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World Trade (Doha Development Agenda)

The Germans, too. The game has been played to protect aspects of the farm vote, or certain sectors of the manufacturing vote. It has not been played to take a stance because core and critical economic issues were at risk. Ultimately, that is a disgrace. Like others who have spoken today, I must stand apart from the NGOs, which have sometimes viewed the collapse of the Doha round with some satisfaction. The hon. Member for Glasgow, North (Ann McKechin) tackled the NGOs’ view that no deal is better than a bad deal, pointing out that we are looking at a formula for a regression to protectionism. That is echoed not only in the NGO world, but in developing countries. My right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce), the chairman of the Select Committee on International Development, pointed out that it is a loss not only for the developed and developing world, but for free trade. The momentum and the arguments for the benefits of free trade have been brought into disrepute, and that puts at risk all who believe that an enterprise culture is essential to our economic development and that of some of the poorest countries on the planet. However, the NGOs’ view is understandable. Thanks to CAFOD, I visited Geneva and talked to many of the leaders of the different G groups, the G30, the G90, the least developed countries group and the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries group. They were attempting to get involved in the negotiations that were part of the Doha round. During May and June, each leader told me that the issues on the table were those that mattered to the EU and the US. The agenda was theirs. Most discussions seem to have been about sensitive, state products, which were for developed not developing countries. Many discussions happened in what was thought to be a breakthrough context: the green room. However, it has no agenda and no public report follows. Typically, one representative member of the LDC group, or similar, is invited to attend, but has no status in the discussion. One could see that what was initially sold as a developing-country round—including the contract whereby the developed world would finally tackle developing issues, promote trade in advance in developing countries, and move towards a trading network that would give them new opportunities—would be sidelined and tagged on the end of the agreement. As for the non-agricultural market access issues, which are huge and complex, no one had even started on them. That was in June and early July. I am an unapologetic free trader. In the early days of Doha we had the potential to set free trade as the ultimate goal while providing within it a structure and framework for developing countries to build their trading capacity so that they, as well as the developed countries, could use that free trade effectively. It is crucial to recognise that that goal would never have been achieved by Doha alone: with it there would have had to be aid for trade and a series of other agreements and structures. I urge the Government to examine whether they can revive the Doha trade round, but I do not have a great deal of hope. One of the worst possible outcomes would be a terribly compressed negotiation period and a repeat of the past experiences whereby the agenda of the US and the EU has dominated until the last 30 seconds and the development agenda dragged in only at the very end. The strategy must be to get from the US Government an extension of the fast-track process rather than to squeeze the Doha negotiation into the period between the end of the congressional elections and January. I believe that six months’ notice must be given to Congress of a Bill using the fast-track process, so that would be near impossible. Our Government are said to have a special relationship with the United States and they have in many senses put themselves on the line for George Bush. Doha is surely a matter on which they ought to be able to get a Republican President to spend some political capital, at least after the congressional elections are over. I do not have a great deal of hope, but that is a strategy that I hope the Government will at least attempt to pursue.