House we should devote significant attention to this in the same way as the House has demonstrated its capacity to add value in parliamentary terms to what the other place does in relation to statutory instruments and delegated legislation. Where international agreements and treaties are concerned, this House has a special role to play. We are not a standing committee on treaties, such as there is in, I think, New Zealand, but on international agreements. It is a wide-ranging role and not confined to trade. Although we have a small overlap with the International Trade Committee in the other place when we conduct inquiries, we have a significant role that is not that committee’s role—and it has a lot to do that is not our role. We do not have a trade committee here; the other committee may look at tariff schedules, the generalised scheme of preferences or the Trade Remedies Authority, but that is not our role. We have a duty to look at international agreements in a detail that the other place does not. We have to make sure that our scrutiny is really effective—not least, as the noble Baroness said, because the European Parliament no longer looks at treaties, particularly trade treaties, to which we are a party. It is our role to do that.
I do not think that it is too self-indulgent. What we are doing here is very important; even since we published this report there have been things, such as the negotiating objectives on CPTPP, the AUKUS defence agreement and the Ukraine export credit deal, which gave the House the opportunity to debate military support to Ukraine in literally the first or second week after the new year—I cannot recall, but it was pretty much as soon as we came back. We have demonstrated that there is a wide-ranging and important role for the committee.
My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Hayter for her introduction today and her work as chair of the committee. It will save a little bit of time to just say that I agree with every word the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has said.
I took part in the debate on Treaty Scrutiny: Working Practices in September 2020 when my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith, the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and my noble friend Lady Taylor presented their three reports. The work of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, was also acknowledged for its continuing engagement on this important topic. I mention that because this is a responsibility for the whole of Parliament, not just for one committee.
My noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith quoted Bagehot from 1872:
“Treaties are quite as important as most laws, and to require the elaborate assent of representative assemblies to every word of the law, and not to consult them even as to the essence of the treaty, is prima facie ludicrous.”
My noble and learned friend indicated that
“we lag far behind many countries in our parliamentary scrutiny of international commitments.”
However, he proposed a “pragmatic approach” to testing the new arrangements, rather than proposing amendments to the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act—CRaG.
The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, referred back to the exercise in 2019 when the EU Committee and its sub-committees—I had the privilege of chairing the EU Internal Market Sub-Committee and then the EU Services Sub-Committee, both within the confines of the CRaG Act, it has to be said—published 22 reports on more than 50 agreements, following the model set by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee for its own work. The noble Earl echoed the Constitution Committee’s statement of 2019 that
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, wondered if it was self-indulgent to debate the work of one of our committees, but no one needs to persuade me, as a former MEP, of the valuable work of committees, which are the main forum—rather than the plenary—for the European Parliament’s work.
I am not an expert on the matter of scrutiny of trade agreements, unlike my colleagues, my noble friends Lord Oates and Lord Purvis of Tweed, and indeed the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. My focus in the last six momentous years has been on the relationship—which I would call more of a domestic relationship—with the EU, rather than on external trade agreements. So I warmly thank the International Agreements Committee and its chair for their admirably informative report which was so clearly presented today by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. I also thank her committee and the EU and Constitution Committees for their earlier reports. It has taken an awful lot of heavy lifting by committees in this place, and the other place, to get even as far as we have on the scrutiny of treaties—although I take the point about the Grimstone rule being here, and then not here, and then here again. Even now, there is still much work to be done. One of the main messages which comes out of the committee’s report is to formalise any understandings in a formal concordat and to consolidate. This point about the Ponsonby rule is clearly one which needs to be pinned down.
My approach to the topic of today’s debate is very considerably shaped by my 15-year experience as a Member of the European Parliament, although even there I was not on the International Trade Committee. However, I was heavily involved as a member of the Committee on Civil Liberties in the tussle over international data transfers and, in particular, the big row, 12 years ago, over an agreement that became the catalyst for the modern EU system of engagement between the Executive and the Parliament over the scrutiny and approval of external agreements. This was the famous SWIFT agreement, whereby it was proposed to transfer the personal bank data of Europeans to the United States via the SWIFT network, which we have heard a lot about recently in the context of sanctions on Russia. The European Parliament rejected this agreement, amid concerns for privacy, proportionality and reciprocity, in the context of rather weak—indeed, almost non-existent—US law on data protection and the scandals of extraordinary rendition and Guantanamo.
