Trade Bill

Baroness Hooper Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I will intervene on the Bill, which is not my normal territory, although I have 20 years’ experience of working on equalities issues in your Lordships’ House. I will speak in support of Amendment 32, in the name of my noble friend Lord Stevenson, which requires the Government to lay before Parliament a qualitative and quantitative assessment, after five years, of the impact of new international trade agreements on human rights standards and people with protected characteristics under domestic equality law, among other things. It also provides transparency on the impact of such agreements on fundamental rights. As far as I can tell, the UK Government are a party to all the bodies mentioned in this amendment, so this should not be an issue and there should be no question about it. I should like some assurance from the Minister that, over the next five years, we will comply with all these international treaties on human rights and equalities.

I agree with noble Lords who said that compliance with equalities has to be judged by an independent body—I certainly know that. It should not be judged by the Government themselves. I thank the Equality and Human Rights Commission for its briefing on this subject. Its concern is that we,

“retain the UK’s equality and human rights legal framework as we leave the EU”,

and we ensure that,

“the UK remains a global leader on equality and human rights”,

after we leave the European Union. That is consistent with the UK being an open and fair place to live and do business. Certainly, if the Government do not accept the length of this amendment, I hope that they will accept the spirit of it, and that that will be expressed at the next stage of the Bill.

[Baroness Hooper (Con)]

My Lords, I also have sympathy with the concept of impact assessments. After all, they will apply equally to rollover agreements and future trade agreements, so it is perfectly appropriate to raise this issue and discuss it at this stage of the Bill. I also agree that it is important to have an independent body and not the Government themselves as a monitoring body, and that there should be arrangements to cover all parts of the United Kingdom equally and fairly. I am persuaded by the argument for simplicity in all this; therefore, I support my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe’s amendment in particular. There is a danger in making lists, because they can become out of date.

[Lord Lilley]

My Lords, the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, and others of the same gist are remarkable. In my 35 years in Parliament, I do not recall Parliament ever having subjected any trade agreement negotiated by the European Union to the level of scrutiny which it is proposed that future trade agreements negotiated by ourselves should be subjected. This is remarkable evidence that the Opposition are converted to the merits of having an independent trade policy because it will mean that we can influence it and work it to our own advantage. Of course, that would not be the case if we had a customs union-type arrangement similar to Turkey. Turkey does not participate at all in the negotiation of European free trade agreements with others, but is simply a pawn in those agreements. We would be too, if we were in a customs arrangement with Europe but not part of Europe—in other words, if the policy of the noble Lord’s party were to become effective, as I am sure he would agree—and those sorts of assessments would become irrelevant.

More substantively, in the past when I was involved in negotiating the Uruguay round, for example, one thing that disturbed me was the difficulty of becoming accountable to the House—then the House of Commons—for what I was doing. It is quite difficult for Ministers to be accountable for something that they are negotiating, because they can always come back and say, “We got the best possible deal. If it hadn’t been for my brilliant negotiation, it would be even worse”. It is very hard for the House to respond to that. That left me feeling uneasy. If we can find a way to ensure that negotiations are properly reported, assessed and held accountable to the House, that is a good thing. One of the bad consequences of them not being accountable is that officials did not take the job of being accountable to Parliament at all seriously. They felt they were accountable to the international organisations with which they were negotiating. One needs to be worried about that and it is why it is important that we have accountability. If Parliament holds Ministers accountable, officials will be responsive to Ministers and to what the House wants—not to what international organisations and their peers in other organisations want.

That is not a party-political point. When I made that point in the Commons, my Labour opposite number came up and said it was exactly the sort of thing she experienced, not in trade matters but in other matters. Where she was not responsible to the House, officials did not take that responsibility seriously. The noble Lord and his colleagues are on to something important with their approach, which I prefer to the simplicity of the approach of my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe. When we have our independent trade policy, it will be important to find ways to hold Ministers to account.

