Trade Bill — House of Lords, 2019-03-06
Topic: Foreign Trade
Rona Fairhead (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, Lord Purvis of Tweed and Lord Hannay of Chiswick, for tabling Amendments 12 and 35. They seek to ensure that Parliament has a significant role in free trade agreements and impose obligations on the Government and a scrutiny committee in relation to mandate-setting, transparency and approval of free trade agreements I fully understand the desire of noble Lords right across the House to ensure that there is strong and effective scrutiny of future trade agreements. It is an objective that the Government share. We have listened carefully to the views put forward in both Houses on this topic and last week published comprehensive proposals for enhanced scrutiny of future trade agreements in a Command Paper. This included confirmation that we would publish our outline approach to negotiations, including our objectives, accompanied by detailed economic analysis We further committed to publishing progress reports after each negotiating round and an annual trade report across all live negotiations. This draws on best practice internationally and will ensure a high degree of public transparency around our negotiations. In terms of Parliament’s role, we committed that we would work closely with a committee, or one in each House, to ensure that it could effectively scrutinise negotiations from start to finish, as well as setting out opportunities for scrutiny of FTAs throughout negotiations It is to this role that Amendments 12 and 35 apply. I will address these amendments and our proposal in this area in more detail. Amendment 12 would disapply CRaG to trade agreements and instead require that the agreement secured the approval of both Houses prior to being ratified, as well as requiring the approval of both Houses for negotiating mandates. Without wishing to revisit ground that was covered during Committee, it is worth reiterating that such a proposal goes to fundamental constitutional principles that underline the negotiation of international treaties. The negotiation and making of treaties, including international trade agreements, is a function of the Executive. This rule is not only the result of centuries of constitutional practice but also serves an important function. It enables the UK to speak clearly, with a single voice, as a unitary actor under international law. It ensures that partners know our views and are able to have faith that our position, as presented formally in negotiations, is the position of the United Kingdom Regarding the setting of mandates, we have considered international practice, and it is telling that there was none among those we considered in which the legislature had this role. That includes the EU, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, referred to the United States. It is true that the United States legislature is different from ours. Congress does not vote on a mandate for each agreement but delegates authority for brokering trade agreements through a trade promotion authority. This includes setting out overall objectives for trade negotiations and legislation but not specifically for individual deals. The trade promotion authority then enables an expedited process for the consideration of trade deals whereby Congress has 30 days to consider the mandate for an individual country negotiation and can call hearings on them with the United States representative. They are therefore consulted in relation to the specific mandate for each country and during negotiations, as we plan to consult Parliament The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said that there had been no consultation with Parliament, but there was a debate on 21 February to consult the Commons on four new free trade agreements we are considering. As he will understand, we are unable to negotiate right now while we are members of the EU. We will ensure that Parliament has the opportunity to scrutinise the outline approach to negotiations, and those would usually go to general debate in each House.