My Lords, I declare my interest as president of the Rural Coalition. Although I am not a member of this committee, I am very grateful for this report and enjoyed reading it, including its stress on the role of Parliament, not just in approving what has been decided but in the issues we are discussing now.
I found the previous speech very helpful. Why is there such reluctance to allow Parliament—both its Houses—to engage at a much earlier stage? This House is renowned for its extraordinary levels of experience, both in international diplomacy and negotiation and in the actual substance of many of the areas in which we are trying to get treaties and memoranda of understanding. Surely all it will do in the long run, if we can simply go ahead and give Parliament time, is to allow that experience to come out and be brought together. This is precisely what we should be doing.
Reading through the report made me decide to speak in this debate to just say one or two things. I will focus on UK agriculture, an area I particularly focus on. Reading the report, one gets the sense that the Government are very reserved about the level of scrutiny they wish to afford to Parliament, to committees and to bodies such as the trade advisory groups. This is fundamental to the work we should be doing. For that reason, I strongly welcome paragraph 48 of the report and the recommendation to consolidate the various commitments and provide certainty on the exact functions, procedures and levels of oversight afforded to the various bodies. That seems to me to be a really helpful proposal.
It is disappointing to hear that the Government do not believe they can support the draft concordat in appendix 2. I understand the need for flexibility—after all, after five decades of having no independent negotiated trade agreements, we are still getting back up to speed and getting used to negotiating these. Nevertheless, we are two years on from our departure from the EU, and I share the anxiety that many Members have for a clear scrutiny framework that provides Parliament with the oversight that other western economies simply take for granted; this is just the norm.
My Lords, it is a pleasure to be a member of International Agreements Committee, albeit a reasonably new one. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, for securing this afternoon’s debate and noble Lords who have contributed to the publication of the report on working practices.
This is an important area of work, and I welcome the steps that Her Majesty’s Government are taking to ensure that we strengthen Parliament’s ability to scrutinise effectively. That is not to say that government could not do more, but at least we are seeing movement in the right direction.
While I acknowledge that there are both practical and trade secrecy issues to overcome, it is imperative that government does that much more to collaborate better with the devolved Administrations, a point just picked up by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford. Government should involve the devolved Administrations at the earliest opportunity possible. On the flip side of the coin, I would like to see the First Ministers playing their part in supporting government with early engagement on the matters which concern their citizens.
The union depends on government securing agreements that work in the interests of every nation of our United Kingdom, and I hope that in moving forward Ministers will seek to strengthen how they work with the devolved nations on perfecting international treaty agreements. I am keen to understand more from Ministers about what the Government are doing here and whether they have looked into the possibility of facilitating co-determination in areas of devolved competence.
A significant criticism of this Government’s approach to trade agreements has centred on their engagement with external stakeholders. I am reassured by the Government’s recent positive approach to establishing new trade advisory groups. As noble Lords will be aware, these 11 trade advisory groups cover a range of key sectors. I hope they will provide the Government with an enhanced understanding of sector-based needs which will in turn inform and strengthen the UK’s negotiating positions.
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Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab)
My Lords, it has been my privilege to serve on the International Agreements Committee since its inception as a free-standing committee and earlier. My twin interests have been agriculture and the devolved nations. I welcome the remarks just made by the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister. I am interested particularly in the interests of my nation of Wales, where I had a part to play in bringing government closer to the people in the form of the elected Assembly, now the Senedd.
As a former Welsh Secretary for six years, agriculture was part of my brief, and I have wide family connections with the industry. As it happens, livestock production plays a very large part in the economy of the devolved nations. Perhaps wearingly for my fellow committee members, I have repeatedly drawn attention to their interests.