Trade Bill

Baroness Hooper Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 23rd January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patten of Barnes (Con)]

Could I just add to the points made by noble Lords? All this has been said before, when we discussed these matters a year ago. We were assured that everything was hunky-dory and that this process of rolling over existing trade agreements was going very smoothly. I recall one occasion when, after we had discussed it here, I was invited to a briefing by Trade and DExEU Ministers. They explained how easy it would be and took as an example one particular trade deal that I happened to know about because I had negotiated it as European Commissioner. I remembered how difficult the issues we had had to deal with were about rules of origin and surges in agricultural imports. Here I was being told that something that had taken us five or six years to negotiate would be negotiated, along with everything else, by the Department for International Trade.

Maybe between now and the end of March the department will get its socks on and go like the clappers, but somehow I do not think it will. I think that what will happen is it will redefine what the objective is, as Dr Fox was doing this morning. Dr Fox presumably knows the difference between a mutual recognition agreement and a free trade agreement, but this morning he was talking as though they were the same thing. I greatly sympathise with the Minister, because I do not think she will be able to enlighten us very much on the particular progress that has been made over recent weeks and months by our ubiquitous International Trade Secretary.

[Baroness Hooper (Con)]

My Lords, your Lordships’ House has the privilege of having as Members a number of former European Union Trade Commissioners. I am very happy that a least one of them is here and able to contribute from his specialised knowledge to our debate.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Trade (Baroness Fairhead) (Con)]

My Lords, I will address Amendment 18 first. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, and all who have spoken in the debate. The themes from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, the noble Lord, Lord Fox, and my noble friends Lord Patten and Lady Hooper are similar points. I will try to address them as much as I can. I also recognise the assertion from the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, that this is a probing amendment.

This is an important issue and I fully understand the need to provide some reassurance. I will try, as much as I can, to do so. I start by reiterating that we value and benefit from our international agreements, and we want to continue to co-operate with our global partners across a range of issues—not just trade but air services, climate change, international development and nuclear co-operation. As such, we are working with countries and multilateral organisations worldwide to put in place arrangements to ensure continuity of those international agreements.

We have agreed with the EU that it will notify treaty partners that, during the implementation period, the United Kingdom is to be treated as a member state for the purposes of these agreements. We think that this approach is the best platform for continuity during the implementation period across all agreements, but it would be for those individual third countries and multilateral bodies to determine whether any domestic action, including amendments to domestic legislation, is required. We do not expect that such actions will be required in every instance, but we understand that some parties, as the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, said, will choose and be required to take some internal steps where they think that to be necessary.

Trade Bill

Baroness Hooper Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansarad): House of Lords
Monday 21st January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 5 and before going any further I want to associate ourselves positively with its spirit. We are probably going to hear the word “continuity” many times over the next four days, but I feel that the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has forfeited the right to use it. The clue is in the word “revisit”, which, by its nature, is not continuity but is proposing what he and we believe to be a beneficial discontinuity. It is quite clear that in this country and in other countries—as the noble Lord set out, this covers not just UK SMEs but SMEs in general, and certainly that is the wording in his amendment—economies and employment flourish where SMEs flourish. That is a good thing and we would ask the Minister whether this amendment is necessary for the future, to make sure that we do not fall foul of our own rules in terms of discriminating in favour of small and medium-sized companies.

I reiterate the fact that, as well as trade policy, commercial policy is central to this. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, mentioned the government strategy: it is about how the Government choose to drive these policies home, through their commercial strategy and through the size of the packages they put out to bid, for example. We saw a recent example around the broadband structural bidding, in which it was quite clear that the overall size of the package militated against small and medium-sized companies bidding. That is nothing to do with trade policy, it is to do with the commercial policy of the Government at the time. So we support this with the proviso that the Minister comes back and says whether it actually achieves what the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, is hoping to achieve. I also enjoin all members of the Government to deliver the commercial part of the spirit of this amendment.

[Baroness Hooper (Con)]

My Lords, both these amendments provide us with a useful opportunity for discussion on important areas of trade, but both are without a doubt, to my mind, without the Bill. If we approach them in this spirit I think we can accept them as a useful addition for the future. I support my noble friend Lord Lansley’s Amendment 5 and will concentrate upon it because there is always a lot of rhetoric about SMEs and the need to encourage and support them, particularly in this context of increasing and developing international trade and their trading opportunities, and especially in this brave new world that awaits us after Brexit. Therefore, to have a specific quota for procurement is a very good way of drawing attention to the needs of small businesses and to encourage them to come forward when the time comes. Because it is not just a question of legislation: with all trade, it is a question of getting people out and about in the countries where we hope that they will find trading opportunities.

