Contribution
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for participating in this debate. As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, said, it has been an extraordinarily wide-ranging debate. I had not expected so much knowledge to come out about Australian politics. I do not know a lot about it, but now I know much more, thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle—but obviously noble Lords spoke about the great geopolitical questions that we are concerned with. To the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, I have to say that, with regards to matters of history, I tend to side with the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, but he may persuade me one day.
I want particularly to thank the Minister. He has made two personal commitments today for which I am very grateful. One is how we deal with the renewal question, which I shall come back to. The second is what he said about helping to educate his colleagues about the limitations of the CRaG process, which I hope will help us to pursue the amendments which I and others believe are necessary.
I have talked about this issue in the House before. Once upon a time, of course, Parliament did not have any right to look at treaties, unless a Minister chose to bring them. All treaties were made under the royal prerogative, and there was no process for parliamentary scrutiny as a matter of generality. CRaG has changed that, and that is very good, but it is limited. It is limited in terms of time, as noble Lords have said—and it is extraordinary how difficult it can be. When one says from time to time, “I pay tribute to the work of the committee staff and the officials”, it really is the case here. Our committee staff—and our clerk, Rhiannon Williams, is sitting in the Public Gallery—have to pick up these treaties, often at short notice, and find expert evidence that will help us, because we do not necessarily know all the answers, so finding people who can help the committee is very important.
We then need to get a report done in time to meet the CRaG scrutiny period, which is limited, and we depend on the Government. I do not want to be political about this, but this committee produced an important report on Rwanda, which it was actually quite important for Members in the other place to debate, because they are the ones who have the right under CRaG to say, “Don’t ratify this now”. We did not in a sense have a statutory right. But to do that, they needed to have time for a debate, and that was in the hands of the Government. There are issues about time for debates that are also important. That is why I started by thanking the Government for making time for this debate—and I repeat that thanks now. So we will continue to look at the CRaG process and we will come forward with some proposals for reform. I shall take the Minister up on his promise to talk to his colleagues about that when we have formulated precisely what we think should happen.
The second thing is the commitment that the Minister has made in relation to renewal. This was a matter that exercised the committee. On one hand, taking away the 10-year renewal—or, to use different language, the break clause—adds to our security, because it means that there is an evergreen commitment to do those things that the agreement does, and that is a good thing. But, by a sidewind, it takes away parliamentary scrutiny at the same time, which was what exercised the committee. So our proposal that the Government should none the less come forward to Parliament and tell it every 10 years, taking the same period as was in the previous arrangements, is a good way to ensure that there is still some scrutiny.
We will look at precisely what the Minister’s officials come forward with. He has made an in-principle commitment—I understand entirely why that is so. He will not be surprised to hear me say, using the same words that the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, used, that we will hold him, as it were, to account—the Government to account—for making sure that there is a scrutiny which works.
I very much welcome the support for reform that we had from a number of people: the noble Lords, Lord Howell, Lord Hannay and Lord Bilimoria, and others as well, and we will follow that through.
I do not think there is anything more I need to say about this debate. It has been a great privilege. Well, there is one thing I want to say. The noble Lord, Lord Udny- Lister, referred to dealing with this committee as being like herding cats. He said it was a formidable committee, and it is, but that is because of its members’ expertise, talent and experience, not because of any feline qualities that they might have. However, it is a great privilege and a pleasure to chair this committee. It is doing important work, and the fact that we have a debate in which it is not just the members of the committee who came to speak—although it included them—is very welcome. With those words, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name.