Treaty making is a non-devolved matter, but agriculture and food standards are devolved. Decisions made in treaties can substantially involve the economy and other interests of the devolved Governments. Latterly, agriculture production has loomed large in the treaties negotiated with both Australia and New Zealand. We have benefited from the well-argued views of the National Farmers’ Union of England and Wales and from both the NFU in Wales and the Farmers’ Union of Wales.
The short point that I wish to make is that while our awareness of the views of the devolved areas has improved, it has been achieved only as a result of constant pressure. In their views to the committee, the Government have told us, repeatedly like parrots, that the devolved Governments have been consulted, but they plead that they cannot reveal the contents of the consultation because it may be commercially disadvantageous to Her Majesty’s Government in their negotiations.
I say in passing that in their negotiations with both Australia and New Zealand, there is little in it for British agriculture. In the case of Australia, it is a win-win situation, as they seem to be lessening their beef exports to China and will probably seek to close the gap with increased exports to the United Kingdom. A small increase in offers can have a disproportionate effect on prices in the market. I have grave doubts as to how economic it will be for our small farmers to produce lamb in 10 or 15 years given the economic advantages of scale in New Zealand and Australia.
Because of this defiance of the committee by the Government’s assertion that commercial secrecy is paramount, the committee has been driven to seek the views of the devolved Governments directly. By so doing, we will be able to present your Lordships’ House with the full extent of the effect of a treaty on the economy of the United Kingdom as a whole. I fear that in the pandemic Whitehall has been slow to accept that, so far as decision-making in so many areas is concerned, there are four Governments in the United Kingdom.
My Lords, I will not delay the House for long, because I think a lot of the key arguments have been made, not least by my noble friends Lady Hayter and Lady Donaghy, and by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. This debate has come about because of a sense of frustration with the Government; the aim of the International Agreements Committee is the practical and effective scrutiny of forthcoming treaties, not to thwart the will of government. Those who have the self-confidence of government should be able to look to others to see points that they have missed or points that could be improved on, and perhaps even occasionally compliments.
We do not get that impression from the present Government. I was delighted to see the letter from the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, this morning, and it assuaged to some extent the sense of irritation I felt with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office when we received the letter from the right honourable Amanda Milling, which more or less said, “I’ll only come and talk to you if you agree with me”. That is not how government works. The way it works is to look for more information and detail to find the right way of doing things. What we have sought, and I hope—touch wood—are going to achieve, is to be in the process much earlier, so that we can see the objectives and strategy of government, and perhaps add our tuppenceworth.
The right reverend Prelate was right when he talked about the expertise that is available in this House. The only legitimate argument for having an appointed second Chamber is that you can put expertise in it. Well, we have got that. If I may say so, most of us, with a few honourable exceptions, have been round the houses a few times, and using that to try to improve how a treaty develops is a very important thing.
It is called the International Agreements Committee, not the International Trade Committee. Agreements are wider and more germane, and we need to take them into account. Rwanda is a classic case in point. I am delighted that the committee is putting out a call for evidence in relation to that, because it is nonsense to suggest that we should not scrutinise, in the most effective way possible, something as significant as that. My noble friend Lady Donaghy made the point about the Prime Minister’s statements on Sweden and Finland. We need to know what they mean—or were they just something to make the day go a little bit better? It is critically important to all of us.
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Pending amendment of CRaG, there are other ways in which the Government can work with us to ensure that we can do our scrutiny job on all agreements properly. Our interactions with the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, and today’s exchange of letters have shown that this has been possible for trade agreements. We now ask the Foreign Office to establish an equally constructive dialogue with us on the other types of agreements.
We hope—this is my third point—that CRaG will be reformed. It was passed in the days when the EU negotiated our trade agreements, with the European Parliament doing detailed and very powerful scrutiny, and with the power to say no to a negotiated deal. That ability to say no ensured that the European Parliament was consulted throughout the negotiations, so that the final result would be acceptable to it. We hope there will come a time when this Parliament also has to consent to trade deals and other important agreements.