When we talk about international trade, of course there is much more to it than that. There is the whole issue of language skills and specialised negotiating skills which, by their very nature, small and medium-sized businesses may not be able to cope with. They are not likely to have the specialised staff or even the budgets to deal with this. I think that for the future we can certainly build on this amendment and the intention behind it, but as I said at the outset, not in this Bill. I trust that my noble friend the Minister will be able to reassure us that these interventions are not wasted but will be of great use when we come to deal with individual trade Bills in the future.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 4 in the name of my noble friend. I declare an interest as president of the Woodland Trust and as president or vice-president of a range of environmental organisations.

The noble Lord, Lord Fox, was absolutely right when he said that these would be the “continuity” four days. I will make that point shortly with regard to what we are trying to do with this amendment. It is important that we ensure that our joining of the GPA as an independent entity maintains all sorts of standards: employment and human rights equalities, SME targets, other government national priorities and, in particular, on the environment. I therefore support Amendment 4 to enable conditions to be applied to tenders for services.

I will say more about the importance of maintaining environmental standards when we come to the group starting with Amendment 8. However, on Amendment 4 I will simply say that it is a very different thing to operate as one of the EU 28. It was pretty easy to have high environmental ambition when we were sailing as a pack, as it were. It will be very different when we are negotiating as an isolated country, either with the World Trade Organization or in bilateral agreements. I therefore do not believe that the Bill can be just about continuity, because continuity is not an option; in the future we will be operating in a very different environment in all our trade arrangements. It is important to ensure that standards—in my case, particularly environmental standards—are reinforced in all the trade mechanisms we are putting in place as part of a Brexit mechanism.

I therefore very much support Amendment 4 with regard to our changed membership of the GPA and subsequent tenders and contracts, which are an important part of that wider trade system that we are now entering into—which is not an issue of continuity.

Trade Bill

Baroness Hooper Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I want to raise what probably feels like a niche issue from a slightly different angle; it seems relevant when we are talking about amendments dealing with the regulation of performance and the environment. If I may, I will do so through an example, although I think that the example probably applies in many other areas.

When I was a Minister at the Department for Transport, I dealt briefly with a niche industry in the UK: specialist car manufacturers, sometimes known as small and ultra-small volume manufacturers. Noble Lords will know their names: Lotus, Williams, Aston Martin and so on. The industry is almost uniquely British; a few Italians may play in the same arena, but globally the industry is essentially British. It has managed to thrive because the EU has recognised the significance of the industry through its turnover of around £3.5 billion per year. That is not insignificant, although it is not on the same scale as agriculture.

The EU has been willing to carve out special provisions for this group of manufacturers, which often cannot meet performance and environmental standards in the way that mass automobile manufacturers can and should. It has managed to open up global markets for those cars by incorporating those niche provisions in its trade agreements: 65% of these cars are exported. The largest market is the United States, where environmental and performance standards are never really an issue; it starts from a very low base. The manufacturers get permission to sell these cars in the EU, which is the next-biggest market, followed by South Korea and Japan. It is only because of the EU’s size that it has been able to create those niche opportunities for this industry. I am interested to know whether the UK believes that it can continue, in its rollover arrangements, to provide that ongoing protection to what one might describe as a somewhat resented industry, even though it is rather successful.

The other achievement of the EU because of its power, breadth and size is its vigorous and strict standards for mass-market cars, despite its significant exception to deal with this essentially British industry. The EU will have no interest in continuing that arrangement post Brexit; as I said, some cars are made in Italy, but no Government anywhere else in the EU will be concerned about this issue. The industry is already very concerned that, following no deal, it may find the EU quick to eliminate the carve-out. That is possible and it is a serious question, but another question concerns whether the carve-out can be preserved in these rollovers and continued in future arrangements when the UK will be negotiating from a much weaker position.

Can the Minister help us work our way through this? I suspect that this industry is not the only niche one. As the Minister will know, the EU has been very good about providing opportunities for highly specialist and select industries that are specific to one of its member countries. I suspect that my experience with the automotive sector is repeated elsewhere. The EU uses its large heft to protect the relatively small. Can the Minister give us some clarity, since these deals are being negotiated as we speak?

