Trade Bill

Lord Hope of Craighead Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 8th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, following the points made by the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, my interest in this important Bill is in how it deals with the devolved authorities. The sensitivity of arrangements relating to trade cannot be overstated. Plans are already being made by the Scottish Government for the holding of a second referendum on independence after the elections to the Parliament at Holyrood in less than eight months’ time. This is an increasingly perilous time for those who believe in the union. Anything that might be seen as failing to respect the desire of the Scottish Government to be free to run their own affairs as they choose in this crucial area and set their own standards will be seized on by supporters of the campaign for independence. I will leave that warning on the table for now and concentrate on the Bill.

There are two points to which I wish to draw attention. First, international relations and the regulation of international trade are reserved to the UK Government here at Westminster, so the devolved authorities have no formal role in the negotiation or approval of these agreements. However, the implementation of an international trade agreement in the devolved nations is a devolved matter, and there are bound to be cases where the content of an international trade agreement will affect an area of devolved competence. We can see how the Bill deals with the exercise by the devolved authorities of their powers in that regard in Schedule 1, which states that

“no provision may be made … unless it is within the devolved competence”.

There can be no complaint about that, and the absence of any attempt now to limit what may be done here within a devolved competence is as it should be. However, we are told that:

“No regulations may be made by a devolved authority … about any quota arrangements … unless … after consulting with a Minister of the Crown.”


This looks like a constraint on the exercise of devolved powers so it needs to be explained and justified. What is the purpose of that provision? Can we be assured that it is consultation for information only and is not intended to fetter those powers in any way?

Secondly, conspicuous by its absence from the Bill is any provision about what would happen if the power in Section 2 to modify retained EU law were to be used by Ministers of the Crown to amend legislation in the devolved areas. It is often said, when issues of this kind are raised, that such powers are not normally used without the consent of devolved Ministers, but why in a matter of such importance as this does an unqualified requirement for consent not appear in the Bill? There is not even a requirement to consult the devolved Ministers before doing so, in sharp contrast to what Schedule 2 says that those devolved Ministers must do. Why not? What is sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander. Can the Minister assure the House that those Ministers will at least be consulted and their consent sought before any such provision is made amending legislation in the devolved areas?

Trade Bill

Lord Hope of Craighead Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 8th October 2020 Grand Committee

Therefore, I hope that the Minister, in responding, will support the principles behind our two Amendments 61 and 62 and, if he has any technical objections rather than objections in principle, will come back at Report with government amendments that we can all support.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hain. I find myself in agreement with much of what he said. I speak to Amendments 26 and 27 in this group. As we have heard, they both address the same point about engagement with the devolved Administrations when a Minister of the Crown is exercising the powers conferred by this clause. I am grateful to them for raising this subject, which I raised at Second Reading. As I think the Minister will recognise, how devolution is addressed in the Bill is most important and has to be handled wisely, as the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, so rightly said.

Of the two amendments before us, I prefer that in the name of my noble kinsman Lord Stevenson of Balmacara. That is because the context for this discussion is the making of orders by delegated legislation, which is the privilege of Ministers, not of legislatures. Obtaining the consent of the relevant Minister in the devolved Administrations, rather than of their legislatures, seems the better and easier route in this context. But that is a side issue; the issue of principle matters. I agree with and endorse the points that the noble Lords proposing these amendments made in support of them.

I take this opportunity to thank the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, for the very helpful reply he gave to a letter that I wrote to him, after Second Reading. This came about because I happened to be in the Chamber and took part in the debate personally, so I was able to take advantage of the opportunity, which noble Lords participating virtually do not have, of catching a moment with the Minister afterwards. I asked him why, as was the case, he had not answered the questions that I put to him in my speech. The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, also noted the lack of any response to them, as he recalled when he was speaking in this debate yesterday. Very kindly and without hesitation, the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, invited me to write to him instead, and gave me his email address. That is how this letter to me came about, and I am most grateful to him for the generous way he responded to my inquiry.

