Working Practices (International Agreements Committee Report) — House of Lords, 2022-05-19
Topic: Mixed Topics
Dianne Hayter (Labour, Centre-left): Oh, go on—be generous. I shall comment on the Minister’s response so I hope the other speakers will forgive me for not going through everything they said, although I thank everyone who has contributed, particularly the members of the committee, whose expertise has been witnessed today Clearly, important statements were made about our negotiating objectives, and the need for us to discuss those, by the noble Lord, Lord Oates, my noble friends Lord Hendy and Lord McNicol and the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley. As well as my noble and learned friend Lord Morris, I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, and the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley also mentioned the devolved Administrations. As well as involving them, there is a clear need to get other stakeholders involved in this, which the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans mentioned, particularly in relation to TAGs. Personally, I was rather disappointed that Which?, the only independent spokesperson for consumers, was excluded by the Government from the domestic advisory group, or DAG—albeit on the Europe issue, rather than on what we deal with. This suggests that the Government do not really want to listen to other voices Today’s main point, to which we must return—I am sorry not to touch on the others—is about where control over all this happens. Most of this debate, as my noble friend Lord McNicol said, is about the role of Parliament in scrutinising what the Government are doing. I do not think that the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, used the phrase "bring back control". However, she and my noble friend Lady Liddell were essentially asking what the point was of having brought things back here, away from the hands of foreigners, if only to give them to an even smaller number of Ministers. The Minister has just used the phrase "with a big majority in the House of Commons", as if to tell us in the House of Lords where to go. That was not point of bringing things back to Parliament—that they should just be done. As the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, and the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, said, other Parliaments manage this. I have just come back from Washington DC, where the Committee on Ways and Means interferes far more with deals than we do—so we are not asking for anything ludicrous I must spend a moment on the MoU, given the debate we have just had. Sweden and Finland probably think that what we promised them was binding. Hearing now from the Minister that it is not may concern them just a bit, particularly if Turkey is going to hold them out of NATO for a while. So the Minister has now told us that the only security they have been given is not worth the paper it was written on. This is something of a surprise The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, warned that MoUs should not be used as a substitute for scrutiny, and my noble friend Lord Stansgate, I think, used the expression "should not evade it" I must now come to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, who asked us to consider his TICs—taken into considerations. The only thing taken into consideration is that, sometimes, he is quite outrageous—even though he is a maestro. He at least honoured Ponsonby when he was at the Foreign Office. The idea that CRaG got rid of Ponsonby is a really big legal issue that we will have to discuss. There will no doubt be very experienced lawyers, even now, offering to give their opinions on it I am grateful to the Minister for attempting to respond to this debate. I felt a bit sorry for him—but not very. I am really worried about his view that CRaG, passed when we were in the European Union, is still fit for purpose. Despite trumpeting the view that we have now taken the ability to negotiate our own trade deals, he somehow considers an Act passed to deal with trade deals when we were not dealing with them as fit for purpose. He needs to go back to his department and look at that. He says that there is big difference because the public are now more aware; I think that the bigger difference is that we are not in the European Union and we are doing our own deals The House will have to come back to Ponsonby. In addition to our disagreement on the view, the Foreign Secretary sent the most bizarre letter I have ever received on 11 May, saying that she should not meet us as a committee, given the positions held—that is, that we differ from each other. I thought that you met when you had a disagreement to reach consensus. That is what happened with the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone. It is true that we had some private discussions in the bar, but we also had discussions in our committee and we reached the agreement. That agreement is not a concordat, as the right reverend Prelate wanted, but we suggested an exchange of letters instead. We said that would do, if the Government did not want to call it a concordat. We got there; we reached a compromise, because we sat down as a committee and agreed it there. So the idea that a Foreign Office Minister will not meet us because we disagree seems quite extraordinary We need to move forward on this. Our committee will meet next week, when I am sure we will discuss how to take it further. As I say, our discussions with the Department for International Trade have shown that we can move forward. I very much hope that the Minister will take back to the Foreign Office that we are willing to reach a compromise and we need to move forward in a better way, with Parliament being able to scrutinise the decisions the Government take under Crown privilege or any other way. I undertake to the House that our committee will continue to scrutinise treaties and other agreements and less than agreements and undertakings, and will report to the House accordingly While I agree with my noble friend Lord Stansgate that the Government should take note of our report, my position is to formally move that this report is noted by this House.