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Ms Hewitt: I welcome the hon. Gentleman's assurance that we will have his full support in our efforts to get the talks back on track.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the CAP reforms that we agreed with our European colleagues, which were described by none other than Ben Gill as revolutionary.

Mr. Andrew Robathan (Blaby): Labour stooge.

Ms Hewitt: It is wonderful to hear the head of the National Farmers Union described as a Labour stooge.

The reforms were described as revolutionary, and nobody would have believed them possible if we had predicted them only six or eight months ago. I do not think that anyone in the House or, indeed, the NGOs should talk down the significance of the reforms for agriculture policy. They may not do everything, but they go a very long way indeed towards remove the trade-distorting subsidies that do so much damage to the developing world. Having made that enormous step forward in Europe, we are indeed entitled to expect other developed countries to match the reforms, particularly in export credits and food aid.

On the issue of transparency, one of the things that I welcomed at Cancun was the extent to which developing countries in the first two or three days of talks said how much better the process was than at Doha. Of course, it was streets ahead of where we were in Seattle. That, unfortunately, was not sustained in the final days, and it is one of the lessons that need to be learned. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that nobody should regard the breakdown of the talks as a cause for celebration, although some signs of celebration, especially among the smaller developing countries, reflected the fact that the developing countries themselves were much stronger. The dynamics and balance of power in the WTO have undoubtedly been altered.

I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman about the advocacy fund. Developing countries do not want to be given money to hire other countries' experts—they want their own people to be trained and supported so that they can negotiate more effectively. That is precisely

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what we have been doing through the significant investment that I described in trade-related capacity building.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned my visit last week to Honduras, where I was able to see for myself, as I have done in other countries, the effect of abrupt market opening—in this case, 10 years ago, under pressure from the IMF, to subsidised rice imports from the United States. That abrupt market liberalisation—that opening to subsidised imports—destroyed the rice farmers of Honduras for many, many years. The rice farmers are beginning to come back into production, thanks to a change in the market rules made by the Honduran Government, underlining the importance of the discussions that we had in Cancun on special and differential treatment and different approaches for products of special concern to developing countries.

Finally, on the Department for International Development, I remind the hon. Gentleman that in the days of the Conservative Government, Baroness Chalker, who I thought was an excellent Minister for Overseas Development, was neither in this House, nor in the Cabinet. I will certainly not take lectures on international development from a member of the party that cut international aid budgets from where we had left them in 1979 to such an extent that developing countries lost out to the tune of £20 billion. We will deliver on development, and we will continue to try to deliver on fair trading rules that will benefit developing countries, as well as the rest of the world.

Dr. Vincent Cable (Twickenham): I welcome the Secretary of State back and suggest that she probably now appreciates the significance of the fact that in the Mayan language, I believe, the word Cancun means "snake-pit". I agree that it is genuinely bad news that the negotiations have broken down, and that those who were celebrating were being premature, if the breakdown opens the way, as it might well do, to much more unilateral and bilateral policy. That would be damaging, particularly to the weakest countries, which have little negotiating power.

I endorse the right hon. Lady's positive remarks about the ability of the developing countries to articulate their case much more forcefully and coherently. However, one of the serious misjudgments in the negotiations was the reaction of the rich countries, especially the patronising attitude of European Commissioner Fischler, for example, with his condemnatory remarks about the developing country group, and, even more, the attitude of the American Administration. The American trade negotiator revealed the protectionist and corrupt heart of the Bush Administration when he argued publicly that as President Bush could not conceivably be expected to give up subsidising his allies who own cotton plantations, developing countries in Africa should find a comparative advantage in something else.

It is not helpful for the Secretary of State to suggest, as she has been doing, albeit in quite subtle ways, that the failure of the negotiations is primarily down to the Mexican chairman or the process. Some severe miscalculations were made by the European Union, and she should be honest about those failures. Why, for example, did EU negotiators go into the negotiations with, as one of their central demands, a set of new issues

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for which the developing countries were clearly not prepared and for which there was little interest or enthusiasm in the investment community?

Why did the EU negotiators go into the negotiations publicly proclaiming, as Commissioner Fischler did on several occasions, that their central negotiating objectives were the interests of the 1 per cent. of the population of Europe who own large commercial farms? They failed to make it clear to the developing countries that there is a real commitment to get rid of export subsidies and production-linked subsidies and—something that was rarely mentioned—to improve market access.

Who does the right hon. Lady blame for that failure? Was it the European Union negotiators? When I criticised them in the past, she responded by saying that they, particularly Commissioner Lamy, are brilliant. Does she now reappraise her assessment or does she take the view that it was not their failure, but that the EU Ministers had a flawed mandate? If that is the case, does she not accept some responsibility for it?

In conclusion, let me turn to the future. The Secretary of State is right to put the emphasis on rescuing this disaster. What specific new liberalisation initiatives, especially in agriculture, will she and the Secretary of State for International Development seek from other member states in the next few months so that they go into the next negotiations with a much more credible position than on emerging from the last ones?

Ms Hewitt: I am grateful for a number of the points that the hon. Gentleman made. First, on the reaction to the emergence of the G21, which also caused some consternation among smaller African countries in particular, my view is that, as with much else at Cancun, there are lessons to be learned all round. All of us need to reflect on what happened at Cancun.

Secondly, in relation to cotton, the hon. Gentleman is right that there was great anger not only among the four desperately poor cotton-producing African countries, but among all the other countries that had supported them. We had also supported them with money to help them in advancing their cause. There was enormous anger about the draft text that appeared on Saturday suggesting that those countries should be helped to move out of cotton production, in which they would be competitive if they were not competing against subsidised products.

Thirdly, as I have indicated, the European Union signalled its commitment to agricultural reform and flexibility in the negotiations. However, one of the problems at Cancun was that the negotiations began so late in the day and that so many days were wasted in restatement of uncompromising and uncompromised positions.

All members of the WTO—especially the larger ones—need to take responsibility for the breakdown of the talks, and we all need to learn lessons. On the next steps, I remind the hon. Gentleman that we have only just agreed far-reaching reforms of the common agricultural policy and that, as we put them into effect, they will have a beneficial impact on developing countries. We will continue to press inside the WTO and outside for other developed countries to match the commitment that Europe has already made to admitting

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"everything but arms" and ensuring that all non-armament imports from the least-developed countries are completely free of tariffs and quotas. As I said, we will redouble our efforts to try to achieve through the WTO in Geneva the agreement that we should—and, I believe, could—have made at Cancun.

Several hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. As I am about to call Back Benchers, I say to hon. Members that supplementaries should be brief.

Mr. Tony Colman (Putney): Will the Secretary of State pass on my thanks and those of other parliamentarians to the superb team of officials that we fielded in Cancun? Those of us who attended the conference were appalled at the criticisms made by certain Opposition Members, who questioned whether they should be present. Their skill and knowledge was appreciated not only by the European Commission, but by the many developing countries that sought advice from them and to which they were very helpful.

The Secretary of State mentioned the World Bank-IMF proposals that were announced on the first day of the conference. Will further work be done on them before 15 December, when the WTO reconvenes? What will our input be? In particular, work is being proposed for developing countries that reduce their tariff barriers and subsequently face budget deficits. The World Bank and IMF may be able to help significantly in that regard—for instance, in ensuring that the millennium development goals are not harmed by such reductions in tariff barriers.


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