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Trade Bill

My Lords, characteristically, this has been another powerful debate with, inevitably, a degree of emotion—but less emotion and more considered judgment, which is appropriate at this stage of the Bill.

My view is that the UK can act; and when we act, many people still look at how we pass our legislation in this Parliament and at our behaviour around the world. We can lead by example and, in many cases, we have done so. If it were argued that proposals on human trafficking and forced labour should not reach beyond UK businesses operating globally, and that we should act only in a multilateral forum, other countries would not follow. The UK’s record on human rights has been good but should be better. This debate, because it is on the Trade Bill, is about how we interact with our views of human rights and what triggers exist to remove preferential trading arrangements from countries that are in gross dereliction of their duty on human rights, regardless, in many respects, of a flawed decision by an international tribunal. Ultimately, it is the UK that makes its decisions.

Five years ago, President Xi was addressing both Houses next door in the Royal Gallery. I shall refer to China first and then open up my argument to the wider area of human rights. A joint statement was issued by the UK Government and the Chinese Government, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, had his beady eye on it then. The communiqué, issued on 22 October 2015 stated:

“The UK and China commit to building a global comprehensive strategic partnership for the 21st Century. This visit opens a golden era in UK-China relations featuring enduring, inclusive and win-win cooperation.”

“Win-win cooperation” is a classic Chinese line. The statement continues:

“In the last decade, the bilateral relationship has flourished and matured with close high-level exchanges, deeper political trust, fruitful economic cooperation and wider people-to-people contact.”

Some of those factors remain the case but some have been significantly damaged, as noble Lords have indicated and as the Foreign Secretary highlighted. That joint communiqué highlighted seven co-operation agreements,

covering £30 billion of trade, strategic partnership agreements and joint alliances providing preferential relationships. However, it did not include a free-trade agreement. We have more than £30 billion of trade covering a whole separate area.

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The question in my mind, which the Government have failed to address from the beginning of the Trade Bill until now, is what consequences there are for preferential trading agreements with a country which the UK has decided is acting beyond the pale, in advance of waiting for any form of international tribunal so deciding. As the noble Lord said in the House when he became a Minister, he has visited China over 300 times in 30 years. There is probably no one contributing in this debate with greater experience of visiting and working with China. The question now is what the Government will do and what the consequences will be for our trading relationships. At the moment, there are insufficient mechanisms to trigger to pull back on our preferential trading relationships with China.

An interesting fact that has not been mentioned so far—I hope noble friends will not be surprised if I mention the European Union, though this is not the classical Liberal line of saying that we were better inside it—as we discussed this morning at the all-party trade strategy group that the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, chaired before, is that the European Union has published its trade review. The European Union trade review, to give one example, has now put forward proposals to make companies legally responsible for violations of labour and environmental standards in their supply chains. The Government have not indicated this.

Why have they done this? European Commissioners have put forward this proposal because they know that Volkswagen operates a manufacturing plant in Xinjiang, and that clothing goods have been used in the re-education camps for forced labour. It is inconceivable that some of these products are not in the UK at the moment; coming from a textile area, I always make sure that I know where the wool for my suits or the cotton for my shirts is produced. How many among us are wearing Chinese garments at the moment? How many of us have asked where those garments were produced and what the labour standards were in those factories? I hope this debate opens up the wider aspect of forced labour and human rights.

My point is that the trade policy review, which is looking at hard-wiring rules specifically on forced labour in trade law, is a result of the European Parliament indicating that it may not approve the China investment accord. It is the strength of Parliament, on behalf of the people, to indicate that trading relationships must have standards on human rights. What is our framework? What is the Government’s approach on triggering mechanisms and what consequences will there be?

Moving on to what the Minister has said, I am glad that this debate was shortly after the previous one, because we all heard him say that it is not possible for the Government to guarantee debating time for recommendations from committees. However, this is now the Government’s position in their amendment. The inconsistency is so glaring. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, that this is not a great constitutional

issue—this is the Government’s choice. If they wanted to make these changes, they could. They have just chosen not to.

The third area is that we have now embarked on trading discussions with other countries in which there are allegations of considerable human rights abuses. I mentioned previously our discussions with Cambodia. The European Union has removed trade preferences on certain areas of trade with Cambodia. The UK has not done that; we are still operating the full trade preferences. In a Written Answer to my noble friend Lady Northover, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, said

“The UK is concerned about the trajectory of democracy in Cambodia”

and, going on to say all the human rights concerns, said

“The UK also uses multinational fora to raise concerns”,

but not, clearly, about trading relationships. That omission must be resolved.

The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, is absolutely right that we should not simply have mechanisms that are retrospective if an international body has so decided. I accept the argument that there are significant flaws in having that with countries such as China, but looking online at Genocide Watch—an organisation I have not spoken to so cannot verify the information—China is highlighted in the area of Stage 9 warnings for extermination of people. Iraq and the Yazidis are there, as we have debated previously; so are Ethiopia, India for Kashmir and Assam, Turkey with the Turkish army, Saudi Arabia in Yemen, Myanmar with the Rohingya, Burundi, Nigeria, the Central African Republic, Somalia and Sudan. If we are to have preventive policies on human rights, we must have clear policy on human rights and trade from the Government.

I repeat what I said in the previous debate. These Benches are not asking the Government to do what they did not say they intended to do themselves. The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, told the Joint Committee on Human Rights in its inquiry into human rights protection and international agreements:

“The UK’s exit from the EU provides us with an opportunity to explore how we can most appropriately use free trade agreements to pursue broader international objectives … The Government is exploring all options in the design of future trade and investment agreements, including relevant human rights provisions within these”.

We are still to see these. Until we do and the Government can be clear what consequences there are in our preferential trading agreements for countries such as China, the Minister can be assured that this House and the parties and Members in it will pursue these issues relentlessly.