Trade (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Clancarty and Lord Johnson of Lainston

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I spent a long time working on that joke—it did not work the first time, but I thought I would try it at this final point.

This Chamber has seen productive debate, including following the Bill’s Second Reading, which was opened with profound style by the then new Foreign Secretary, my noble friend Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton.

I turn first to the Opposition spokespeople, the noble Lords, Lord McNicol of West Kilbride and Lord Purvis of Tweed. The scrutiny that they have undertaken has been thoughtful and thorough, and they have my sincere thanks for this.

I am indebted once again to my noble friend Lord Lansley and his ability to purposely probe legislation, this time in relation to geographical indications and government procurement. I also extend my gratitude to all members of the International Agreements Committee, led by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, for their continued engagement, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr.

It would also be right for me to express thanks to the noble Lords, Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Leong, who I hope are reassured by the robustness of our democratic processes around our treaty obligations and my undertakings to ensure that all future countries who wish to join the CPTPP, once we are a full member, will receive full and proper scrutiny.

I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, for his extraordinary knowledge of intellectual property law and his comments around artists’ rights. I look forward to seeing the findings of the consultation when it reports over the coming months. I also make a commitment to continue to work with all CPTPP countries to further the principle of artists’ resale rights, as recently discussed with the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty.

I thank my noble friend Lord Goldsmith of Richmond for his helpful input around the risks to the environment and continue to reassure noble Lords that we remain fully committed in this area when negotiating free trade deals. There is no derogation of our standards with our joining CPTPP. In fact, this forum allows us to drive change and further align our partner countries with our environmental values and ambitions.

Other important areas discussed during the Bill’s passage include food standards, the UK’s financial sector and parts of the Bill’s application in Northern Ireland. These issues were raised frequently and emphatically by my noble friends Lady McIntosh, Lord Holmes and Lady Lawlor, and the noble Baroness, Lady Willis. I pay tribute to each of them for this and the engagement that they afforded me.

Finally, it would be remiss of me not to thank my Secretary of State, Kemi Badenoch, for her skills in bringing this process to a conclusion. She led a first-class team who delivered a truly wonderful gift to this nation.

Behind the scenes, the extraordinary Bill team also put in an unbelievable amount of effort. All Peers in this House who have engaged in this or, indeed, any legislative process will be aware of the extraordinary effort by our officials to ensure sensible dialogue and great outcomes. My thanks go to James Copeland, Alistair Ford, Jack Collins and Jack Masterman, as well as Hope Hadfield, Neelam Mandair and Bayse Genc from the CPTPP team. I also thank my private secretary, Lisa Banks, and other officials who make up my private office, so ably led by Anthony Donaldson.

Finally, I thank the parliamentary staff, including the doorkeepers and the clerks, for their professionalism and continued support to your Lordships’ House.

British businesses and consumers alike are set to benefit significantly from our acceding to this trade group. It builds on the free trade agreements that entered into force between the UK and Australia and New Zealand in May last year, which I had the honour of taking through Parliament. It will result in new market access for our world-leading goods and services. We are removing tariffs, which will help our farmers, service providers and businesses export across the world to new, fast-growing economies and populations hungry for our produce. As Lord Haldane so wisely said, tariffs are not the answer; the only way to remain ahead of our rivals is to continue to be ahead of them in the quality of what we make. No tariff can keep out that quality which is the key to quantity.

The CPTPP is a gateway to greater growth and economic prosperity for all parts of the UK. I repeat the wonderful quotation from William H Seward:

“the Pacific Ocean, its shores, its islands, and the vast regions beyond, will become the chief theatre of events in the World’s great Hereafter”.

As the Bill travels to the other place and develops, it is important that we continue to work with the devolved nations to ensure that we have their appropriate co-operation and collaboration. With that, I thank all noble Lords in this House.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, briefly, I thank the Minister for his active engagement on the artist’s resale right; I am encouraged by the direction of travel. In particular, I thank him for yesterday’s meeting on ARR, which he efficiently managed to schedule for before today’s Third Reading. I thank Reema Selhi of DACS, Oliver Evans of the Maureen Paley gallery, and my noble friend Lord Freyberg, who is in his place, for their valuable contributions to this discussion, particularly on how the international element can be better understood. I am grateful to the Minister for listening and for his active involvement in this area. Following ratification in July, I look forward to seeing how membership will help further these aims, in relation to both the countries concerned and other agreements.

Trade (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Clancarty and Lord Johnson of Lainston

Committee stage
Thursday 14th December 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for pointing out that I am already talking about the impact, while also saying that we should not have an impact statement after one year; however, I do not think that that is fair. We are trying to have a broad gauge—is this a significant, multi-million-pound issue that needs to be confronted with urgency, or a relatively manageable amount of capital change? The instance we are looking at is not significant in relation to the music industry overall—it was a few tens of millions. I do not have the figure in front of me, but the noble Lord will understand.

That is the reason why we are having a consultation. Our estimate implies that it would not result in significant distortions of the music market in this country. Remember, this is for broadcast media. It does not include streaming, which is how most people access their music at the moment. It will result in additional artists being included, but many artists already are.

We should be aware that we often talk in these debates about the issues facing us—it is always about us. I would like us to look at the opportunities our artists will now have in terms of being protected. British music is the greatest in the world, and among the most popular. The Beatles are at No. 1 again; that must mean something. All the great bands are reforming to take advantage of these new benefits of CPTPP and the enormous revenues they will be paid, so something must be working. We should not lose sight of that. I think that my noble friend Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton told me that Blur are getting back together again. He will know more about it than me.

