Trade Bill — House of Lords, 2020-10-13
Topic: International Affairs
David Alton (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, first, I thank the Minister for the way in which he has addressed the Committee, but also for the time he has given, not just yesterday but at previous meetings, and throughout the discussions we have had so far. I know that he is trying to be constructive about this. I know that he would rather it were not in this Bill but he speaks for the entire Government, not just the silo of the Bill or his own department, when he addresses your Lordships’ House. I remind him of what I said earlier specifically about the undertakings that his own Government gave from that same Dispatch Box that an amendment would be crafted in response to the telecommunications infrastructure Bill. That has been addressed in neither the Minister’s reply nor the correspondence I have had with him and other departments involved in this. Indeed, at a previous meeting, not only was the Department for International Trade represented but the DCMS, Home Office and Foreign Office. I have done my best to try to weave this across government departments and to get a response from all the Ministers involved. We have an opportunity inside this legislative vehicle. I will not pretend that I have the skills or the ability to craft amendments in ways that overcome the bureaucratic hurdles that the Minister referred to a few moments ago. I was pleased to hear the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, say that he thought this was an innovative use of the courts. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, talked about this as being a different way of approaching the issue. Others have talked about the astute nature of the amendment in trying to navigate these difficult waters When the Minister says that he has unequivocal opposition to genocide in all its forms and that is the Government’s position, I do not doubt that. I applaud it. I referred earlier to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, and the unequivocal stand that he has taken on these issues. But the question for me, therefore, is: what can we do about it? It is almost as though the spirit—the shadow—of Raphael Lemkin has been here throughout the debate. My noble friend Lady Falkner was the first to mention Lemkin, but so did the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and others. Raphael Lemkin lost 49 of his relatives—49 people were murdered in the Holocaust who were direct relatives of his—and coined this word: genocide. It is not a word to be used lightly. Again, I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, who made this point, rightly: it is not hyperbole. This is a word that should be used only in very extreme circumstances. That is why the amendment is crafted to do precisely that It is interesting that the Minister said that this was not a political decision but a judicial one. In my correspondence with the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, this is an area about which we have disagreed because she herself has said that she thinks it should be a political decision. But the Government’s position is that it is a judicial one. Yet this gets us into the vicious circle I described earlier, where there is no competent court because of the vetoes used to prevent it being dealt with at an international level That takes me to the remarks of my noble and learned friend Lord Hope of Craighead. We were treated to an extraordinary, spellbinding and authoritative description by someone of huge standing. He told us at the conclusion of his remarks that this amendment will achieve its objective. However, he said that if refinement is necessary, he hopes that the Government will be willing to participate in providing it between now and Report. He said that it provides due process in accordance with the rule of law, and throughout the debate other noble Lords have commented on the importance of the rule of law in these circumstances. He also said that this is a very serious matter and that we have provided a mechanism in the amendment to tackle it. My noble and learned friend is a very wise man with huge judicial experience, and I hope that the Committee will take due note of what he said Everyone who has participated in the debate has made a valuable and interesting contribution. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, talked about the immense inhumanity and suffering experienced by so many people, and he said that it should be written into the DNA of all our trade agreements that we should act accordingly when doing business. As others have done, he talked about the importance of our values and where they stand in the world. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, reminded us that business has a duty to ensure that it does not profit from genocide. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said that morality and trade must walk hand in hand, and that we must hit where it hurts. My noble friend Lady Falkner reminded us not only of the origins of the word "genocide" but its implications in the way that we proceed in trying to deal with it The noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, said that the amendment would send a clear message. He talked about its symbolic importance and the creation of precedence. The noble Baroness, Lady Northover, reminded us of the manipulation of international bodies. She specifically referred to the Human Rights Council, where even today more votes are taking place on its membership. It seems rather like the burglar and the watchdog becoming one and the same thing when China has such a leading role in an organisation of that kind I will conclude in a moment. The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said that there are other egregious offences that we might also wish to deal with. I simply say to him that, if that were possible, I wish that we would. However, the man who tries to go everywhere ends up going nowhere, and the man who tries to catch every hare ends up catching none The amendment is carefully drafted for a specific and particular purpose, which is to try to catch those who have been responsible for the kinds of genocides that we have heard about—the historic genocides that have been mentioned in the debate and those being perpetrated in the world today. Yet, in the end, my view is that the stories will not determine events. If the amendment were agreed, the High Court of England and Wales would decide whether there was a case to be answered. In those circumstances, it would trigger the removal of the agreements that had been entered into, whether they were past agreements or not. Therefore, I remind your Lordships to look again at the wording of the recast amendment, which was drafted after listening very carefully to what the Minister said at an earlier stage I hope that, as we go away from the debate tonight, we will see this as the beginning of a continuing discussion with the Government. The Minister should surely see the political realities after hearing the spokesmen for the Official Opposition and the Liberal Democrats and people from the Cross Benches, and, perhaps even more importantly from his point of view, voices such as those of the noble Lords, Lord Forsyth and Lord Blencathra, and the right honourable Iain Duncan Smith MP, who is willing to co-sponsor this amendment in the House of Commons if it is incorporated into the Bill. Having seen and heard some of those realities, I hope that the Government will now work with us to iron out any imperfections in the amendment and to bring it back on Report in a better form. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.