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World Trade Organisation

My Lords, I am very pleased to follow the noble Earl. He sought to emphasise an element that we may have passed by this morning—the contribution of the NGOs. On occasion they have a tendency to present themselves in a way where the best becomes the enemy of the good. None the less, we sometimes forget that they are very important spectators—almost participants—in this process. However, I think that recognition was given to them in the report of my noble friend Lord Radice and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, on introducing this topic. I am not fully acquainted with the machinations and arcane procedures of this place although I recognise that it is legitimate for an EU Sub-Committee to deal with this topic for two reasons—because the EU has responsibility as the mouthpiece for our trading interests but also, in some respects, because debates within the EU tend to mirror in one form or another debates within the WTO. Bloated agricultural interests seek to deny access to schemes that could be for the benefit of a number of people not only in the European Community but throughout the world as a whole. I am also disappointed in some ways at the short-sightedness of countries such as France and the USA. Their unwillingness either to provide access to cheaper agricultural products or to reduce in any serious way the level of subsidy has been a barrier to progress in the past. However, I agree with my honourable friend—sorry, my noble friend: he used to be my honourable friend and still is but not in any official way—that the EU tariff reduction of 38.9 per cent is a helpful step forward. I am reminded of the words of the late George Woodcock who sometimes used to refer to wage deals as shoddy, shabby compromises. While this may not be shoddy, it is certainly a wee bit shabby because I am sure that the EU, if it had the will and the guts, might have gone further, although we know about the internal debates and machinations there. These problems have to be dealt with with a degree of community-wide sensitivity. When we are talking about reductions in tariffs, we have to give due weight to the transitional arrangements that have to be made in respect of poorer countries. Reference has already been made this morning to bananas and there are too many such examples. There has to be a degree of flexibility in seeking to achieve a broader-based, rules-based trading system. Certainly, the law of unintended consequence must be taken into account at pretty well every turn. We have seen some movement in the past 12 months and it is only fair to give credit to the Government for the movement on the three-legged stool, as it were, of debt reduction, continuing and increasing aid and trying to push the issue of fair trade to the place that it now enjoys on the world’s political agenda. While the WTO is often the subject of criticism, one would have to stop and say that, 10 years on, if the WTO did not exist we would have to invent it or something similar to it. I realise that we will have difficulties in the Doha round in securing both the services and agricultural elements within it. If we do not persist in that we will be faced with the alternative of bilateral agreements, which for some people can be a substitute. Indeed, it could be argued that, for some trading groups, it can be a turnkey to access to other groups—such as the bilateral that the EU enjoys with Mercosur in South America, for example. It has limited significance in some ways, but it enables the dialogue to continue. What is abundantly clear is that the absence of capability among the poorer nations means that they are unable to enter into any meaningful negotiations of a bilateral character on any basis of equality whatever. They have neither the wealth nor the capability in the form of the army of civil servants that richer countries can bring to bear in the negotiating process. Indeed, it has been argued that one of the difficulties of the WTO is the strength of the strong in these discussions and the weakness of the poorer countries. However, it is encouraging—although I know for some of our negotiators it is a pain in the neck at times—that we have seen the emergence of the G20, the G90 and the ACPs operating as proper units. They do not necessarily come out with the conclusions that we would like, but their interests are different from ours and they have to represent them. It is important for the credibility of the institution that within the institution these bodies emerge. When we go into these negotiations in the next few weeks, we must go in with a realistic sense of the difficulties involved—that any optimism that we have may be complicated. I remember once being told by an old WTO hand that these ministerials are somewhat similar to a game of basketball. I am always a bit leery of sporting analogies, but I shall make this fairly narrow in character. Suffice it to say that in a game of basketball, which normally lasts 60 minutes, in the first 56 minutes pretty well nothing of any significance happens; then in the last three and a half minutes all hell breaks loose, and you do not quite know what is happening. The difficulty in Cancun was that the Mexican Minister called time too early; therefore, what was possible in extra time was not taken advantage of. In some respects Doha has been an attempt to limit the damage that was created at Cancun. We see a way ahead. But, to finish on a rather sombre point, if we do not get anything out of Hong Kong of a kind that will provide us with a continuing agenda into the early months of next year, we shall come up against the buffer of the United States legislative process and the fact that the fast track procedures will not necessarily be open to us in the way that they are at present. As a consequence, we might find—as we have in post-Kyoto discussions—that one of the most important players and contributors is denied access to proceedings. So we have to go with some speed. In a number of respects, this year has been a period of qualified optimism, not least because of the efforts of the UK Government. I am very hopeful that the impetus that our negotiators have enjoyed in other forums can be repeated in the WTO in the weeks that lie ahead.