My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, for his Amendment 8. It touches on an important issue that, as noble Lords know, this Government take very seriously and to which I would like to assure the House I am personally committed.
Before I address the amendment specifically, I want to emphasise that the Government share the concerns underpinning the amendments before us today. The UK has long supported the promotion of our values globally and remains committed to our international obligations. We are clear that more trade does not have to come at the expense of human rights. I can confirm to the noble Lord, Lord Collins, that in rolling over continuity agreements we are seeking to deliver continuity of effect for agreements with all our partners. I can confirm that we are not seeking a continuity agreement with South Sudan.
In answer to the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, I am sure he appreciates that I cannot comment on agreements presently still under negotiation. I have noted the point of my noble friend Lord Lansley on the ongoing human rights review, and I will make sure it is considered. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, that we seek to ensure that human rights are recognised and protected in all our free trade agreements. This includes clauses in our trade agreements with many developing and emerging markets, suspensive powers in our trade preferences regime, and recourse to trade levers through our sanction policy.
Turning to the amendment in hand, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Collins, I am sure the noble Lord will be pleased to hear that the Government are already delivering on some of the commitments that his amendment seeks. For instance, the amendment seeks publication of an annual report. My department has already committed to publish an annual report on our programme of trade activity, and we can certainly explore whether that report could be used for the purposes envisaged here.
However, there are a number of concerns and legal risks raised by the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Collins, which means that we are unable to support it. It would constrain the royal prerogative powers to negotiate, ratify and withdraw from treaties. Of course, curtailing the royal prerogative is not something that the Government would do lightly.
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The inclusion of alleged violations, as well as actual violations, would make it very difficult to compile the reports envisaged in the amendment. What criteria would there be for determining whether an allegation needs to be included? How is evidence meant to be gathered with respect to such allegations, particularly when such evidence likely resides mainly in the territory of the trading partner? I apologise for dealing in practicalities, but it is my responsibility to put these practicalities before you. These are fundamental questions to which there are clearly no easy answers, and they should be considered before your Lordships seek to place this amendment into legislation.
The amendment also foresees potential termination of a trade agreement in the event that reports produced by the Government indicated that serious human rights violations have occurred in a trading partner country. Termination of any trade agreement would be an extraordinary action and would entail significant economic disruption, as well as legal, diplomatic and political risks.
This brings me to Amendments 10 and 45, which are also directed at termination of trading arrangements. These amendments seek to give the High Court of England and Wales powers to revoke trade agreements where the court holds that another signatory to the relevant agreement has committed serious human rights abuses, in the case of Amendment 10. We have many problems with this approach, but I will detail the two most serious.
First—and I know this has been recognised by some noble Lords—the approach strikes at the heart of the separation of powers. It would give the High Court the power to frustrate unilaterally trade agreements entered into and implemented by the Government and ratified by Parliament. Parliament would remain sovereign, but it would require primary legislation to reverse the court’s decision effectively and, in the meantime, that could result in significant damage to relationships with trade partners.
Secondly, with respect to my noble friend Lord Blencathra’s amendment specifically, this would enable courts to revoke plurilateral or multilateral trade agreements altogether, even if only one of the signatories to the agreement had committed an abuse of human rights.
This could give the High Court the power to terminate the UK’s membership of the WTO if any single WTO member were found to have committed abuses. An extreme example, perhaps, but it is important to be clear that it would not be possible to revoke agreements in a way that targeted only the country held to have committed genocide or human rights abuses. The entire agreement would be affected. This is a very serious legal defect, and so noble Lords will understand why the Government must strongly oppose it.
Given the ongoing wide range of activities the Government continue to undertake on human rights, I hope that the noble Lord will be reassured of the seriousness that the Government accord to this issue and that he, and other noble Lords, will continue to work with us on this agenda. In the light of the legal difficulties, the unintended consequences and other risks outline above, I therefore ask the noble Lords not to press their amendments.