Human Rights: Future Trade - Motion to Take Note

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 6:17 pm on 3 October 2019.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Opposition Whip (Lords), Shadow Spokesperson (International Trade) 6:17, 3 October 2019

My Lords, I start with an apology to the House: I am not my noble friend Lord McNicol, whose name appears on the Order Paper. In no sense do I wish to try to substitute for him; I am afraid the House has me in the raw because he had another engagement that he felt that he had to attend and he did not want to let down the House by leaving midway through so he asked me to take this on, which I have been happy to do.

I join others in welcoming the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, to her new position. This is my first opportunity to debate with her on one of these occasions since her appointment. I am sure that, as has been said already, her knowledge and experience on some aspects of this issue will come forward in what she has to say, and I look forward to hearing that.

I congratulate the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, on getting this debate. It is a debate that we have been having in many separate parts over the last year; certainly, a number of the points that have come up today were made in the Trade Bill. It also taps into a wider sense in which suddenly trade has become a big issue in our civic discussions and debates. Those of us who have ploughed a long furrow on this have felt for some time that we were not the only interested parties and others should have joined in earlier. Trade has a lot going for it in terms of the wider issues of the politics and policies of our times. The noble and right reverend Lord set out the reasons for that with great clarity and lucidity in a wide-ranging conspectus about why this issue is important. He gave some compelling reasons why the Government should think hard about how to do more in this area, should responsibilities come to them either sooner or later as a result of Brexit.

I want to build on a number of points made by my noble friends Lord Whitty and Lord Judd, not because I wish to select them particularly but because they chime with how I want to shape my remarks today. So I shall pick up on their particular points, although others have made very good points that I shall also allude to, including those relating to LGBT people.

Good businesses need to build respect for human rights into the business that they do. I do not think this is something that the Government have to impose, and the Government are making a mistake if they think that is what the issue is about. This is really about how to help businesses do their work better. Good businesses which have a respect for human rights will find that it improves the bottom line just as much as anything else they might do in other areas.

I will give a brief example of something that relates to that. In an earlier life, I ran a think tank. One of the issues that we looked at was future prospects for trading with China. This was a number of years ago, in the early 2000s. Labour was in power and through the usual channels I was able to get a Cabinet Minister to speak at and open the debates. The audience was made up largely of businesspeople, because that was the group that we were trying to tempt. When our Cabinet Minister made the introductory remarks, the issue that we were particularly discussing was how our Government could best support the businesses that were making good and successful efforts to trade with China, as far as we could tell.

The interesting point was that the Cabinet Minister concerned—I will not name him because he is still around and he may be embarrassed to be reminded of this—was at pains not to frighten the horses. It was interesting, because he departed from his brief a little. His thesis was that he did not want to give the impression that the Government had any view at all about what businesses did in China. He just thought it was good thing that they did it and he was delighted that it was happening. He and, I think, the 60 or 70 people present at the seminar were rather astonished to discover that that response did not go down well with the businesspeople, several of whom stood up and said: “Minister, the thing is that you are not doing nearly enough. When we work in China”—remember, this was 20 years ago—“we find it a bit difficult if we behave in a way that we think we ought to in terms of good business, good practice, human rights and everything else. We discover that that doesn’t go down terribly well with our government hosts. We want you to get on a plane and get out there and start arguing the case for human rights a lot more than you are doing at the moment”. I think that is what the Minister should have said anyway, but he got the message and went away somewhat muted by the comments he received. I think that business does get this. No preaching is required. There is no message to sell. This is just how we should be doing business and that is the message.

I also want to pick up the point made by my noble friend Lord Judd in relation to his tremendous experience in the field as a human rights practitioner and as a Minister. He is right to warn us that we should not get hung up on the term “human rights”—that is an important point. We are talking about the damage and suffering to our fellow human beings that can happen as a result of businesses not being properly organised and run, whatever labels they carry. Of course, the labels help get to the heart of what is happening. It is a question of basic equity and that should always be at the heart of what we are talking about.

A good example of that is the need to take a very long-focused lens to this issue. We can and should focus on the rights of LGBT people, religious freedoms, labour standards and environmental issues, but we cannot forget the impact of arms sales. The point was made by my noble friend Lord Judd. I hope the Minister, when she responds, will update us on where we are with Saudi Arabia and the mess that the Government have made on that.

We need to think about investor-state dispute mechanisms. I am not sure that I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner. I think a whole problem here needs to be unrolled and looked at again, in terms of the rights that are accorded to investors as against those who are affected by decisions to go into trade agreements.

What are we going to do about the extractive industries and the way in which they are often brought in at the wrong time in the development cycle of emerging countries and as a result perhaps do more damage than good? When people are affected by trade agreements which are imposed on them, perhaps without their consent, what rights do they have to sue and how and where will they do that? These are very big issues.

I have two final points. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, that if you read the close detail of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office documents about all this, they are extremely good. I have no complaint with what I have seen on much of the writing on this issue. The FCO has taken the recommendations made by the UN Human Rights Council and the principles proposed by it under the chairmanship of Professor John Ruggie and built them into its policies. I applaud that. The problem is that the implementation, which is led largely by BEIS and DIT, is lamentable. I hope the Minister can give us some hope on how action will be taken to try to translate the good words on the printed papers, which infuse all the documents that the FCO puts out, and make them apply when trade deals are being discussed.

However, as others have said, this will not happen with our existing systems of parliamentary scrutiny. If you look at what the EU is currently doing—after all, we are talking about what will be done in the UK after, or if, we leave the EU—it has done a pretty good job with trade policy. It has a committee in the parliament and involves civil society, businesses and consumers—they all play a part. The process may be lumbering and difficult, but it is pretty good and certainly compares very well with what we have seen in the UK in the past. The best example is probably the USA, where there is a very strong role for Congress, which has control of the process. The model is one which recommends itself and I hope the Government are looking at it.

Whatever we may say about other models, the status quo of using the CRaG Act, which was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Whitty, is simply not acceptable. Although post-agreement ratification gives both Houses of Parliament a chance to discuss these issues, it does not give us the element of control we need. During the consideration of the Trade Bill, an amendment in my name had support from all around the House and from all parties, and was agreed by a significant majority. Had it been applied, it would have set up a structure for the future consideration of trade deals which would require either separate committees or a Joint Committee in Parliament to agree mandates, receive progress reports and make recommendations to both Houses about whether or not they should approve the resulting trade deal. Can the Minister say where the Government are on the Trade Bill and whether that proposal will be part of any future discussions? We are a bit short of time if we are going to move this in a no-deal situation. If she is able, will she agree to meet me to discuss further how we might make progress on this issue?