Relating to this is my fourth point—that when we last negotiated our own trade deals, back before 1973, as some of us remember, there were no devolved Governments, so the UK Government were the sole authority. With devolution, treaty-making remains a reserved power, albeit that such deals can now cover devolved competences and interests. It is vital that, going forward, devolved Administrations are fully involved throughout the negotiations to ensure that their interests and competences are considered and fully respected. Meanwhile, we say to the devolved Administrations that, if they wish to raise any issues on treaties being negotiated, our door is open and we hope to hear from them directly.
My fifth point is about agreements which are not actually treaties. One example is amendments to treaties which, if significant, should also come to Parliament but at present are not always covered by CRaG. Perhaps more important, and certainly more urgent, is the issue of deals being signed by way of memoranda of understanding rather than by treaty. This means they do not even have to be disclosed to Parliament, let alone laid and debated here. I raised this in a Private Notice Question on 25 April in regard to the deal on deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda. That was done by an MoU, without any debate or approval by Parliament. The committee this morning opened an inquiry on this issue, and we will have a call for evidence on the MoU on our website shortly.
This use of “less than treaty” memorandums of understanding flies in the face of the 1924 Ponsonby rule, whereby any significant international agreements, commitments or undertakings would be brought before Parliament. We were astonished on 9 March to hear the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, in exchanges on my Oral Question, I think in answer to a supplementary by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, say that
“the Ponsonby rule survived for 86 years before it was supplanted by CRaG. I can completely confirm that now … they are governed by CRaG”.—[Official Report, 9/3/22; col. 1421.]
It was never suggested in 2010 at the time of the CRaG Act going through that it supplanted Ponsonby. Indeed, CRaG covers only treaties and not memoranda of understanding.
After the answer that the Minister gave to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, we wrote to the Foreign Office on 25 March, but Amanda Milling’s response, received on 11 May, simply says
“the Government and the Committee have different views on the content and status of the Ponsonby Rules. The Government does not accept there has ever been a constitutional convention … whereby non-legally binding arrangements are routinely published or submitted to parliamentary scrutiny”.
She asserts that it is for government to decide what to tell us.
I draw to a close on this issue. Whatever the status of Ponsonby, it is surely not acceptable for the Government to sign far-reaching agreements with foreign powers, with human rights, expenditure, diplomatic or even security implications, without so much as a nod to Parliament, let alone any chance for a debate. We have to do better than that, and I look forward to the Minister being able to supply some more positive and concrete reassurances than his colleague was able to supply.
What the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has been able to announce today by way of the exchange of letters with the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, is really important. It cements the structure for the scrutiny of free trade agreements and, in that context, I hope that the first part of it, on the scrutiny of negotiating objectives, is really taken up both by the Government and the House. For example, we are in the throes of seeking evidence on the India negotiations; they are very important negotiations and the Government are already in the third round of those. It is really important that we debate in this House what it is that we are seeking to achieve from negotiations, not least so that when we are presented with the results, under CRaG, and the formal processes of scrutiny take place, we are able to look and say whether the Government have been able to achieve what they set out to achieve. It is also important for the Government to respond to the views of both Houses, I hope, in undertaking their negotiations.
Like the noble Baroness did, one can argue that the bottle is either half-full or half-empty. I am slightly in the “It is half-full and getting fuller” camp; I hope that we can fill the bottle over time but, in order to do that, there are number of things that we need to do. I say gently to my noble friend on the Front Bench that I know how civil servants always write into every Minister’s brief how much Ministers welcome the scrutiny of both Houses; that is demonstrated occasionally in reality, but sometimes reluctantly. I have to say that it has been evident in the way in which my noble friend Lord Grimstone, as the Trade Minister in this House, and his officials have co-operated and worked with us in the scrutiny of trade negotiations and trade deals—we, as a committee, pay tribute to him for that. It is not so evident in relation to the work of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and other departments. It is really important that they take this on board and work actively with us.
In terms of the practicalities, the noble Baroness mentioned a number and I will quickly reference three. The first is amendments to treaties. I will not go through what is in paragraph 71 of our report, but it is very clear that in order for the scrutiny of the development of international agreements and treaties to be effective, the Government must be open and transparent about not only the deals that have been entered into but the amendments to those deals—they can be very significant.
