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Mr. Patrick McLoughlin (West Derbyshire) (Con): What did the Secretary of State find so objectionable in the motion tabled by the Leader of the Opposition that the Government felt they had to amend it?
Hilary Benn: There is much in the motion with which I agree, but the amendment includes things that it did not cover, and I invite the House to support the amendment at the appropriate moment.
Mr. Gummer : The Secretary of State could have agreed with the motion, and we could all have begun Fairtrade fortnight with a united motion. Would it not have been better if he had been a little less churlish and had said that the motion might not go as far as he would like but that he would accept it to show that both sides agree on these matters?
Hilary Benn: I think that the debate has already demonstrated that there is a shared analysis and a lot of common ground—one or two things divide us—but I would return the request to the right hon. Gentleman and simply say, in that same spirit, that I look forward to seeing him in the Lobby in support of the Prime Minister's amendment when that moment arrives.
Mr. Robert Walter (North Dorset) (Con): Will the right hon. Gentleman give way on that point?
Hilary Benn: It is a third go but I am a generous soul, so of course I give way.
Mr. Walter: I have studied the Prime Minister's amendment closely and it uses the words,
- "urges the European Union to make further progress on reforming the Common Agriculture Policy regimes for cotton, sugar, tobacco and olive oil".
Hilary Benn: No, it does not mean that because the Government have clearly set out their view on the need for reform, but the amendment also makes specific reference to the products that the hon. Gentleman has just read out.
Mr. Jim Cunningham (Coventry, South) (Lab): Does my hon. Friend recall that successive Conservative Governments promised to reform the common agricultural policy but singularly failed to do so?
Hilary Benn: I do indeed, and if the House were being honest with itself it would recognise that reform of the CAP has been a consistent theme running through our political debates in the House for 30 years, which is what makes the agreement that was reached last summer, with the tireless efforts of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, such an achievement.
If the current round is to succeed, it must address the unfairness of the world trade system, whereby, for example, developing country cocoa producers receive only a fraction of the retail price of products such as chocolate. Developing countries have 90 per cent. of the world market in cocoa beans but just 4 per cent. of global chocolate production. That is just one example of how little of the final value is captured by developing countries.
Why does all this matter? First, it matters because three quarters of the world's poor live in rural areas and 96 per cent. of the world's farmers live in developing countries. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer said recently, when 900 million farmers in poor countries struggle to survive on less than a dollar a day while rich people in rich countries spend millions a day on subsidising agriculture, something is very wrong and it has to change.
Secondly, it matters because there is a great deal of evidence that the opening up of trade contributes to higher economic growth, which is just what developing countries need. For example, in the 1990s, while average income fell by 1 per cent. a year in developing countries with high trade barriers, it rose by 5 per cent. a year in those with fewer barriers to trade. The World Bank estimates that up to half the gains from eliminating barriers to merchandise trade would accrue to developing countries, which could lift more than 300 million people out of poverty by 2015.
Ann McKechin: My right hon. Friend has made a very correct point about the need to reduce barriers, but does he agree that the least developed countries are not likely to gain as much from trade liberalisation as countries such as China and India, and that the aid budget and the amount of aid that we give in debt relief therefore still remain the most vital elements?
Hilary Benn: I do agree with my hon. Friend. That is why a rising aid budget—rising support—is so important, and it is also why the way in which countries are asked to open up their trade is so important. I intend to come to that point later.
Mr. Bercow: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Hilary Benn: I will give way, although I want to make progress; I know that many other hon. Members want to speak.
Mr. Bercow: I am sorry to interrupt the flow of the right hon. Gentleman's eloquence—or even the eloquence of his flow—but it seems to me that in recognising that over decades the common agricultural policy has been the most protectionist racket known to mankind, we need to know in some reasonable measure of detail how the Government intend to proceed. Could the right hon. Gentleman give some indication of what stance the British Government are taking within the European Union, in respect of the CAP as a whole at the development negotiations, and in respect of a number of the commodities to which his amendment refers?
