Trade Bill

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Report stage & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 6th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley (PC) [V]]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and to support very warmly the vital point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hain, who has shown such great commitment to Northern Ireland over the years and continues to do so, particularly in the dimension of the Brexit process. I also warmly support the comments made by the noble Baronesses, Lady Ritchie and Lady Altmann, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames. I address these remarks particularly to subsection (1)(b) of the new clause proposed in Amendment 26, relating to goods originating in, or moving from, Northern Ireland and entering Great Britain.

Assurances were given to business in Northern Ireland by the Prime Minster that there would be no bureaucratic hindrances whatever on the goods they trade with other parts of the United Kingdom. It now appears that in some circumstances there can be documentary imposition placed upon them. This has serious implications for those selling such goods and those operating ports such as Holyhead. I remind the House that many of the products from Northern Ireland destined for UK markets have in the recent past been coming via Dublin and Holyhead. This is a matter I have repeatedly raised here in the Chamber. If trade such as this requires documentation, whereas trade directly from Northern Ireland to English ports does not, clearly this represents discrimination against Holyhead whether the goods, or part of them, originated wholly in Northern Ireland or were partly imported from third countries.

Holyhead has already suffered in recent days since the conclusion of the Brexit deal, with shipments that previously would have come from Dublin via Holyhead to English markets or on to continental markets now shipped from other locations in Ireland and not coming via Holyhead. Some, indeed, are going directly to the European mainland. We need clarification, so I hope that the Minister will accept Amendment 26 and can give some assurances, which are needed by those operating the port of Holyhead.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I seek clarification on Amendment 26. We were promised unfettered access to the Northern Ireland market. I am privileged to sit on the EU sub-committee on the environment, which has taken a great deal of evidence on food producers, hauliers, and others in connection with trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the run-up to the agreement now in place from 1 January 2021.

This unfettered access is clearly not in place. Although the briefing I was fortunate to receive last week from the Food and Drink Federation says their concerns in this regard are reduced, they certainly remain. One of the difficulties relates to sausages, which seems to cause great hilarity because of the “Yes Minister” sketch that keeps being revived. Sausages and processed foods such as pies, in the short term, are apparently not permitted to enter the Northern Irish market. Are the Government, including the Minister and his department, aware of this? I know that there is a longer-term concern over these goods as well as milling flour, rice, some sugar products, and seed potatoes to the rest of the European Union, but there is the short-term issue of exporting these goods to Northern Ireland. I imagine that this is an unforeseen consequence of the deal which was announced at very short notice. I would be grateful for a commitment from my noble friend to ensure that this will be resolved and that sausages, whether made in north Yorkshire by Heck or other producers across Great Britain, will have access sooner rather than later to Northern Ireland.

What is the position on the time and cost to be taken on issuing export health certificates? Does my noble friend share my concern and that expressed by others, including the British Veterinary Association, of which I am an honorary associate, about the shortage of vets and potential impact on exports and movement between Great Britain and Northern Ireland in this regard?

There is a need for a provision along the lines of Amendment 26, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say to allay my fears.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the very humble noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer. I shall speak to Amendment 27, which stands in their names and to which I have added mine. I shall also speak to Amendment 47, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, to which I have attached my name, and to Amendment 48, which I think might best be described as a friendly amendment to Amendment 47, as it makes just a small addition to it.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, said in introducing this group, these amendments very much fit together. Amendment 27 refers to the fact that the TRA should listen to a wide range of representative groups. That very much relates to the debate on the preceding group, where the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and many others made a powerful case for the importance of food standards and labelling standards. If consumers were listened to by the TRA, it would certainly be very helpful. As we are in a climate emergency and a nature crisis, we need to make sure that expert voices from that area are listened to as well. It is something that perhaps we do not always see traditionally as part of trade, but it is becoming very obvious that it is a crucial part of the whole issue.

