Continuity Agreement: Kingdom of Morocco

Debate between Lord Patten and Lord Shipley

Monday 9th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, for tabling this regret Motion. He has raised some very important issues about the process for considering trade agreements with which we would concur.

I say at the outset that I have huge respect for the people of Morocco. Theirs is a wonderful country to visit and it feels very much a part of Europe. But with that international standing comes a responsibility to respect international legal judgments and to respect and promote democracy.

This year marks the 45th anniversary of the occupation of the Western Sahara by Morocco. I want to pay tribute to the work of the Earl of Winchilsea and Nottingham, who was a Back-Bench Liberal, and then Liberal Democrat, Peer for over 20 years until 1997, and who campaigned strongly to promote the interests of the Sahrawi people of the Western Sahara, many of whom became refugees.

As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said, in 1975 an International Court of Justice ruling recognised Western Sahara’s right to self-determination. In 1991, the United Nations promised a referendum for the people in Western Sahara to decide whether they wished to be an independent country or whether they preferred to become part of Morocco. That referendum—as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, pointed out—has never taken place.

Further, in its World Report 2020, Human Rights Watch stated:

“Moroccan authorities systematically prevent gatherings in the Western Sahara supporting Sahrawi self-determination, obstruct the work of some local human rights nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), including by blocking their legal registration”.


Could the Minister tell the House what discussions Her Majesty’s Government have had with Morocco regarding safeguarding the capacity of NGOs to work effectively in the Western Sahara?

The Court of Justice of the EU has ruled that Moroccan territorial jurisdiction does not extend to the territory of Western Sahara or to the territorial sea adjacent to Western Sahara. The consequence of that ruling seems to be that Defra could not lawfully grant fishing quotas to British fishing vessels in waters off Western Sahara. What consideration have Her Majesty’s Government given to this ruling? Will there be robust guarantees that all trade to and from Western Sahara is taking place only with the full consent of the people of the Western Sahara? The Minister will understand that the natural resources of Western Sahara are important in this respect. He will be aware that some 15% to 20% of Moroccan exports can be traced back to Western Sahara.

In the current EU-Morocco fisheries agreement, registered vessels, including some from the UK, are allowed to fish extensively off the coast of Western Sahara. For these access rights, I understand that the Moroccan Government receive a €30 million contribution over a four-year period. This is in clear violation of a 2002 UN opinion on the matter, which stated that any such activities must benefit the people of Western Sahara. Could the Minister tell the House what benefit the people of Western Sahara receive from these access rights?

The European Court of Justice, in a judgment of 21 December 2016, determined that the 2012 agreement between the EU and Morocco concerning reciprocal liberalisation measures on agricultural products and fishery products provided no legal basis for including Western Sahara within its territorial scope. This decision was confirmed by the UK High Court in April 2019, yet the UK Government are now seeking to roll over the EU-Morocco association agreement into UK legislation.

I hope the Minister will agree that the UK Government should now enforce the judgment of the High Court so that no goods should be imported into the UK from the Western Sahara under the presumption that they are from Morocco. Only once the people of Western Sahara have expressed their right to self-determination will the UK be able to trade legally in goods produced in the Western Sahara. The UK Government should now use that High Court judgment as a basis to support the UN supervised process of self-determination. I hope the Minister will agree.

[Lord Patten (Con)]

My Lords, I admired the stoicism of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, as he sat waiting for his eagerly awaited speech in your Lordships’ Chamber for such a long period, while what I can describe only as a lot of wet fish filibustering went on during the preceding proceedings. Then, lo and behold, the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, gets up and gives us another barrel of wet fish off the coast of Morocco.

All that said, while congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, on his interesting speech, I have decided to make myself his Official Opposition, as noble Lords can see in this crowded Chamber tonight. That is, I regret this regret Motion very much indeed, first, because of its lack of procedural timeliness and, secondly, in case perceived messages coming from your Lordships’ House during this debate harm Anglo-Moroccan relations and the perception of other countries on the north African-Mediterranean littoral which are vital to our security, such as Algeria and Tunisia.

On my first point, Labour did not, I think, at any stage in either place try to force a proper debate or find a way to get the issue raised during the objection period for this excellent UK-Morocco association agreement, which ended on 11 February. The simple facts on the ground are that the agreement, under our procedures, is now deemed to be ratified. The debate on the regret Motion is therefore no more than a bit of interesting virtue signalling and has absolutely no effect on what has happened with this excellent agreement. We must recognise the facts on the ground: the Moroccan Government are in charge of the Western Sahara and have been since the hopelessly failed decolonisation by the Spanish of the area in decades past. What a muddle the Spanish made of that whole process.

It is not just this House that wishes to have a trade association with Morocco; the EU—our neighbours and friends—has also canonised, recognised and re-recognised the reality on the ground in its recent agreements with Morocco. This is despite the fact that the Spanish—I should not have got myself going on the Spanish—still occupy two areas. I am not quite certain what they are properly described as. Enclaves? Exclaves? They are Spanish city states on the north African coast, on Moroccan territory, which Morocco wants back—and quite rightly too. They are called Ceuta and Melilla. The last of those two enclaves/exclaves/city states on the north African shore still has a statue of Generalissimo Franco standing. There is not one of those in Spain, but it certainly signifies the Spanish attitude and pinpoints the strangeness of their attitude to British Gibraltar in comparison.

Morocco says that the disputed territory belongs to it. I have had no connection at all on this with either the Moroccan Government or any special interest groups. The Polisario problem, which is real and which I do not dispute, will take decades, if not generations, to sort out. In the meantime, I do not wish to see our growing bilateral trade with Morocco suffer. It is fast approaching £3 billion a year in visibles, which is a very substantial amount of money, while in invisibles—I work in the City, although I have no interest to declare in this debate—we have excellent and growing links between the bourse in Casablanca, which is growing fast in north African terms, and the London Stock Exchange, which I wish to see flourish. I do not wish to put anything in the way of this growth. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, does not really wish to either.

Secondly, I regard Morocco and its neighbours, Algeria and Tunisia, to be not just important economic partners but also very important strategic partners in defeating terrorism along the north African littoral. Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia are, in their different ways, bastions against terrorism, whatever criticisms people wish to throw against their Governments. They should be much valued for that.