Hilary Benn: Indeed, I will. If the hon. Gentleman will contain himself a little while longer, I intend to come to those important points.
The third reason why all this matters is that it is through economic development that we stand the best chance of enabling poor people in poor countries to earn and trade their way out of poverty. Africa is the only continent that has actually got poorer in the last generation; its share of world trade has halved. It cannot even hang on to just under half of the savings that it generates each year, and yet we know it needs to grow at 7 per cent. a year if we are to have any prospect of meeting the millennium development goals.
Fourthly, all this matters because the longer the multilateral trade system fails to deliver for the world's poor, the longer poverty will persist and basic services such as health care and education will be denied. I saw one of the consequences of that during my recent visit to Ethiopia. I shall never forget visiting the health centre in Mekane Salam, which serves a community of 180,000 people but has no doctor. One consequence of the lack of a doctor is that when women come in with complications of pregnancy, and the people who work very hard to run the centre realise that they cannot assist, the women are referred on to the hospital 100 miles away. When I asked what happened to those women, the staff said, "To tell you the truth we have no idea how many of those women make it, because there is no transport to take them to the hospital. There is a bus once a week, but they have to be able to afford the fare, and they might well die of the complications of pregnancy before the bus arrives." That is really all the illustration that the House needs, and it comes from a recent experience of mine, which demonstrates why this matters, because this is about the daily lives of fellow human beings of ours, who do not benefit from the things that we take for granted. That is one reason why 2005 will be a year both of opportunity and of expectation—expectation that this time we, collectively, the world, will deliver.
What are we doing? That is the challenge that the hon. Member for Buckingham put to me. We recognise the failure of the Cancun meeting, although the one thing that did come out of Cancun was that the voice of developing countries was heard more loudly and clearly than at any previous world trade talks, and I, for one, unreservedly welcome that.
Between now and 2005, the US elections will take place, the existing Commission for Africa will come to the end of its life and a new one will be appointed, and elections will take place in many other WTO countries over the next two years. That has led some people to question whether it will be possible to make progress in the world trade talks. I happen to think that progress can be made, not just because of the consensus on trade justice issues that has been expressed in recent debates in the House and elsewhere, but because everyone now recognises that the Cancun meeting was a missed opportunity, a failure of political will. I hope that that will encourage everyone to work much harder next time to ensure that we are successful.
What do we need to do, and how will we do it? That is the key question. First, we must get developed and developing countries to engage in the round and to open their markets, particularly to the least-developed countries. Secondly, we must secure new agreements on the issues that matter most to developing countries—
agriculture and non-agricultural market access. We must also push—the hon. Member for Buckingham did not refer to this in his speech—for more effective special and differential treatments, to which I shall return. We will help developing countries to adapt to their new obligations through the development of appropriate adjustment mechanisms. What are we doing to try to help to make that happen?The round will not be a true development round if the WTO and its members retreat into protectionism; developed and developing countries must stand up to powerful domestic lobbies. There are some recent encouraging signs of greater engagement and a new resolve to make progress. Both Bob Zoellick and Commissioner Pascal Lamy are now talking to a range of WTO members, and member states are talking about what they need to do to get the round back on track. That underlines the need for, and the responsibility of, the richer WTO members to seize the initiative, show leadership and make meaningful offers and concessions to get the round back on track.
I agree very much with the point about the new issues, to which the hon. Member for Buckingham also referred, that the International Development Committee made in its very good report on the lessons of the Cancun meeting. The honest truth is that the developing countries have made their position very clear on investment and competition. At the end of the Cancun meeting, those issues were taken off the table, and I have said on a number of occasions that, having disappeared from the table, they should stay off the table. There are sound arguments about why it is good to make progress on public procurement and trade facilitation, but, in the end, they should not stand in the way of achieving a development round, and we need to be absolutely clear about that.
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