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Foreign Affairs and Defence

Does my hon. Friend agree that while we welcome and support the personal commitment by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer to fighting poverty in Africa and the poorest countries, that campaign should not be conducted at the expense of middle income countries that are our traditional allies and friends? In particular, unless the push towards free markets and liberalisation and the removal of protection from traditional Caribbean agricultural products such as sugar and bananas are carefully managed, countries such as Jamaica and the Leeward and Windward islands will be plunged into poverty. If agricultural labourers are displaced from the traditional crops of sugar and bananas, they will diversify not into computer programming, but into the drugs trade and criminality. We must give careful thought to the process of liberalisation so that we do not make poor people poorer.