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G8

On aid and debt relief, the G8 summit was clearly an enormous success, for which my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Chancellor both deserve huge credit. However, if we are to assist African development, is it not right for us to cancel debt unconditionally, rather than make it conditional on forcing some of the world’s very poorest countries to open up their markets when, before they are able to build up their own industries, they are not remotely in a position to face the full force of international economic competition? If President Bush is still unwilling to take any serious meaningful action to combat climate change, should we not be doing far more to reach out to the large, growing and influential group of US political and industrial leaders who are prepared to tackle the problem? For example, there is the Republican governor of California, the Republican mayor of New York, the chief executive of General Electric and the mayors, I believe, of about 140 cities across the US—all of whom have voluntarily decided to enforce carbon emission reductions within their own jurisdictions.