My second point is about the sequencing of legislation. We referenced it in the report. It is not easy to get this right, and we should acknowledge that the Government have a job to do. Sometimes, there can be a significant gap in time between the signing of a treaty or agreement and the point at which it is ratified. There may even be a significant delay between signature and the point at which it is laid under CRaG. That does not mean that we should not sometimes be able to have it implemented. If it requires implementation in domestic legislation, it may be appropriate to use statutory instruments and secondary legislation, where those are available, to bring agreements into force—I do not object to that.
However, we should ask the Government to ensure that, if this House is to be asked to implement an agreement or treaty in primary legislation, then this House, under CRaG, should have been given that agreement or treaty to scrutinise, and to debate it where necessary, where it is reported for that purpose, before the point at which the House is asked to agree the necessary primary implementing legislation; otherwise, I think that we get it the wrong way around and are then at the point where the Government are seeking to implement a treaty before Parliament has had its proper opportunity to scrutinise it—and indeed, where the other House is concerned, not just to scrutinise it but to have the potential, constitutionally, not to accept it and to delay it. We should never get into such a position; I know that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, as our chair, was very clear on this point. We should not arrive at a position where Parliament could deny its support for ratification of a treaty but the Government have gone ahead and implemented it—that should not happen.
My third and final point is to reinforce what the noble Baroness said about the importance of memoranda of understanding. As we say in the report, the Government appear to be moving towards using these as a preferential method for undertaking international agreements. The third limb of the Ponsonby rule was clearly not overridden or displaced by CRaG. I do not think it will hurt to quote, as we did in our report, what was said about the Ponsonby rule and the third limb:
“Parliament should: ‘also exercise supervision over agreements, commitments and undertakings by which the nation may be bound in certain circumstances and which may involve international obligations of a serious character, although no signed and sealed document may exist.’”
What that tells us is that the third limb means that international agreements, in whatever form they may take, if they are of significance, should be reported to and scrutinised by Parliament.
Here we are with a memorandum of understanding with Rwanda—well, I do not know what it is exactly; there is an agreement. On 13 April, the Home Secretary signed it in Kigali. On 14 April, it was published but, because it says in Article 1.6 that it is not binding in international law, it does not fall under CRaG. So the Government’s attitude appears to be that it is not CRaG-worthy and therefore not subject to scrutiny by Parliament. I am afraid that that is not true. It should be scrutinised by Parliament. The Ponsonby limb should apply to it, as to all such agreements or memoranda that are of significance, and it will be our job in the International Agreements Committee to ensure that that scrutiny takes place. I very much support what the noble Baroness had to say about that agreement, and I hope that this demonstrates to Ministers that MoUs should not be a route around parliamentary scrutiny.
We are not in the same relationship to the Executive as the European Parliament was to the European Commission. However, just as Ministers say that they welcome scrutiny by Parliament, I hope that they will welcome a partnership between the International Agreements Committee and all Government departments to scrutinise agreements in future.
“the CRAG Act is poorly designed to facilitate parliamentary scrutiny of treaties.”
In all those reports by the EU committees, the only agreement on which we were able to take evidence was the UK-South Korea deal. Had the Government had a welcome change of heart? No. It was thanks to Mr Johnson advising the Queen to prorogue Parliament in 2019 that there was extra time to take evidence. Most speakers in that debate said that the CRaG Act was not fit for purpose. However, in the interests of balance, I should say that the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, defended the Act and referred to
“an insatiable beast lurking in the committees of your Lordships’ House.”
She felt that having more information about treaty activity, because of the House’s dislike of Brexit, would
“recede in importance as we start to live in a post-Brexit world.”—[Official Report, 7/9/20; cols. GC 105-124.]
Well, that is going very well, is it not?
The International Agreements Committee was quite right to adopt a pragmatic approach. It is clear to me that we are going backwards. However, today’s announcement by my noble friend Lady Hayter that the Grimstone rule survives is perhaps again going towards the glass half-full suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. So, there was a Grimstone rule, then there was a government response which went into a lot of detail about why there was no Grimstone rule, and now there is a Grimstone rule. So this is all pretty good.
