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World Trade Organisation

My Lords, I join in thanking both my noble friends who have brought this matter before us today, and I am fortunate that I am following my noble friend Lord Judd. I am perhaps taking a slightly different view from that which some noble Lords have expressed. I recommend that some stock is taken of the broader role that the WTO should play. There was a tide of popular opinion that all trade was good. In my judgment, among all too many millions of working people that tide has ebbed, and they feel that all too often trade reduces working and living standards. A number of colleagues have touched on that. Indeed, in many countries the consensus that all trade is good for people and for development barely exists. I remind the House—because I do not think that anyone else has referred to it—that a few years ago Seattle was brought to a standstill for 36 hours by working people protesting over the goings-on at the WTO. At Hong Kong or later we have to turn that around. We need to reconnect with the people, reassert the case for free trade in a convincing way and examine why, among so many millions, they do not really believe it. That would have to mean some real change. I ask my friends to consider the position of the world’s clothing and textile producers. They are, in the main, in the world’s poorest countries. They are still reeling from the rude shock delivered by the end of quotas at the beginning of this year. For the workers—often poor women who have lost their jobs—for their communities and for their countries’ economies the benefits of trade liberalisation are very hard indeed to comprehend. We then need to look at the whole basis for the current negotiations. In many respects it is flawed, because no meaningful impact assessment is carried out on the consequences that are likely to follow from decisions that are taken. Not only is that graphically demonstrated by the textiles chaos to which I referred earlier, but it is all too clear from the position in which the ACP countries find themselves following the sugar changes. I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Haskel has misjudged it, because the cane sugar countries are in a very serious bind indeed. We should consider the ways in which there should be some change. We need to move away from the dogma that trade liberalisation will automatically boost economic growth, reduce poverty and hence improve people’s lives. That is an ideological approach that we all want to believe, but when you get on the ground it just is not true—often it is, often it is not. You can find its result in the many areas of child labour, slavery—not least near-slavery in Brazil, as has been mentioned—discrimination and unsafe conditions. That should not be acceptable. Work is a concept that includes respect for workers’ rights, equality between men and women, social protection, social dialogue, job creation and decent work. There are no mechanisms in the WTO whereby any of that can follow. The Minister should put down a marker. The WTO must recognise those issues and pay them attention. Ideally, I would like to see in the final statement that they will address those issues on an ongoing basis or consider how they may be addressed. The WTO—and perhaps we here—might usefully consider some form of inter-institutional coherence, because there is very little. Two noble Lords referred to that. When we have a debate again on the WTO, it might well embrace some of the impact that we get from the other two international institutions. Globalisation is here, and here to stay. We are far from catching up with its consequences; certainly that is true of the international institutions. I hope that the outcome at Hong Kong will be more successful than not, even if it means that some issues are deferred. But if the issues that I and others have raised in relation to the consequences of unfettered free trade are to be addressed, it could well make a happier climate, particularly for those countries that are not in the happy position in which we are in Europe.