Lord Goldsmith (Lab)

My Lords, it has been an extraordinary debate. I am privileged to have led it and to have led the International Agreements Committee. It is a great shame that space and parliamentary time did not allow this debate to take place in the Chamber, because I think many Members of the House would have benefited enormously. They would have enjoyed and appreciated the contributions made today by so many noble Lords, which come from great experience: contributions from former Ministers, such as the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, and the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, who has been a Minister as well as being the current chairman of the International Agreements Committee; from positions of stewardship of the British Council, like the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar; connections with the country, with the diaspora referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Gill —the noble Lords, Lord Sahota and Lord Sikka, have extraordinary connections too—or even connections through family, although the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, told us he managed to contrive not to follow the family tradition, by being born somewhere other than India. These connections have led to a richness of experience and, importantly, the knowledge that has gone into this debate. There are three points on which I want briefly to draw, if I may. The first is what was said by many Members of the Committee in relation to this being the start, not the end, of the journey. I am glad to have heard what the Minister said about the Government recognising that; obviously, people will look at his words carefully, but they will look even more carefully at the action the Government then take. As the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, said, the real test will be in the implementation and the conclusion of the empty parts—that is, the things that have not been dealt with. The second point I want to touch on briefly is the comparison with the European Union, which came up from time to time. We noted, as we finished the report, that the EU had reached its agreement and we wanted to know how well we had done compared with it. The Minister has now confirmed to the noble Lord, Lord Fox—I am glad that he pressed the point, as uncharacteristic as it was of him to do so—that we will see the comparison that his department has been performing. Everyone will be pleased to see that. Surprisingly, I found myself in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Frost, on something: we both agreed that there was one thing the EU did better than us—namely, the scrutiny that took place. This is one of the reasons why the scrutiny debate that is coming up will be so important: this Parliament has lost areas of scrutiny that we had. As a result—this may have been an unintended consequence, but that is not the point—the scrutiny from which this country used to benefit no longer happens. I hope that, when we come to the debate on 16 March, all noble Lords here today will attend and that we will push back on this issue. The third point on which I want to touch simply concerns scrutiny and the accountability gap. Having chaired this committee for a number of years and sat through many debates, there are several things here that I hope the Minister will take away. I ask noble Lords to look at the end of this report and the number of witnesses we managed to have. There are two points to make about that. One is that we were fortunate to have the time to do it. Because of the agreements that had been made and the Grimstone commitments, we were able to get into this more deeply—and thank goodness we were, so that we could look at this matter more thoroughly than we would normally be able to do. When it comes to looking at what the committee’s report said on scrutiny, it is important to consider the amount of work that was done by the very limited staff we had—and have—to get through all of this in that time. I invite the Minister to discuss that point with his colleagues and officials because we do not think that people always understand what goes into this committee’s work. The committee looks at things very seriously, sincerely and hard, but with the benefit of evidence, which we have to collect together at short notice in order to examine a treaty. We believe that this benefits the country. We also believe that it benefits the Government; that has been said in this debate, as well. It is perfectly true to say—I have said this to Ministers before—that they do not have the opportunity to say to negotiating partners, “We’re very sorry but we can’t do that. Those people in Westminster simply won’t buy it”. That really has to be considered hard by the Government. Having been a Minister myself, I know that one does not like to have one’s work marked by Parliament, to some extent, but it can be helpful as well. I hope that we will come back to that. I thank noble Lords for their kind remarks about the committee’s work and about me—part of me thinks, like somebody almost said, “They would say that, wouldn’t they?” It has been an extraordinary privilege to chair the committee, but I want to underline the work done by its members and its staff and officials. There are very few of them but they do an extraordinary amount, covering all the different territories, agreements and disciplines, including defence. The committee deals not just with trade agreements—I am sure the Minister will understand that—but trade agreements get the best deal because we have the benefit of the Grimstone arrangements, which do not apply to other treaties such as those on defence, Chagos or Rwanda, which we also dealt with. I hope the Minister will take that away when he comes to consider that debate. At the end of the day, we would not want to find that international agreements—which sometimes affect the citizens of this country even more than the primary legislation we consider—are being treated as a second-class citizen when it comes to parliamentary scrutiny. I thank all noble Lords for their participation in this debate. I apologise for taking rather longer in this winding up than is usual. I beg to move.