While I do not agree with everything it says, this letter has provided far and away the best and most thorough explanation that I have received for the Government’s approach to amendments asking for consent to be obtained from the devolved Administrations to be put in the Bill, and why they have almost always been refused. Although I greatly regret the refusal, it at least shows that the Government are thinking about the issue.

I am sure that we will have to return to this in the different and much more controversial context of the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill, on which a storm is brewing with the devolved Administrations about UK market access provisions, which is every bit as powerful as that for Part 5 of the Bill. But the context here is different: this Bill is concerned with international agreements for which, although implementation is devolved, the UK Government are ultimately responsible internationally. Both the Scottish and Welsh Ministers have recommended that their legislatures give their consent to the Bill, so we are in much calmer territory, but I wish to support these amendments and to explain why.

I start by taking up a point that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, made at the outset of his speech. Referring to the Sewel convention, he said that the question of whether it should or could apply to delegated legislation is still open. The time has come for us to put that to bed, once and for all. It should now be recognised on all sides that the principle of the convention extends to delegated legislation by UK government Ministers in the same way as it does to legislation by the UK Parliament. In view of the importance of the matter, perhaps I can be allowed to say why that is so. I have the following reasons.

First, there is no doubt that, if he had been asked about this at the time, Lord Sewel would have said that his remark applied to the use of delegated powers too. It did not occur to any of the noble Lords who were there 20 years ago to ask him about this, because the idea that delegated powers might be used in this area was nothing like as obvious as it is now. Today, we all appreciate that Brexit could not be made to work across so many areas without resort to delegated legislation on a scale far removed from what we were used to that long ago. That is why the issue has been raised time and again during this process.

Secondly, the convention, as first formulated by Lord Sewel—recorded more formally in a memorandum of understanding and put into statutory language by Section 2 of the Scotland Act 2016—refers to legislation by the Parliament of the United Kingdom only. But we are dealing here with a convention, a political statement, and not black-letter law. What really matters is the principle that lies behind it. There is no logical reason whatever for not applying the Sewel principle to delegated legislation too.

Thirdly, we need look only to what happens in practice. There is a very high level of engagement, at official level at least, between the devolved Administrations across the board and the UK Government. There is no suggestion there that the fact that delegated legislation may be in prospect, rather than primary legislation made in this Parliament, makes any difference.

Finally, there is the noble Lord’s letter. It contains an express commitment that the UK Government will not normally legislate using the Bill’s powers—these are delegated powers—in areas of devolved competence without consent of the relevant devolved Administration, and never without consulting them first. There it is: Sewel applies here too. It applies across the board.

To cement this into our practice, so that we can refer to it whenever it is needed, we should give this commitment a name. I would call it the Sewel principle. It is striking, and to the Government’s great credit, that nowhere in the letter is it suggested that we are limited nowadays by the precise wording of the convention. It is the Sewel principle that is being applied now. Although the memorandum and statute are silent on the point, they do not exclude this approach so, please, let us say farewell to any idea that the question of whether it applies to delegated legislation is still open.

As for the reasons given in the letter for the Bill not providing that UK government Ministers must seek the consent of the devolved Administrations, I will make a few points. First, it is said that to do that would discourage consensual intergovernmental working and incentivise bringing disagreements to the courts. Reference is made to the case of the UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Continuity) (Scotland) Bill in the Supreme Court as an example of the lengthy litigation that may result. I simply do not follow that argument. Surely the best and most secure way to avoid disagreements is to proceed by consent. That is what these amendments seek to achieve. They are all about settling disagreements, as the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, said.

Trade Bill

Lord Hope of Craighead Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I have great sympathy for the thinking that lies behind these amendments, and I have huge admiration for the unremitting way that my noble friend Lord Alton carries on his campaign to root out genocide and to bring its perpetrators to justice wherever they can be found. It is a hard struggle. The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide now seems, with hindsight, to be a deplorably weak instrument for dealing with the challenges we face today. It was indeed the first such treaty of the modern era, as my noble friend Lady Falkner pointed out, but it is simply not up to the job.

