Private International Law (Implementation of Agreements) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2020-10-06
Topic: International Affairs
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): We have had a constructive set of debates on the Bill, and I pay tribute to all Members for the approach that has been adopted. I pay particular tribute to the skill and elan with which the Minister has steered the Bill through the House: he is a credit to our mutual profession. He is certainly no Henry VIII—and I say that in a good way—but of course he and I are both proud members of the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple. The nearest Tudor connection I can find is that the first Middle Templar to be Lord Chancellor was Lord, previously Sir, Richard Rich, for those who follow "A Man for All Seasons". I am not sure whether that is a good sign, but I do not think that the Minister is a Richard in terms of personal integrity, since he was certainly one of the most successful Lord Chancellors but also one of the most corrupt. We have moved forward a great deal, and I suspect that the legacy still entertains us in Middle Temple with the wine cellar The Minister has done a great job on the Bill, and I hope he will reflect on some of the comments made, none of which were aimed to obstruct or make life difficult for the Government, because we all share the objective. I welcome the tone adopted throughout by the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), and those on the SNP Front Bench. It is important for the country’s sake that we get this right It has been rightly observed that this is not just about dry technical law. When I went to the London School of Economics in the ’70s, it had an international law module, which most of us avoided. It had just introduced a European law module, and somebody said, "There’ll never be much work around that," which shows how things can be got wrong. As we exit a period of 40 or more years during which EU law has been an increasingly important part of our domestic and international legal systems, it is all the more important that we have a proper means of getting private international law agreements on a sound footing. I think we all share the Government’s objective in that I suspect that this may not be the last we hear of the Bill, either in the other place or here. I hope we will find a constructive way forward that meets some of the concerns raised in the other place about how scrutiny is dealt with. I welcome the Minister’s longer-term commitment to look at those issues. I hope he will take away the criminal sanctions aspect in particular, and the need to look at how CRaG operates May I give the Minister a further reading list, so to speak? As well as the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and the other things for a wet Friday, perhaps he could look at the Law Society and Bar Council briefings on how we deal with the two issues that I flagged briefly in Committee in relation to our having a proportionate and effective means of scrutinising the declarations that are frequently attached to international legal agreements. International agreements are often adopted by country with a declaration that modifies or limits the extent of its application to varying degrees. The Bill provides for the affirmative procedure for the initial adherence to the treaties, but it might not, as far as we can see at the moment, cover how we would properly scrutinise the declarations, which could have a significant impact An example of that, if the Minister wants it, is that we are committed to seeking to join in our own right the Hague choice of court convention 2005, which is an important document. When we joined it as part of the EU, the EU opted to exclude insurance contracts from that agreement. The provisions that we made following the withdrawal agreement and the memorandum on delegated powers that accompanies this Bill suggest that we will continue to exclude insurance contracts from it We need to think about why that is and how we will deal with scrutiny of changes to that, because the potential effect of that is to deprive court judgments based on excluded contracts of the right to be enforced by the 2005 convention when we hopefully sign up to it. That would leave a considerable gap in a very important sector of the British economy. Insurance and reinsurance markets are of real significance to the financial world, and we need to have a means of adjusting the position if that is required and taking on board those concerns. That is precisely the area where it is suggested that we should be talking to the experts in not only private international law but the insurance sector. I have already declared my interests in relation to these matters, but it is important that we take that as an example A similar issue arises in relation to how we will deal with model laws. Model laws are not international conventions that impose rights and duties between contracting states, but they are what are sometimes termed agreed soft law provisions, which are often modified substantially before they are given effect in domestic law. They are important, none the less, and they are a growing area of activity, so I hope the Minister can think about the mechanism that we have to ensure that they are properly scrutinised, as well as being brought in timeously. I flag those up as examples of what we need to do. It is certainly important that we do not just stop at joining Lugano. Whether it is on the face of the Bill or not, I know that the Minister and the Government are committed to joining it, and that is an important first step, but as we all know, there are other conventions that it is most important we seek to join, some of which have already been mentioned. I hope that we will push on swiftly, for example, to implement and ratify the 1997, 2005 and 2007 Hague conventions, because between them they would provide a suite of the vital civil and family law co-operation measures that we want to see continue after the transition period Of course, we also hope that the Government will ratify and implement in England and Wales the 2000 Hague convention on the international protection of adults. It has already been brought into force in Scotland but not in England and Wales, and it seems bizarre that a vulnerable adult could be treated differently if they were in Gloucester as opposed to Glasgow. That implementation would, for example, enable us to deal with important issues relating to vulnerable adults such as people who are subject to powers of attorney or who are under the jurisdiction of the Court of Protection and who might have overseas assets or overseas properties. Not having continuity of legal recognition of the judgments and contracts that are entered into could make it difficult to deal with those persons’ affairs These are techie issues, but they affect real lives, so the technical is not insignificant or without a human dimension. I hope that, as we go forward on a constructive basis, we can ensure that, having decided to leave the EU and branch out into broader areas of economic activity, the Government will make a concerted effort, as both the Law Society and the Bar Council have called for, to take a lead in selling, maintaining and building on the UK’s position as a jurisdiction of choice. Tens of thousands of jobs depend on it, as does billions of pounds-worth of economic activity, and it is in our fundamental national, strategic, economic interest to do this. With this Bill on the statute book, I hope that that is the most important thing the Government take forward as a matter of high policy in our negotiations to, hopefully, exit the EU with a deal, and in future free trade agreements So far, it has been tough to get free trade agreements to deal with services, and legal services in particular, but we have a potentially strong asset in our legal system and in the integrity and standing of our judiciary, which we should never pillory. No politician should ever knock lawyers for the sake of it, because ultimately, respect for the integrity of the system is fundamental. I know that the Minister and the Lord Chancellor share that view, and I hope that the Bill will give us an opportunity to build strongly on that.