I accept that the Government will never agree to amend the CRaG Act, but apparently we are not even going to get a concordat. This is pretty thin gruel. In the Government’s response to this report—I am repeating a bit of what my noble friend Lady Hayter said, but it bears repeating—they said that they would
“caution against referring to non-legally binding arrangements as ‘agreements’ as the Committee does in the Report, such terminology being more appropriate to describe a treaty.”
The response went on to say:
“It is established Government practice that non-legally binding arrangements are not routinely published”
unless they raise
“questions of public importance. Ministers consider this on a case by case basis.”
This brings me to a question I have for the Minister about the security assurances given by the Prime Minister, Mr Johnson, to the Prime Ministers of Sweden and Finland pending NATO membership. I checked yesterday’s Hansard and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, said in a question to the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, that
“we have seen the Prime Minister go to Finland and Sweden and offer bilateral security commitments. That could be seen as very brave, but is it credible?”—[Official Report, 18/5/22; col. 460.]
I read through the noble Lord’s response. He had 60-odd speakers to respond to, so I do not blame him for not mentioning that matter, but I will mention it now. Sending our troops into battle does not get much higher in terms of “public importance”—as referred to in the Government’s response. I take comfort from the fact that it is not legally binding, but will the Minister clarify what assurances were made, and whether the leaders of Sweden and Finland were aware of what the security assurances amounted to? Alternatively, was it just a bit of springtime hand-patting? It would be unfortunate if the Prime Minister were to be accused of being “prima facie ludicrous”.
There was quite a bit of shocked and outraged huffing and puffing from the Commission, the Council and member states, but we had given them fair warning of our discontents over inadequate data protection standards and human rights-breaching anti-terrorism laws in the US and the inadequate balance between security and civil liberties in the agreement. So the Commission, the Council and member states came to their senses and fairly quickly reached an accord with MEPs on strengthened safeguards, such that the Parliament approved a new stricter version of the SWIFT agreement, renamed the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program agreement, five months later. However, we requested the suspension of that agreement, three years later.
Apart from the substance of that text, what this debacle led to was a better way forward. I was interested to note—I found it on Google—that the European Parliament press release of February 2010 included a quote from one Timothy Kirkhope of the ECR group, who we know better as the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate. I hope he will not mind that I cite it in his absence; I saw it too late to ask his permission, but it is a good quotation. He said he was “frustrated and angered” by the Council’s treatment of Parliament. He went on to say:
“Parliament’s right to consent should not be used as a retrospective tool. We are finally getting assurances from Council and Commission”—
on data protection issues—
“but we now need some time before proceeding further in our considerations.”
This was the key point that is relevant to our debate today. The European Parliament demanded and won, in the name of parliamentary democracy, the right not only to give or withhold its consent to international agreements but to be involved in their genesis, including the development of negotiating objectives and progress reports on the negotiations. What the EU authorities had wisely learned was not just a lesson in respect for parliamentary rights but one about effectiveness, efficiency and coherence as well. Her Majesty’s Government are being somewhat slower to learn and apply these lessons.
This Parliament, unlike the European Parliament, did not have the power to give or withhold consent to the withdrawal agreement and the trade and co-operation agreement with the EU. We were allowed only to scrutinise the relevant implementing legislation, so the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, about the missing link of approving the treaties themselves were very well made.
The International Agreements Committee makes the point that more needs to be done to improve the effectiveness of the existing scrutiny system to make it more robust, and highlights that
“formal points for engagement with the committee are always set for after Government decisions have already been taken, so we are effectively responding to a fait accompli.”
It says, in what I think is a key point:
“The Government should not see parliamentary scrutiny of treaties as a rubber stamp at the end of the process to convey simple approval.”
For the sake of Hansard, I point out that this is at paragraph 45 of the report. This is the vital lesson that the EU Council and Commission learned: if you front-load the system, you are not only more likely to get approval but you have more chance of getting it in a time-efficient and energy-efficient manner and in a constructive spirit.
