Maybe Guido Fawkes was right: prorogation is not enough
The Trade Bill is important to securing trade agreements post Brexit. No strategic matters are involved, just a bit of tidying up: “Make provision about the implementation of international trade agreements; to make provision establishing the Trade Remedies Authority and conferring functions on it; and to make provision about the collection and disclosure of information relating to trade.”
The 2016 Referendum made it clear that this administrative clean up was necessary and urgent so our Lords and MPs, so essential to our democracy, set to work. Three years on and after thirty odd sittings (see below), they have achieved precisely nothing, perhaps as a remainer plot. The Trade Bill is now likely, as a result of prorogation to go into the bin. Maybe that is irrelevant as the current version of the bill is in the “Ping Pong” stage which refers to the two chambers batting the bill to and fro with only slight changes in the wording. This can go on for ever. No date is arranged for the Commons to consider it again.
The Secretary of State, Liz Truss MP, has now declined the International Trade Select Committee’s invitation to discuss the matter. Presumably she sees little point in sitting in front of prevaricating MPs and being lambasted for something which is Parliament’s fault and not the government’s.
| Stage | Date |
| 1st reading: House of Commons | 07/11/2017 |
| 2nd reading: House of Commons | 09/01/2018 |
| Money resolution: House of Commons | 09/01/2018 |
| Programme motion: House of Commons | 09/01/2018 |
| Committee Debate: 1st sitting | 23/01/2018 |
| Committee Debate: 2nd sitting | 23/01/2018 |
| Committee Debate: 3rd sitting | 25/01/2018 |
| Committee Debate: 4th sitting | 25/01/2018 |
| Committee Debate: 5th sitting | 30/01/2018 |
| Committee Debate: 6th sitting | 30/01/2018 |
| Committee Debate: 7th sitting | 30/01/2018 |
| Committee Debate: 8th sitting | 01/02/2018 |
| Report stage: House of Commons | 17/07/2018 |
| 3rd reading: House of Commons | 17/07/2018 |
| 1st reading (Hansard): House of Lords | 18/07/2018 |
| 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords | 11/09/2018 |
| Committee: 1st sitting (Hansarad): House of Lords | 21/01/2019 |
| Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords | 23/01/2019 |
| Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords | 30/01/2019 |
| Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords | 04/02/2019 |
| Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords | 06/03/2019 |
| Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords | 13/03/2019 |
| 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords | 20/03/2019 |
| Ping pong | TBC |