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Commonwealth

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, has already said that the Commonwealth is unique and a force for good. I agree. It is a subtle and effective channel of diplomacy, an institution which quietly makes connections and gets on with the business. In the current world trade talks, with members from every major trading group, the Commonwealth is a significant player. The CHOGM agenda will highlight trade and development at a critical time, with the likelihood of another breakdown of talks in Hong Kong which, of course, will affect the poorest countries most. The forthcoming summit will again focus on Africa. Some 18 Commonwealth countries are in Africa—one third of the Commonwealth’s membership and two thirds of the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries (ACP). We have heard on many occasions that the African continent is the most vulnerable part of our planet and the noble Lord, Lord Jones, has given some examples. I was grateful to my noble friend Lord May for highlighting Africa in last week’s climate change debate. This Government have given greater priority to Africa and have increased their aid budget and debt relief, but the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, will agree that not nearly enough has happened on trade. I have worked mainly with civil society organisations which have campaigned for genuine changes in trade through the Trade Justice campaign, which lobbied Parliament earlier this month. The Commission for Africa supported many of those changes at a high level, mainly through NePAD and the peer review mechanism, which includes the involvement of civil society. The Commonwealth summit is bound to endorse those. And yet the G8 summit was a disappointment for most trade campaigners because, seen by the poorest countries through the prism of negotiations and endless promises, there are still no visible signs of progress for them. The chances of the EU during the Doha round finding any new formula for reducing agricultural subsidies that will satisfy both the French farmers and developing countries seem remote, as the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, mentioned. Yet at the same time the EU is preparing to go ahead with its economic partnership agreements under WTO rules, which, without proper safeguards will directly hurt the ACP countries. That will occur in spite of the assurances in the Cotonou agreement, which was specifically intended to preserve the existing arrangements and protect the most vulnerable countries from globalisation and free trade. That will happen in spite of the laudable efforts of this Government. The Commonwealth has called again and again for the phasing out of export subsidies, for the reduction of trade-distorting domestic support, for goods produced in the developed world, and for increasing market access for goods from the developing world. The summit will be a further opportunity for the poorest and least developed countries to press for special and differential treatment, especially those saddled with high export/debt ratios, dependent on one or two commodities, and with no prospect of diversification. It means lower tariff reductions, longer implementation periods of WTO rules, which is very important, and expanded technical assistance and support for individual countries that are adversely affected by loss of trade preferences. The UK is in the forefront of those negotiations, not just because of the EU presidency, but because of its position in the world economy and its long track record. It enjoys one of Europe’s fastest growing rates of FDI—four times that of Africa, according to the latest UNCTAD report. However, it is precisely because of our experience of developing countries that they are expecting more active support. But that is not a foregone conclusion. The DTI and DfID have had some difficulty reconciling free and fair trade. DfID has supported important research into alternatives to economic partnership agreements, such as new generalised system of preferences. I have read the Government’s response to the Select Committee report on fair trade and I know that the Government have circulated that research, but do they themselves recommend the revised GSP as the way forward? Will the ““Everything But Arms”” (EBA) agreement conflict with the EU’s plan for regional partnership agreements and greater regional integration among the ACP countries? Will the latest ““EBA plus”” solution exempt the least-developed countries from reciprocal market access under WTO rules, and how will Her Majesty’s Government persuade the EU to get round this? These are questions with which DfID has grappled but have not yet been crystallised or answered by the Commission. The EU position is that ACP countries must be encouraged to enter a partnership agreement or a regional partnership agreement, because they are the only WTO-compatible options. The Singapore issues are still on the table, and it seems that even DfID is expecting the most vulnerable countries to fall in line with the key principle of reciprocity. In their response to the fair trade report, the Government accepted that until they entered an ““Everything But Arms”” agreement, no ACP state should enjoy worse access to the EU than under Cotonou and that the EBA could extend even beyond LDCs. What they cannot accept is that the economic partnership agreement itself is inappropriate for those countries. These are complex, technical issues. Winston Cox, the Deputy Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, responsible for development, has warned that these various agreements will overstretch the negotiating capacity of most ACP countries which, he says, urgently need to translate potential gains into actual, practical gains—especially in areas such as agriculture. The ““hubs and spokes”” projects to train and provide regional trade advisers in this context are one of the best examples of the Commonwealth at work. Finally, will the Government give their full backing to plans outlined recently by the Commonwealth Policy Studies Unit to encourage more civil society support for the APRM? The Commonwealth stands for all the qualities that we hold most dear in the world. In a dangerous world, not least in Africa, it has an impressive record of achievement that goes back several decades. It already has a close partnership with the European Union and it is improving its links with Francophone countries. That is another important aspect that has not been mentioned. The Commonwealth is the best vehicle for negotiating trade agreements at this time, and for ending the WTO stalemate. We must make the most of it.