Human Rights: Future Trade — House of Lords, 2019-10-03
Topic: Foreign Trade
John Lawrence Whitty (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, we are all indebted to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, for introducing this debate with such passion and clarity, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, for explaining how trade and human rights—economic benefit and protection of human rights—do not need to be in contradiction. I recall that in the very early days of the last Labour Government my colleague, mentor and friend, Robin Cook, was often derided for advocating a moral foreign policy. In fact, he was never naive enough to say that; what he did advocate was a moral dimension to foreign policy. What I am advocating in this debate is a moral dimension to our future, post-Brexit international trade policy We may, to my regret, be moving into a post-Brexit situation within a few weeks. Some of the more extreme proponents, or at least the more vociferous proponents, of Brexit have always seen a future beyond Brexit of Britain acting as a buccaneering power doing trade with everybody all around the world. The point about buccaneers is that they do not obey the rules, but effective arrangements for international trade require rules—and they require rules to be understood and they require rules to be enforced. Just like some people’s approach to our relationship over the decades with the EU, many people approach trade as if it is a zero-sum game. It should not be; it should be to the mutual benefit—not necessarily equal, but mutual positive benefit—of both sides. That applies absolutely in this area As we move into new trade arrangements, they need to be used not only to stimulate economic benefit and therefore social benefit but benefit to the conditions under which the citizens of the countries with which we trade operate, whether it is their working conditions and workers’ rights—which are often either minimal or flagrantly ignored—or their rights as citizens in other respects. This of course is not a new concept, particularly in the labour area. In the 1920s, when we first established the multilateral machinery of the League of Nations, we also established the International Labour Organization. A few weeks ago, in the debate in this House initiated by my noble friend Lord Jordan, we debated the role of the ILO in the modern world. Historically, the adoption by the ILO of labour conventions in relation to anti-slavery and trafficking, working conditions, rights of worker organisations and rights on health and safety was often built into treaties and, post the Second World War, built into treaties on a multilateral basis under GATT and now the WTO. The Library briefing provided for us states with some surprise that human rights relating to workers were more often written into international trade agreements than were human rights in other respects. That is not surprising politically, because people who feel threatened by freer trade are often workers in higher-waged, more developed economies—they have to be politically squared, and rightly so. It is also because we established at a very early stage in such multilateral arrangements the ILO, its conventions and its follow-through, and they were reflected in a lot of agreements around the world In this post-Brexit global trading area, the expectation is that the UK can relatively freely negotiate with a whole range of nations. Some of this will be in rolled-over agreements, which will, if they are completely reflected, already have the EU’s stipulation—at least to some extent—in relation to commitments on human rights. However, the ambition of the free traders—the extreme free traders, if I can call them that—is to do deals with nations with which the EU does not have an arrangement and which may well have pretty poor human rights. China has already been referred to in relation to many aspects, but in recent weeks we have read about the treatment of the Uighurs—the Muslim minority in China. We have read of countries in the Middle East and their treatment of Christians and other minorities. There are major economies in South America whose human rights leave something to be desired. We could use trade to improve conditions for the citizens of those countries. We should have a commitment from the Government that when they approach new trade negotiations, they will insist from the beginning on a recognition of the need to observe at least minimum standards in relation to the treatment of workers, rights to equality, and non-discrimination by gender, sexuality, faith or ethnicity. These need to be written in, at least in broad terms, to those agreements The UK could take a lead on this. The United States, regrettably, at its present stage in politics, is not going to. The United Kingdom could do so, but unfortunately, the current indications from the UK Government are sort of in the opposite direction in that—the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, is no longer in his seat, but he was very interested in this in the earlier Statement—the Government are reported to have said to the EU that they wish to withdraw the level-playing-field provisions which are currently in the political declaration on the future relationship with the EU. That refers to a level playing field in relation to employment rights, social rights and environmental protection. If that is our intention in relation to a free-trade agreement with our major existing trading partner, I shudder to think what it might be in relation to those potential partners where human rights are indeed a very serious issue I hope that the Government do not mean that or pursue that and I hope that they are prepared to argue for such clauses and for the enforcement of such clauses. If there is a clear breach of various provisions they should withdraw from the agreement and not allow long-term sunset clauses to prevent them from so doing; they should retaliate in terms of trade with that country. We also need to ensure that such clauses are written into new arrangements within the WTO. My hope is that that will be the Government’s approach The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, has already referred to my final point. To ensure that this happens, we need parliamentary scrutiny and some transparency on this issue. Hitherto, until 2010, treaties were not really scrutinised at all in Parliament, but now we at least have a CRAG procedure for that. In relation to trade negotiations, we need to have at least the equivalent rights of scrutiny, transparency and openness that the European Parliament has had for the last 40 years and, to a large extent, are present in Congress in the United States. We need a clear and powerful Joint Committee of both Houses on future trade negotiations in this Parliament.