It was conceived in the mid-1940s as a reaction against the Holocaust that the Nazis’ policy of extermination had created in Europe. It was assumed that it would be enough to require the contracting parties to enact the necessary legislation and, having done so, to require them to bring those within their jurisdiction who were charged with genocide to trial. But we can now see, in today’s world, how ineffective and perhaps naive this relatively simple convention is.

The UN convention against torture of 1987, which we became familiar with in the case of Senator Pinochet, is a much more powerful instrument. He had travelled to this country for health reasons and, no doubt to his great surprise and dismay, found himself open to proceedings brought against him under that convention in Spain. This was because he had travelled to this country, which was one of the signatory countries that was bound by the convention to extradite him to be tried there. The Law Lords in this House, of whom I was one, upheld the Spanish prosecutor’s request, although in the end Senator Pinochet was allowed to return to Chile. I mention this just to make the point that the torture convention is a much more far-reaching instrument, although even it would probably still fall short of what is needed to deal with the crime of genocide in the countries where it is now prevalent, which have been referred to this evening, simply because those countries would almost certainly refuse to release the perpetrators to a country where they could be brought to trial.

We have to make the best of what we have. We cannot go down the direct route of bringing the perpetrators to trial here, so some other route must be found. We cannot just turn our backs on this appalling crime, and we must be grateful to the noble Lord for doing his very best to see that we do not. The greatest barrier that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has faced has been in trying to devise a mechanism for bringing the issue before our courts. We have to do this here, because there is no standing international tribunal that has universal jurisdiction in this matter.

Our courts can deal only with those over whom it has jurisdiction according to our rules, and as a general rule it can deal only with crimes committed here in this country. Parliament may give our courts extraterritorial jurisdiction over offences committed abroad, but it must do so expressly, and the accused person must be in this country when and if he is to be tried here. We have had extraterritorial jurisdiction in the case of the murder of British nationals committed abroad, since 1861; and, more recently, in the case of the taking of hostages, since 1982; torture, since 1988; and terrorism, since 2000. But even if genocide had been on the list, without a strong UN convention that would enable us to get the people who really matter here to be tried it is almost impossible. So what else can be done?

The procedure which the noble Lord has chosen has my full support. Let me bring the bare bones that we see before us to life. There are two very important advantages, which I think are worth mentioning. First, you need to have someone with a relevant interest to bring a proceeding before the court; the person or group of persons referred to in these amendments will almost certainly satisfy that requirement. This in itself is a big step forward.

Secondly, what it provides will allow for due process in a hearing in full accordance with the rule of law. By this I mean that notice of the proceedings will be served on the Secretary of State and on a representative of the other signatory to the agreement, as they must both be given a right of reply. This is to enable the Secretary of State to appear and present such arguments as he or she thinks fit, and the other signatory, if it wishes, will have that opportunity, too. This is important, because the court will wish to test the argument in support of the application that is brought before it. There will be two questions before it: first, can the court be satisfied that the crime of genocide has been committed; and, secondly, should it grant the remedy to which the amendment refers?

I wish to stress that the procedure the noble Lord proposes is a very serious matter, not a mere formality. It will result, if it proceeds, in a fully reasoned judgment by one of our judges. That is its strength, as a finding by a judge in proceedings of this kind in the applicant’s favour will carry real weight, quite apart from the effect it will have on the relevant agreement. I think that it will achieve its object, but if a refinement in its wording is needed to be sure that it will do so, that refinement should certainly be made. I, too, very much hope that the Minister will support this amendment.

[Lord Sheikh (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is imperative that we support Amendment 68, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool. I commend him on his excellent speech; he did indeed speak from the heart.

At the outset, I would like to say that in 1972 my family and thousands of Asians were expelled from Uganda by General Amin. I have personal experience of ill treatment being imposed on innocent people by a tyrant. I have spoken previously about crimes against humanity in your Lordships’ House. I would like to declare that I am the co-chair of the APPG for the Prevention of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity.