This is a very important issue. We must not lose sight of the fact that on the whole, these measures tend to result in additional protections which did not exist for our artists in many of these countries. That is very important. We can get lost in the detail. I am not saying that the detail is not important, but we should keep things in perspective. I cannot answer the question from the noble Lord, Lord Foster, about when the consultation will be completed. It is unlikely that we will have the consultation back by Report, which is hoped to be the second or third week of January. I am aware of the time constraints and recognise noble Lords’ comments, but we will continue to work together to find a good solution. I am extremely comfortable having further conversations with the noble Lord and other interested Peers on how we can delve more deeply into this subject. I am very sensitive to the fact that we are trying to come to the right conclusion.

Turning to some of the other key points, the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, made a very fair comment on artists’ resale rights. We have tried to propagate this position. It is a new concept globally and so far, 90 countries have taken up the opportunity to employ artists’ resale rights. Unfortunately, very few CPTPP countries deploy ARR in their legislation. The noble Lord was right to mention Mexico, and Peru is similarly beginning the process. However, it is at an early stage and has not functioned in a way that is advantageous to our artists, so while the systems have been set up, they have not started to yield the payments we were hoping for. Therefore, we are not in a position to introduce ARR into the CPTTP, because many of the countries simply do not have that legislation to hand. It would therefore not be appropriate for what is a collective multilateral treaty that we are joining.

The noble Lord rightly asks about our strategy. I am happy to come back to him on our plans for continuing engagement, but he should be reassured that we specifically negotiated this in the Australia and New Zealand free trade deals and that we are in negotiations with Japan to see how we can implement that.

The noble Lord, Lord McNicol, asked about Japan and geographical indications. I cannot make a significant comment in reply, other than to point to our commitment to continue negotiations on this. It was a very important part of the initial negotiations and the Secretary of State at the time was determined to ensure that these principles were magnified. I, my officials and the trade team will be happy to reassure the noble Lord, I hope, that we are moving forward.

I hope I have covered the questions raised. My noble friend Lord Trenchard kindly supported me with his point about impact assessments and timeliness, for which I am grateful. He also raised specific questions which I will answer in writing.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply on my amendment, which I found reasonably reassuring. As far as I can see, the Government are moving in the right direction on this. Time will tell by how much and with what enthusiasm they can persuade other countries to reach reciprocal agreement with us on this important right. I detected a suggestion for a possible meeting about this with interested parties; that would be really helpful.

On the other hand, I think many of us are much less convinced on the other concerns, particularly those about performance rights raised by the noble Lord, Lord Foster. He asked whether we could have the consultation before Report. It is really important that the consultation precedes any secondary legislation. The Minister has said that that legislation is technical, but the experts, including the Alliance for Intellectual Property and people in the music industry, say that we cannot be so sure what the effect will be of widening rights to foreign rights holders. We are asking the Government to tread carefully, and not recklessly in a way that will damage the UK’s creative industries. The principle of reciprocity is paramount, as the noble Lord, Lord Foster, pointed out. It should be a guiding light. Crucially, stakeholders need to see precisely what is intended to be in the secondary legislation before it is made. As we know, once secondary legislation comes before the House, it is too late to change anything. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Workers’ Rights

Debate between Earl of Clancarty and Lord Johnson of Lainston

Thursday 23rd November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for that point. In fact, if I look back to 2016, I see that the national living wage was £7.20 for those 25 and over, and it will soon go to £11.44, which, by my maths, is an increase of over 50% in that period.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, there are well over 4 million self-employed workers in the country. Does the Minister not agree that much more could be done for their workers’ rights? Furthermore, is he aware of the growing calls within the creative industries for the appointment of a freelance commissioner to oversee the concerns of a group that is significant but relatively neglected within the workforce?

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I agree with the noble Earl’s comments about the importance of self-employed individuals, who are the backbone of this country—I have been one myself in the past. That is why, in what I thought was a fabulous Autumn Statement, designed to power this economy forward into the future, the Government and the Chancellor of the Exchequer yesterday cut various sections of national insurance contributions for self-employed people, not simply allowing them to keep more hard-earned money from their work but making their lives easier, which is a fundamental principle of this Conservative Government.

Workers’ Rights

Debate between Earl of Clancarty and Lord Johnson of Lainston

Monday 6th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I appreciate the noble Lord’s point. It is an incredibly important sector, and the approximately 1.5 million people who work in it are to be cherished and celebrated. The Government have put £7 billion into the sector over the last two years, which clearly is a follow-on from the crisis we faced during Covid. I will be pleased this afternoon to place a statutory instrument before this House to raise the national living wage and the minimum wage by a substantial 9.7%. All these things will help, but I am always aware that we must do all we can to support that important and vital sector.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I think the Minister mentioned hospitality work. Freelance work has been a long-term and growing aspect of the economy, with 1.77 million freelancers contributing £125 billion to the economy. What attention are the Government going to give to those insecure workers’ rights?

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I thank the noble Earl for that point. Hospitality has been an important focus for this Government, which is why we are introducing the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Bill, an important measure to ensure that, when you tip, the money actually goes to the service staff who have supported you. To my surprise, and probably that of many other Members of this House, in many instances it did not. These are the sort of Acts we absolutely need to focus on, and I am always delighted to have further conversations about how we can do more to protect this vital sector.