On Amendments 47 and 48 in particular, we know that we have a huge problem with the bodies or organisations that are appointed, particularly by Westminster, being representative of all parts of the country in terms of region, background, knowledge and skills. As has just been highlighted by the appointment of the new chair of the BBC, it would seem that, under this Government, there are very few positions in UK society that a long career in the financial sector does not qualify you for. Crucially, we need our government institutions and bodies to be far more representative of our society as a whole. That means including different voices, genders, backgrounds, regions, educational backgrounds, et cetera. These three amendments taken as a package are a modest but important attempt to ensure that, when we formulate and make decisions about trade policy, a range of voices is heard.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. I shall speak to Amendments 28, 29 and 30, which are intended as probing amendments. I refer in passing to the report on the Trade Bill from the Select Committee on the Constitution, published in September of last year. The committee says at paragraph 11:

“We remain of the view that the Bill’s skeletal approach to empowering the Trade Remedies Authority is inappropriate.”


It goes on to say at paragraph 12:

“We recognise that there continue to be significant uncertainties regarding the UK’s trading relationships at the end of the Brexit transition period”,


which of course has now passed, and it concludes:

“However, it is not clear why, more than two years after the previous version of the Bill was introduced, the functions and powers of the Trade Remedies Authority cannot be set out in more detail in this Bill.”


Therefore, I gently nudge my noble friend the Minister to say, when he responds to Amendments 28, 29 and 30, what the intention behind the original Clause 6 was.

With Amendments 28 and 29, I seek in particular to focus on understanding better what limits might be appropriate to a request to the Trade Remedies Authority to provide advice on matters of international trade, and, with Amendment 30, to clarify the purpose of the initial consultation before proceeding to a request. At this stage, I should say that I am most grateful to the Law Society of Scotland for its assistance in briefing me and preparing these amendments.

With regard to Amendment 30, it is not immediately clear from the legislation why the Secretary of State would consult the Trade Remedies Authority under Clause 6(3) and how this is different from issuing the original request under subsection (1). I might be missing something but, if you are issuing a request, that seems a little odd. I am grateful to the Law Society of Scotland for raising this with me and, in turn, for the House this afternoon. Surely, if you make a request to the Trade Remedies Authority, you do not need to consult the authority beforehand on the nature of that request.

Can my noble friend clarify whether there is any distinction between the two actions, making it clear that the duty to consult in Clause 6(3) relates to framing or scoping a request to the Trade Remedies Authority, just so we can understand why it is appropriate to shape that request when, in fact, the Trade Remedies Authority is meant to be independent and impartial? By going through this process of consultation, I am slightly concerned that that impartiality and independence may be impugned or compromised.

Amendments 28 and 29 point to the fact that the Trade Remedies Authority has already existed, and exists in abstract, having been incorporated by reference in the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Act 2018, although we are formally constituting it in the Trade Bill before us today. If it is the case that the Trade Remedies Authority is responsible for carrying out investigations and advising on remedies as set up under the cross-border trade Act, while it is an essential aspect of international trade, it is only one part of that. The proposed amendment therefore would ensure that requests for advice are limited to matters on which the Trade Remedies Authority is competent to advise, having regard to its remit and functions.

The purpose of this group of three amendments is simply to explore a better understanding from my noble friend and the Government through the department as to what the remit of the TRA should be and to ensure that the independence and impartiality of that body will not be infringed through the present drafting of Clause 6(3).

[Lord Lansley (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this debate. The amendments in this group all relate to the composition, functions and approach taken by the Trade Remedies Authority. I am very glad to follow my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering. She rightly referred to the powers and approach set out in the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Act 2018. I have to say equally gently that that is the answer to the points made by the Constitution Committee of this House—that they do not need to be set out in this legislation, because, way back when we first started considering the previous Trade Bill, as the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, and I fondly remember, it was introduced at almost exactly the same time as the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill. They were intended to proceed in parallel and are now entirely separate.

To some extent, that also gives a further reason why we should briefly consider at this stage the Trade Remedies Authority’s understanding that it has, in the form of the trade remedies investigation directorate of the Department for International Trade, been up and running, working on the transition review from the European Union and making recommendations relating to the imposition of countervailing, anti-dumping or safeguarding duties inherited from the European Commission. To that extent, we seek to influence not something new but something that has an ongoing role.

In this debate, I want to raise several issues. I hope that my noble friend on the Front Bench will not regard it as necessary to elaborate on all these issues now. If he wishes to write later, that is absolutely fine, but I do want to make one or two points.