I commend the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on this amendment, which sends a clear message that the UK will not be associated in any way with regimes found by law to be committing genocide. The amendment would mean that regulations made under this Bill to authorise the implementation of trade agreements would be revoked if the High Court of England decides that they should be, on the grounds that a signatory to a relevant trade agreement has committed genocide.

The amendment would also grant the right to persons or groups of persons belonging to national, ethnic, racial or religious groups that have been subjected to genocide to oblige the UK courts to request that a trade agreement be revoked. It is right that the High Court decides, as the court will be impartial and decisions will be arrived at logically.

In 2017, the Conservative Party published the Kigali declaration affirming our commitment to prevent and punish genocide. The declaration states:

“Whether at home or abroad we will seek to protect individuals and groups who are targeted because of their identity, from hate crime to genocide to violent extremism. Our responsibility to protect begins at home but extends around the world.”


This requires us to ensure that any potential violation of human rights is considered before doing business with any country. If the United Kingdom maintains trade agreements with states committing genocide, we risk being seen as complicit in these crimes and we send a message that our trading partners may commit genocide without any consequence.

This amendment must be accepted, because the UK is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the 2005 Responsibility to Protect commitment. Furthermore, the International Criminal Court in 2001 incorporated the Rome statute into English law. These commitments mean that we have a legal and moral obligation to act against genocide.

I and other Members of your Lordships’ House spoke on Second Reading of the Medicines and Medical Devices Bill about the treatment of Uighurs and Falun Gong in China. Evidence of the Uighur genocide is growing. The Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders has estimated that 1 million Uighurs have been detained and organs are being harvested on a massive scale. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute report suggested that 80,000 Uighurs were transferred out of Xinjiang between 2017 and 2019, and they are likely working under forced labour conditions while supplying global brands.

The proposed amendment is modest. The United States has gone much further to condemn and punish those responsible for those human rights abuses. Earlier this year, Congress passed the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, which places sanctions on officials responsible for oppression of Uighurs in Xinjiang. US companies with operations in Xinjiang have been compelled to ensure that their supply chains are free from forced labour.

Furthermore, US Customs and Border Protection has issued five withhold release orders barring imports from such producers of cotton, apples, hair products, computer parts and other goods in the Xinjiang region. The House of Representatives recently passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act with almost unanimous support from both main parties. If this law, which now has to go to the Senate, is passed, it will ensure that goods made with forced labour in the Xinjiang region will not enter the US market.

Through these Acts, the United States holds the Chinese Government accountable and ensures that Americans do not benefit from goods created by forced labour or under potential genocide. This amendment goes some way towards this, by giving UK courts the option to remove trade co-operation with states found to be perpetrating genocide, establishing a principle that may be taken further in future legislation.

Trade Bill

Lord Hope of Craighead Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Monday 7th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Curry of Kirkharle (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I fully endorse the wise comments of the noble Lords, Lord Collins, Lord Alton and Lord Blencathra, and the remarks made just now by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover. I fully support these amendments and will reserve my comments for the debate on Amendment 9 in the next group.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak in support of Amendment 8; I also support Amendment 10 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. In response to his kind invitation, I say to him that I do not think that the reference in his proposed new schedule to other human rights weakens the argument in any way. I hope that he rests assured that that is the position, and that his amendment stands as a good amendment that should be carefully considered.

I do not believe that this country has been at all at fault in its support for the international treaties and obligations with reference to human rights to which the amendment refers. Indeed, we have led the way from the very start in the international campaign for the protection of human rights that began more than seven decades ago. Legislation has been brought forward with the minimum of delay on each occasion to incorporate each of the protections and rights into our domestic law. Nevertheless, there are gaps in the mechanisms for giving effect to our international obligations. With the exception of the UN Convention against Torture, which enables the contracting parties to bring proceedings against any persons within their jurisdiction for acts of torture, wherever they were committed, and some extensions of the reach of the European Convention on Human Rights that have resulted from decisions of the European Court in Strasbourg, the contracting parties can deal only with offending acts that are committed within their own territories. They can deal only with persons who have infringed their provisions; they cannot deal with acts, however egregious, committed by states. The fact is, however, that some of the most horrific infringements have been committed by state actors, to which the noble Lord, Lord Alton, referred, with the encouragement and support of the states themselves. The prospect of those states bringing the perpetrators to justice is remote. The result is that there are places across the world where those who are crying out for the benefit of internationally recognised human rights are without any effective protection whatever.

