Members of the House of Lords called for improvements to the process for treaty ratification and a mechanism for future parliamentary scrutiny of the US-UK Mutual Defence Agreement (MDA), in reaction to the short scrutiny window for the latest amendment to that treaty. The calls were first made by the House of Lords International Agreements Committee (IAC), in a report published on 17th October. Its recommendations were endorsed by speakers during a debate on 23rd October, the final day on which objections to the amendment could be lodged in Parliament under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 (CRAG).
The MDA is the treaty governing US-UK nuclear cooperation. First signed in 1958, it allows for the exchange of information, naval reactors, nuclear material and other components of nuclear weapons. The treaty has been periodically extended many times, but the 2024 amendment to the treaty contains the most substantial changes made to the treaty, including the indefinite extension of nuclear weapon component sharing. Officials described some of the 2024 changes as ‘future proofing’ or ‘housekeeping’, indicating an intent to avoid revising the treaty for the foreseeable future.
Amendments to the MDA take the form of new treaties which agree changes to the wording of the original treaty. Under CRAG, the government has to notify Parliament of treaties that it intends to ratify and parliament has a 21-day window to pass a resolution objecting. The changes to the MDA were published in late July, shortly before the summer parliamentary recess. Only days when Parliament is sitting count towards the 21 days, meaning that the deadline for objections was 23rd October. The dissolution of Parliament for the election further limited the scope for effective scrutiny, with parliamentarians dispersed over the summer and conference season. Membership of select committees in the House of Commons were only confirmed a few days before 23rd October.
The IAC, which was set up in 2020 to scrutinise international treaties, did not have time to arrange any evidence sessions with a minister or external stakeholders. However, it was able to hold an evidence session with officials on 8th October, and publish a report the following week. The report points out that the MDA amendment is subject to much greater scrutiny in the US, and describes CRAG as “insufficient to ensure robust and effective treaty scrutiny”. Expressing regret over the loss of legislative oversight from the MDA extension, the committee called for a government commitment to update Parliament every 10 years on the progress and operation of the treaty.
Lords debate
The debate on the 23rd was held in the Grand Committee, which functions as a second debating chamber in the House of Lords. Lord Goldsmith, former Attorney General under Tony Blair and chair of the IAC, noted the lack of parliamentary debates or select committee scrutiny of previous MDA amendments. Citing calls for parliamentary scrutiny of the 2024 amendment from external stakeholders such as Nuclear Information Service and CND, he said he was pleased the debate was taking place. The debate also covered the AUKUS Naval Nuclear Propulsion Cooperation Agreement, a trilateral treaty set up to allow the exchange of information and technology between the UK, US and Australia under the AUKUS agreement, which was the topic of a separate report by the IAC.
Nearly half of the speakers explicitly expressed support for the proposal of governmental updates on the MDA, and no speaker expressed opposition. Lord Uday-Lister, a former Downing Street Chief of Staff under Boris Johnson, said the amendment raised a “significant risk” of the MDA no longer being given “proper routine scrutiny”. Lord Howell of Guildford, Minister of Energy under Margaret Thatcher, said the removal of parliamentary scrutiny would not be tolerated in the US, Australia, Canada or Japan and hoped that changes would be made. Baroness Smith of Newham, a Liberal Democrat peer, called for the government to make a firm commitment to 10-yearly reports.
Support for reforms to the CRAG process was near-universal amongst speakers. Lord Anderson of Swansea, a former Labour MP, spoke of the “deficiencies” in the current process. Green peer Baroness Bennet spoke of the “huge democratic deficit” in the process. Lord Hannay of Chiswick, a former UK ambassador to the United Nations, described the 21-day window as “absurdly short”. Lord Howell of Guildford said the CRAG process “simply will not do any more”, and Lord Bilimorria, a former president of the Confederation of British Industry, questioned if it was “healthy” for the UK parliament to have less rigorous oversight of the MDA than the US congress.
With the exception of Baroness Bennet, speakers in the debate expressed support for the MDA amendment and the AUKUS Naval Nuclear Propulsion Cooperation Agreement, despite the broad support for the committee’s recommendations. The IAC is planning to publish proposals for reform of the CRAG process. Speaking for the government, Lord Croaker, a former Labour MP and current Defence Minister, promised to take forward and respond to those proposals, and said that he would “explore how [to] satisfy the intent of the committee” in relation to the request for 10-yearly updates on the MDA. Debates in the Lords Grand Committee are not subject to a vote, so a motion to ‘take note’ of the two treaties was agreed by consensus.
As the 21-day process for Parliament to object to the MDA amendment has now ended, the UK will ratify the changes. Subject to US Congressional agreement, the amendment will then go into force, after a formal exchange of letters between the two governments.