Trade Bill

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments & Lords Hansard
Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Lords Chamber

As noble Lords will patently see, I am no Cato, and I am not ending my speech with a modern equivalent of “Carthago delenda est”, but I do say that we need a new expression: “China must be challenged”. The Government may have killed the amendment in the other place last night, but we have one measure we can take forward. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and others have said, this issue will not go away. Sooner or later, the Government will have to screw their courage to the sticking point, or we shall all fail.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I am delighted to follow my noble friend and I hope he is completely injury-free and that his chariot will be repaired at the earliest opportunity so that he maintains his mobility. I am full of awe and praise for the noble Lord, Lord Alton. I watched him with great admiration in the other place and I think that, if anything, he has come into his own in this place, so I pay huge tribute to him and those who have supported him in this. I also pay tribute to the Minister. I know there will be some disappointment on a particular aspect, but the Bill will definitely leave this place better than it was before.

I have a specific question about the sequencing of the reports that we are now going to have as trade agreements are being negotiated. We know that the Secretary of State is going to do a report, taking into account the report from the Trade and Agriculture Commission, which I am delighted now has a statutory basis and is on a more permanent footing. That report will come and the Government will presumably find time for it to be debated. I would like to understand better the sequencing of that report with the report that we have agreed today will also come forward if the responsible committee in the House of Commons publishes a draft report and is not satisfied with the Secretary of State’s response. Will the sequencing permit both reports to have been prepared and debated in Parliament before, as my noble friend Lord Lansley said, the free trade agreement is signed by the Government and ratified by Parliament?

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Alderdice) (LD)]

The noble Lord, Lord Balfe, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Polak.