[Baroness Hooper (Con)]

My Lords, I fully accept the Government’s assurances in relation to this group of amendments that there is absolutely no intention to lower standards and that the existing protections for consumers will be preserved. However, as has been shown in the discussions so far, there is a cause for concern. While the British Government intend to roll over the agreements without making any change, there is some uncertainty about whether the other parties with which we will be negotiating have the same point of view. The issues have been discussed sufficiently for me not to repeat what has been said, but I suggest that there are a couple of safeguards which have not been mentioned.

The global demand for British goods is based on our high standards. People buy British goods not because they are cheap but because of their high quality. Therefore, to disregard food standards would undermine any possibilities in that area. I understand that the EU withdrawal Act ensures that all existing EU environmental law will continue to operate in UK law. That again provides businesses and stakeholders with certainty.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. We have stressed throughout the debates about Brexit how important European law has been in driving UK environmental law. However, there are still whole swathes of environmental law in the UK which were actually invented by us. They are not yet safeguarded and could be undermined by trade deals.

[Baroness Hooper]

I bow to the superior knowledge of the noble Baroness in this area and I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to reply.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I agree with much of what has been said in the debate and your Lordships will be pleased to know that I will not repeat the arguments. I shall also try not to be one of the dreamers referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Judd. In speaking to Amendment 10, the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, talked about services and I agree with much of what she said. She stressed the need to ensure that the Government retain the right to decide where services are delivered from. Unfortunately it turned into a double-edged sword when she then conflated that with the removal of much of the substance of the amendments proposed by my noble friend. Having heard the debate, I hope she feels that perhaps it would be as well to leave it in.

The Prime Minister has today singled out two elements of what we find in the general thrust of the amendments before us. She has said,

“we will embed the strongest possible protections on workers’ rights and the environment”.

That concedes a weakness in that area where there was a perception that the Government were perhaps seeking to water down those standards and presumably that is what the Prime Minister is seeking to avoid. But only those two areas have been chosen although there are many other important elements which have been considered in this debate. That puts the areas which are not on the Prime Minister’s list at a disadvantage. That is why it is important to ignore the advice of the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, and seek to put the elements set out in these amendments into the Bill. They would add food quality, animal health, hygiene and welfare, ethical standards and so on.

The noble Baronesses, Lady McIntosh of Pickering and Lady Hooper, were quite right to point out that our food is sold on the back of our high-quality agriculture. It is special, but you cannot be special if you are producing food to a lower standard. I think that we should be a little worried and suspicious if these standards are not included in the Bill.

We have heard some warm words from Defra which have been quoted by other noble Lords, but we have also heard some disquieting words coming from other departments, particularly that of the Minister herself, the Department for International Trade. However, I exonerate her from being one of the people saying these things.

When it comes to negotiating other standards— I know we are on a continuity kick here—what we say on continuity counts for what comes later. That is absolutely central and is why this debate has been really important. There have been noises off around deals with the United States and other things, and standards will be a key part of that negotiation. Unless we draw firm lines here in this Bill and beyond, those standards will be in play. I do not think we want them to be in play.

Finally, I come back to Amendments 8 and 53 in the name of my noble friend Lord Purvis. Proposed paragraph (c) of Amendment 53 states that,

“the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament an assessment of the potential economic, social, human rights and environmental impacts of the international trade agreement on the contracting parties”.

This, and nothing else, is the single most important part of this debate. We need to ensure that the DIT has the competence and people who can do that work, and we need to support these amendments.

Trade Bill

Baroness Hooper Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 11th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hooper (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a most illuminating debate. As most speakers have said, clarity and certainty are what is most needed for business, investment and the future prosperity of this country. My noble friend the Minister gave us an outline of what is intended with great clarity. Indeed, I do not envy the task facing my noble friend of winding up a debate which has been very wide-ranging, has included a remarkable maiden speech, and has attempted in some cases to make what she described in her introduction as a “technical Bill” to give the UK Government “the powers they need—nothing more” into something far more comprehensive and complicated.

