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Latin America

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, as he always does. The other relevant point is that there is a direct impact on constituents in Islington, Shropshire and everywhere else represented here, because there are pension investments in those countries and for every industry that is nationalised, there is a direct impact on pension funds in the City of London as well. It is a very worrying step that President Chavez has taken deciding to move into food production and food supply and, as we have heard, to renationalise rice production in his country. That leads me to land reform which, of course, is needed in Latin America—I accept that. Redistribution of land is needed, but it must be both legal and fair. A sensible period of consultation is needed with the people whose land will perhaps be taken back to the state. A right of appeal is also needed. So often in Latin America we have not seen that. We have seen just the heavy hand of the state moving in and the state saying, "We're taking land back from you." There is no consultation or compensation. It is illegal most of the time and it certainly is not fair. Again, that sends the wrong message about Latin America as a continent. Unfortunately, there is a negative halo from certain countries in Latin America, which impacts on the whole continent when other countries are wanting to do the right thing, even with land redistribution and—dare I say it?—renationalisation. The same applies to free trade. Some countries want global free trade. Some want regional free trade and, indeed, free trade with north America. If those countries, which have elected Governments, want to have a free trade agreement with north America, they should be entitled to do so. They should not have to deal with meddling, either political or through other, more sinister means, by countries that take a different ideological view, as that is unsettling and destabilising for the region. If countries such as Colombia and Peru want to trade with north America, they should be entitled to do so. That is not to suggest that they do not want to trade internally, within the borders of Latin America. I believe that they want to do that as well, but if they want to do both, they should be able to do so without having political machinations set upon them by neighbouring nations or others on the continent. That is why it is important, as we have heard today—I hope that the Minister will note this—that there is cross-party consensus on real concerns about UK diplomatic representation in Latin America. It was a backward step for the Paraguay embassy to close. Paraguay is a huge country; Argentina is large as well, and to try to run operations in both countries from Buenos Aires is very difficult. If I was, for example, a Paraguayan Transport Minister wanting to construct three new bridges and there was a French embassy and a Germany embassy but no British embassy and there was a trade counsellor in those embassies, who would I be more likely to call and want to nip round to see to talk about that investment project? From a political, diplomatic and trade point of view, the United Kingdom is losing out for every diplomatic mission that it closes around the world, including in Latin America. It was rather sad that when the Serious Organised Crime Agency took over from Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, it took a different view of the role of drug liaison officers working with Governments in Latin America. I hope that the Minister will speak to her counterparts in the Home Office to ask this question: given that Latin America is still one of the major providers of drugs that end up on our streets and impact on all our communities, and given that there has been a change since SOCA replaced HMRC on this important issue, are we confident that the current level of drug liaison officer support for our embassies and for Governments in Latin America is adequate? I am conscious of time, but I want to touch on two more issues. What would be helpful to you, Mr. Amess? You saw how many people rose to their feet wishing to speak.