Quite how to meet this problem has puzzled many minds: it is not easy to find a workable solution, but we cannot stand idly by. We have to do the best we can. The amendment that follows, Amendment 9 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, offers one way in the case of the international crime of genocide. This amendment, which reaches out more widely across a whole range of violations affecting our international human rights and obligations and, happily, has the support of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, too, offers another. It fits in neatly with the aims and purposes of this Bill. Furthermore, the way it seeks to give effect to our international obligations should serve as an example to other state parties that have joined with us in the endeavour to extend the protection of fundamental human rights throughout the world. The amendment would show leadership in an area of human affairs where this is much needed. I hope very much, therefore, that the Minister will feel able to accept it.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I echo the final words of the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, and implore my noble friend on the Front Bench to heed what she said.

I will begin on a personal note: 75 years ago, at the time of the VE celebrations, my parents took me, a six year-old boy, to see newsreels. Among them was Belsen. My mother’s instinctive reaction was to put her arm in front of my eyes; my father’s reaction was to sit me on his knee and say, “The boy must see what evil people can do.” It is one of my earliest and most vivid memories.

As a newly elected Member of the other place, 25 years later, at the invitation of the late Greville Janner, whose memory I honour, I became the first chairman of the all-party group—there were very few in those days—for the release of Soviet Jewry. I spoke on the telephone to those who had been to the gulags. I was refused a visa to Soviet Russia, but we smuggled out a volume of the Jewish scriptures for a young boy’s bar mitzvah gift. His father had been in the gulag. About 25 years after that, as chairman of the All-Party Group for Bosnia, I saw what happened in Srebrenica, which was almost the same time as those ghastly massacres in Rwanda.

Those who have brought this amendment before your Lordships’ House tonight have done us all a great service. The precision of the amendment is its most commending feature, because it concentrates on what the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, rightly referred to as the ultimate and most heinous of crimes: genocide.

A week ago, we debated that peculiarly named Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill. We had an amendment, on which a number of us spoke, which would forbid the authorising of young people under the age of 18 from committing crimes. I will certainly continue to support my amendment or others on that subject.

Why, my Lords? Because it is wrong. If anything is wrong on a gargantuan scale, it is of course genocide. We cannot and must not be fobbed off with an answer from the Front Bench that says that it is too difficult, that the wording of the amendment is wrong or that it does not fit in. Some of those excuses have already been rehearsed by those such as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, who has been pressing for the amendment, which I am also doing.

The Prime Minister talks very proudly of “global Britain”. Global Britain must have a moral compass. Global Britain must not sacrifice its national integrity. The country that was responsible for the abolition of the slave trade and the abolition of slavery throughout the British dominions, in 1807 and 1833 respectively, must draw upon that proud heritage. What is happening in China to the Uighurs, as we have just been reminded in a very moving speech, is despicable and appalling. I believe that we should ensure that those who can pronounce on these things are able to pronounce on this. Is it genocide? I do not believe that there is any doubt that it is right that it should be a legal judgment and pronouncement; if such a pronouncement is made, it is absolutely right that we should not seek to trade on preferential terms with the People’s Republic of China—a great country with a great and civilised people who are having things perpetrated in their name that are the very negation of civilisation.

I say to my noble friend Lady Noakes and others that business does matter, but lives matter more: black lives, white lives, Chinese lives, Muslim lives and Christian lives—all lives matter. We should not in any way be complicit, even tangentially, in turning a blind eye to some of the most evil deeds that have been perpetrated in the past 50 years. I support this amendment.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and his very moving speech. I wish to support this amendment. It presents your Lordships with an alternative way of dealing with the international crime of genocide from that which was considered under Amendment 8. I have noted the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, about handing the matter over to the courts. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, has just pointed out, there is a legal issue here that needs to be determined. There are complicated issues of fact as well that need to be carefully assessed, so any idea that this is not a matter for the courts really is misplaced. We need to consider this alternative.

