Treaty Scrutiny in Westminster (International Agreements Committee Report)

Lord Norton of Louth Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Norton of Louth (Con)]

My Lord, I welcome this report and the reports from other committees, including the Constitution Committee, on the subject, but I rather regret that they are necessary. I was involved in the passage of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill. I served on the Joint Committee on the draft Bill and, when the Bill was introduced, I managed to get an amendment accepted covering the provision of explanatory memoranda to Parliament.

With the benefit of hindsight, I realise I should have gone further, utilising the leverage of the wash-up to press for an amendment to provide for every significant treaty negotiated by government to be subject to approval by affirmative resolution by the House of Commons. That is what the Hansard Society has pressed for. What this report recommends—I think at paragraph 70—is crucial, and it is entirely feasible in legislative terms. Alex Horne, a former senior legal adviser to several parliamentary committees, has drafted a Bill to amend CRaG to achieve this.

This leads to the key points I wish to make. I very much welcome this report, but I do not extend that welcome to the Government’s response, which I fear is what is to be expected from the Executive. There is a clear executive view, whichever party is in power, which is at odds with a parliamentary view. Negotiating treaties, as my noble friend Lady Lawlor said, takes place under prerogative powers. Treaty-making always has been and should remain within the gift of His Majesty’s Government. It was wholly inappropriate during the Brexit negotiations for the House of Commons to try to wrest control of the process from Ministers. However, while treaty-making—that is, negotiating the terms of a treaty—should rest with the Executive, treaty approval should rest with Parliament. The provisions of CRaG were designed to give both Houses the opportunity to object to a treaty, and for the Commons, ultimately, to prevent its ratification.

The problem is that the Executive have difficulty accepting that Parliament should have the capacity to say no. They may pay lip service to the principle, but in practice they want Parliament to stay out of the process. They had and have the whip hand in the control of the timetable.

There is a clear difference between the executive and parliamentary views, encapsulated in the different definitions of power. Power can be defined in pluralist, elitist and institutional terms. The pluralist view is the traditional one, where A gets B to do that which B would otherwise not do. It can take two forms: the coercive and the persuasive. The Government clearly favour the latter, believing that Parliament should have a persuasive capacity only. That is clear from their response to this report. The emphasis is on scrutiny—in effect, on examining and commenting. The Government’s response does nothing to concede that Parliament should have the capacity to say no to what they have negotiated. They are prepared only to discuss ways in which Parliament may be better informed as an aid to enhancing scrutiny.

Parliament needs to be more assertive to ensure that the provisions of CRaG have teeth. Having the power to say no would provide the basis for achieving what my noble friend Lord Lilley has advocated. Committees examining treaties need to be complemented by the House having not just the processes but the political will to act on their recommendations. To achieve that, we need to provide that parliamentary approval is required for significant treaties, as defined in Alex Horne’s draft Bill. We have the reports of the various committees. We do not need any more. We need to act to ensure that Parliament is a watchdog with teeth and not simply a bark.