Private International Law (Implementation of Agreements) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2020-09-02
Topic: International Affairs
Robert James Buckland (Conservative, Centre-right): I am always grateful to my hon. Friend, who served with distinction as a Justice Minister, for his long interest in these matters as a member of the profession. I did indeed consider whether this Bill should be a Lugano-specific Bill, but I took the view—and I will explain it in more detail in the body of my remarks—that, because of the narrow ambit of what we are seeking to achieve here, there was a necessary flexibility in allowing the United Kingdom Parliament, by affirmative resolution and therefore by debate on the Floor of the House, to determine whether particular future treaties could be incorporated into domestic law I do not regard these as Henry VIII powers. I accept the point that there is a distinction to be drawn in relation to the bringing forward of primary legislation, but as a matter of strict interpretation these are not powers that would allow us unilaterally to amend primary legislation, which, of course, is what a Henry VIII power is. These are powers that will allow us to use secondary legislation, but with the necessary parliamentary scrutiny before the incorporation in domestic law of these treaties. Let’s face it, while we were members of the EU, in large measure, because of the competence of the EU in this area, many of these arrangements and agreements took direct effect in our domestic law without any debate whatever. In my view, this actually represents a qualitative improvement and creates a consistency with that flexibility to allow us to make the sort of advances—I know he shares my view on those—which I referred to in my remarks to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham. I am very grateful not just to him, but to all Members in the other place who gave the Bill detailed and careful consideration. However, we believe that it is constitutionally appropriate and proportionate to deploy delegated powers to implement the type of international agreement envisaged in the Bill. This delegated power, in my strong view, is narrow, well defined and proportionate. Indeed, private international law itself is still a very narrowly defined area of law. It is familiar in scope and content to courts, legal advisers and experts in the field. The type of international agreement which can be implemented under the delegated power relates primarily to jurisdiction: rules that determine where a dispute is heard, rules that determine which country’s law applies, and rules on the recognition and enforcement of legal decisions or judgments in cross-border cases. No agreement could be implemented that was not related to these specific sorts of issues, which arise in relation to the resolution of cross-border disputes On that point, we recognise that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s report on the Bill recommended the removal of the proposed delegated power, but it is our view that that is, respectfully, a misinterpretation of the breadth of the powers sought and the types of international agreements it can cover. Many of the examples given in its report that had previously been implemented by primary legislation are not actually private international law agreements in themselves. Although those agreements contain specific private international law provisions, they are wider in their overall scope and could not have been implemented using the proposed delegated power to be reintroduced into the Bill It was also said in the other place that the use of delegated powers to implement private international law agreements would be constitutionally unprecedented. With the greatest respect, I wholly disagree. There are delegated powers to implement new bilateral agreements on recognition and enforcement of civil judgments via Orders in Council under the Administration of Justice Act 1920, the Foreign Judgments (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1933, the Maintenance Orders (Facilities for Enforcement) Act 1920 and the Maintenance Orders (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1972. Indeed, the powers under the 1933 Act were used as recently as 2003 by the Labour Government to update a bilateral agreement with Israel relating to the recognition and enforcement of judgments, and extending that agreement to cover judgments of the Israeli magistrates courts. However, while it is important to look back at the precedents that exist, it is vital that we look forward, too. The powers contained in those Acts only allow us to implement bilateral agreements in this area. Frankly, the world has moved on significantly since the ’20s and ’30s, because most private international law agreements are now made on a multilateral basis. We need to ensure that the necessary powers exist to implement such agreements in a timely manner Parliamentary scrutiny procedures have moved on as well, and our proposals recognise this by requiring statutory instruments made under the delegated power to implement new agreements to be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, which provides much more scrutiny than the Order in Council process. Any decision for our country to join a particular agreement in this area of law would also still be subject to successful completion of parliamentary scrutiny procedures under the provisions of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010—CRAG—which many of us got to know intimately in the context of last year’s machinations on Brexit. The delegated power in the Bill would not alter the well-established approaches to parliamentary scrutiny of treaties and the process of approving ratification under CRAG. Instead, it would simply be a mechanism to draw down the resulting treaty obligations into domestic law in readiness for the ratification of the treaty. The Government recognise that Parliament has begun to strengthen the scrutiny procedures under CRAG, including, importantly, the establishment of the International Agreements Sub-Committee in April of this year under the chairmanship of Lord Goldsmith. We look forward to working with the Committee, including on the scrutiny of the private international law agreements.