Finally, I want to say a word about the involvement of the devolved Administrations. I am very far from being knowledgeable about devolution, but I had an opportunity to raise in yesterday’s debate on the foreign part of the Queen’s Speech—which is meant to include Europe; I am sorry, but that is a bee in my bonnet—the question of human rights compliance in Northern Ireland and the potential challenge to the entrenchment of that compliance in the Belfast/Good Friday agreement and the Northern Ireland protocol. This challenge comes from the government plans to reform the Human Rights Act and their threats to rewrite the Northern Ireland protocol. I urge that full consultation be held with the Northern Ireland authorities, including the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, as well as with the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, whose chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner of Margravine, I am delighted to say has fortuitously joined us. I flag that with her and may well pursue it with her. Having said all that, I am very grateful for the report and for today’s debate.
I am pleased that the new Trade and Agriculture Commission is well up and running, having produced its assessment of the Australian free trade agreement. On a personal front, as a lay person when it comes to complex FTAs but as a Member of this House who works closely with farmers and rural organisations, I welcome the candour of its assessment. It is positive to learn that existing protections concerning animal welfare and environmental standards will not be compromised. I found the breakdown of products by prospective future import levels fascinating, but the competition aspects of this agreement are deeply concerning, particularly in setting precedents that could be replicated in other trade deals. Irrespective of my personal reflections regarding the FTA, I am glad that the TAC has begun to act in accordance with its role. I hope that the criticisms that emanate from its Australia FTA report will inform future objectives. For that reason, I look forward to the publication of its assessment of the New Zealand FTA in providing agri-food producers with an accurate picture of this predicament.
It is disappointing to hear that trade advisory groups feel inadequately informed or consulted in relation to free trade agreements. One hopes that this is currently being resolved, as the report suggests, but I also hope that the Government do not view the TAGs as a box-ticking exercise to give the appearance of keeping business and trade bodies onside. Speaking at least for the agri-food sector, I know that the organisations listed have a huge amount of expertise and advice to offer, not just on the specific details of trade agreements but in devising strategies to help make British agri-foods a world-leading brand capable of boosting our exports. For example, the NFU has set a commendable ambition to increase our agri-food exports by 30% in the next decade. I strongly commend its report, Growing our Agri-Food Exports to 2030 and Beyond, which outlines a series of recommendations to make this happen. Surely it is bringing huge expertise and offering help. We need to integrate it as we develop into the future.
We need the ambition of our industries to be truly matched by the Government. I hope that in the coming years we see TAGs playing a more active and effective role in helping to formulate future trade policy.
We know that the UK is an innovative nation, and that our businesses are rich in expertise and ideas. I therefore welcome greater collaboration between those in government and the private sector, and I am sure that the committee will keep a watchful eye on the effectiveness, scope and delivery of the trade advisory groups as they continue to meet.
I feel, however, that these groups would benefit significantly from an injection of views from civil society, and I would be grateful if Ministers would comment on what the Government are doing in this regard. Further to this, I believe that government should consider whether the non-disclosure agreements currently in place with members of the trade advisory groups are hampering the ability of experts to advise properly. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure the House that NDAs will be used as sparingly as possible and only when absolutely essential, so that consultation may be strengthened.
The UK has made significant progress under the Government in establishing better governance structures and processes, and I look forward to the Government’s continuing attention to perfecting matters of transparency, consultation and scrutiny.
As a lawyer, I endeavour to avoid using extravagant language. On this occasion, I am forced to say that Her Majesty’s Government’s claim that they need to keep the views of the devolved Governments away from the committee because of commercial confidence is rubbish. It is an unhappy situation. I need go no further than the evidence of the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, to the committee on 27 April:
“I can say categorically that they”—
that is, the devolved nations—
“are not satisfied.”
I urge and invite the Government to mend their ways.
I enjoy the work in the committee, but I often find it quite frustrating—and it should not be, because we should be working together to move forward with these treaties. I remember the Brexit debate, and it was all about, “Oh, these foreigners are having a say in how we lead our lives”. Now it is not the foreigners who are having a say in how we lead our lives—it is a cabal of Ministers who are doing it, and one or two officials as well. It should not be like that. Parliamentary scrutiny matters, in this House and in the other place, and I am sure that the continuing work in the International Agreements Committee will ensure that it does.