As I said when noble Lords considered this amendment in Committee, the campaign to root out genocide and bring its perpetrators to justice is a hard struggle. The problem is that the weakness of the enforcement mechanisms in the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide means that the convention is simply not up to the job. Of course, we must be grateful for the declaration in Article 1 that genocide is a crime under international law and for the width of the definition of this crime in Article 2. We can also be sure that the United Kingdom, as one of the contracting parties, will play its full part in bringing to justice any individual who can be brought within the jurisdiction of our courts so that they can be punished for their part in this crime. But there are gaps which the UN convention leaves open. Its object remains largely unfulfilled and we have to face the fact that the international institutions are falling short too.

Of course, the vast majority of countries around the world do not practise genocide. They needed no persuasion when the convention was open for signature that they must refrain from it. The problem is with the minority, those states which have no conscience in this matter and which still engage in this horrific crime with impunity. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, who is such a steadfast advocate in this field, has reminded us once again that the struggle to fill those gaps cannot be allowed to fail.

The procedure that the noble Lord has chosen had my full support in Committee and it has my full support here, too. I remind your Lordships that it seems to have two very important advantages, which deserve to be emphasised once again. The first is that it meets the requirement that there must be a person, or a group of persons, with a relevant interest to bring the matter before the court. The persons described in the amendment will almost certainly satisfy that requirement. The second is that the procedure it seeks to introduce must allow for due process, with a hearing in open court, in full accordance with the rule of law.

I believe that this object will be achieved. It means that notice of the proceedings will be served on the Secretary of State and on a representative of the other signatory of the bilateral agreement, both of whom must have the right of reply. That will ensure that they can present their cases to the court, thus enabling the court to scrutinise and test all the competing arguments. If the argument of the interested persons is upheld, the “preliminary determination” that the amendment refers to will amount to a direction to the Secretary of State that the United Kingdom must withdraw from the agreement; in the case of a bilateral agreement that will mean, in effect, that the agreement will be revoked.

Withdrawing from an international agreement in circumstances which the agreement itself does not provide for is a sensitive and difficult matter. That is especially so where it is not being suggested that any provisions of the agreement itself have been breached, but I believe that the noble Lord and his cosignatories are right not to have been deflected by these and other similar problems from persevering with this amendment. The strength of their position lies in the—if your Lordships will forgive me for using Latin—jus cogens erga omnes nature of the obligation under international law to prevent and punish acts of genocide.

That expression was used by Lord Bingham of Cornhill in the Appellate Committee of this House in A v Secretary of State (No 2) in 2005, when he was examining the obligation relating to torture under international law. What this means in our context is that the obligation to prevent and punish genocide is a peremptory obligation under international law. Not only that—as Lord Bingham said, it requires us to do more. It requires states to do all they can within lawful means to bring genocide to an end. As it binds all states, it is an obligation which lies at the heart of the relationships that states undertake with each other. It is the kind of obligation that goes without saying. The fact that an agreement does not refer to it does not mean that it does not exist or that it can be forgotten about.

The conclusion that has been drawn from the propositions that I have just summarised involves difficult and overlapping areas of law. The question of whether they provide an answer to an objection that the course which the amendment seeks to follow has no place in a trade agreement is an open question and it needs to be addressed. I believe that it is not capable of sound resolution simply by a debate in this House. It is best resolved by a court after hearing full and carefully reasoned argument from all sides. If that happens, the judgment—the determination—that is issued will carry with it great authority which will resonate throughout the world in a way that we need to be sure is done in order to further the cause of eliminating genocide. That is what this amendment provides for and it is why it has my full support.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, have both withdrawn from speaking to this amendment, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Curry of Kirkharle.