Trade Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-09
Topic: Foreign Trade
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): I rise to speak in favour of denying the Bill a Second Reading, for two simple reasons. The first is that the Bill would simply not be necessary were the Prime Minister and her shambolic Cabinet to reverse their masochistic and deeply misguided decision to reject the option of a soft Brexit by making leaving the EU single market and customs union such a red line in their negotiations with the EU27. The second reason is that the Bill fails to provide for a proper role for Parliament in the scrutiny and approval of the replacement trade agreements The Secretary of State spoke earlier about his apparent commitment to openness and transparency, yet the procedure outlined in the Bill, far from being an improvement on EU scrutiny processes, is significantly worse in that respect. In the UK, trade agreements can be negotiated entirely under royal prerogative powers, giving the Government free rein to decide when and with whom to start negotiations, to decide their own priorities and objectives, to conduct negotiations in deep secrecy and to conclude an agreement without any meaningful scrutiny by Parliament at all. We in this House are therefore in a much worse position than our colleagues in the European Parliament or, indeed, the US Congress. That not only sidelines Members of this House, but prevents input from the public and civil society organisations. That is a huge democratic deficit that must be corrected The second point to make is that Ministers might well be absolutely wrong in suggesting that this is simply a case of rolling over existing EU trade agreements. As other hon. Members have made clear, plenty of countries with which we have trade agreements might not wish to be rolled over in that way, and they might have strong views about changing those agreements. Indeed, paragraph 53 of the explanatory notes states that "the new UK third country agreements that are implemented through" this Bill "will be legally distinct from the EU…agreements on which they are based. It may…be necessary to substantively amend the text of the previous…agreements" We need to recognise that we not talking about a straightforward roll-over; we are talking about essentially new agreements. Presumably that is why the Bill grants Ministers extraordinary Henry VIII powers to implement —or, more accurately, replace—existing agreements without further parliamentary scrutiny for up to 10 years. If this was going to be as simple as the Government suggest, they would not need 10 years—they would not need 10 months, according to them—so there is quite simply a flaw at the heart of their argument. This Bill is supposed to help to implement an independent trade policy following withdrawal from the EU, but it does nothing to put in place the kind of framework that should be required for an accountable trade policy in a modern democratic country Nor have we had any guarantee from the Government that there will be a second trade Bill, covering new trade deals with non-EU countries. When I asked the Secretary of State earlier, he referred rather vaguely to vehicles that would be brought forward vis-à-vis each new trade agreement made. He has not made a commitment to a second trade Bill, which would be the vehicle for all the scrutiny and transparency powers that we would like to see. Unless the Minister is about to intervene on me—I would be delighted if he did—it is even more important to ensure that this is the Bill in which we put in place all the transparency and scrutiny mechanisms that we urgently need, whether we are talking about replacement agreements with the EU or non-EU trade agreements The kind of framework that we need would include, for example, the requirement for impact assessments to be conducted before negotiating or renegotiating a trade agreement. Those impact assessments should not be limited just to economics; they should cover social, environmental and human rights aspects and, crucially, they should be published. The public should be consulted about the potential deal, as is required in the US. If the decision is to go ahead, Parliament should be required to give its consent to a mandate for the negotiations, a procedure that could build on the model in Denmark. The Government should conduct negotiations transparently, releasing texts before and after each negotiating round, building on the procedures in the EU and following practices that are common in other areas of international negotiation, such as the climate talks During negotiations, a parliamentary committee should be responsible for scrutinising developments, building on the EU system and enabling Parliament to direct changes of approach as needed. Crucially, at the end of negotiations, Parliament should be guaranteed a vote before the agreement is implemented, as are both the European Parliament and US Congress. This should not be just a simple, straight "up or down" vote, which comes with great pressure to accept bad aspects for the sake of something positive in the deal, but one that allows Parliament to insist on a good deal. The Bill as it stands is simply not fit for purpose. It is not democratic and it does not take us forward in terms of taking back control. It takes us backwards.