I am not going to follow the example of the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, in going through the clauses of the Bill, because I wish to focus on aspects of the trade opportunities. I shall use as an example Latin America, a region with which I am familiar and which, incidentally, has a combined population of well over 500 million—rather comparable to that of the European Union itself. Latin America comprises 20 republics and has huge and important natural resources and tremendous good will towards the United Kingdom because of the historic support we gave to their independence movements over 200 years ago. Many of them also have enviable GDP growth, although I recognise that, at the moment, some have rather acute political and economic problems.

The European Union already has trade agreements with Mexico, central America, Colombia and Chile, all of which will be candidates for the rollover procedure that my noble friend the Minister explained at the outset. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, who suggested that Chile has already expressed the wish to do more than just roll over, and that may well be the case for other countries in Latin America as well. There is also the possibility that the long-awaited European Union-Mercosur agreement will be concluded before March next year. Indeed, it is hoped that it will be concluded before the elections in Brazil in October. The Mercosur countries are, of course, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay—in all of which the United Kingdom already has a presence, but where there is plenty of scope for improvement. In addition, there is the potential for a future agreement with the Alianza del Pacifico countries: Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile.

It must be remembered that in these cases we will have to negotiate with the trade blocs as a whole and not with the individual countries, as we might prefer to do. We may prefer to choose or cherry pick—however noble Lords wish to describe it—but that may come as a surprise to some people. These countries are committed to trading as a bloc, in much the same way as we have been within the European Union. I am happy to say that a good start has been made with the appointment of a trade commissioner to Latin America, Jo Crellin, who is currently based in São Paulo and working on a trade plan for the region. In addition, the Prime Minister has appointed special trade envoys to Mexico, Brazil and Panama, along with one to Colombia, Peru and Chile combined. My noble friend Lord Risby gave us a very good account of the value of such voluntary appointments. There has also been an increase in ministerial visits to the region, and many countries in Latin America see Brexit as an opportunity to increase their trade with the United Kingdom as it looks beyond its traditional partners. All that sounds very hopeful.

Can my noble friend reassure me, however, that when the time comes to get up and go, her department will have adequate qualified staff, with adequate language skills, to enter into negotiations once this framework Bill is in place and, indeed, once we know whether we will have a transitional period during which to sort ourselves out? Much as we all appreciate the efforts of our ambassadors and diplomats, which have already been referred to, a lot more will be needed. As a matter of interest, is it intended to redeploy the Brits currently working in the trade team in Brussels for this purpose?

When the time comes to enter into these bilateral trade deals, on which the Government are placing so many hopes for a post-Brexit Britain, I trust there will be a strong focus on some areas that have already been mentioned, including health and medicine and agriculture. But there is also the education sector and the energy sector, especially renewables. Indeed, the Prime Minister announced a strategy today for more clean energy, with electric cars, increased battery storage facilities and all the research that is involved in that. These will be important areas to move forward in and, as focus areas, would provide opportunities for reciprocal trade and investment with Latin American countries.

Like others who have spoken in this debate, I wish to make it clear that I voted to remain in the European Union in the referendum. I would very much prefer to feel that we had the clout of a group of like-minded countries with which to negotiate, and with which to insist on the ethical, environmental and other social policy standards that we have developed within the European Union, but I hope and trust that those will continue to be applied by our negotiators in the future. In spite of that, I believe now that we must all make every effort to make the best of going it alone. It is in that spirit that I wish the Bill a fair wind.

Brexit: Trade Agreements

Baroness Hooper Excerpts

Wednesday 17th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fairhead]

My Lords, the UK is a very strong believer in free trade, within rules. Trade means trade within rules. As I said, we will be pursuing our free trade policy and will try to take advantage of the opportunities that exist today. In my department, we are focused on building our export sales, which we can do in the current environment and through our free trade agreements.

[Baroness Hooper (Con)]

My Lords, can my noble friend tell us whether it is intended to replace the current trade agreement between the EU and central America with separate trade agreements with each of the central American countries or to continue on the path of the EU agreement?

[Baroness Fairhead]

The initial plan is to make sure that we have as much continuity as possible. We are trying to replicate the effects of that as much as possible. As I said, we now have working groups looking at a variety of options and approaches to free trade agreements. We will progress those when we are able to do so, after we leave the EU.