The Bishop of St Albans took part in a debate on new commonwealth trade agreements on 8th July 2021, welcoming the agreements and urging they be used as a force for positive social consequences:
The Lord Bishop of St Albans: My Lords, I welcome Her Majesty’s Government’s intent to strengthen ties with the Commonwealth as we transition to our new reality outside the European Union. When we entered the European Common Market, we severed many tight economic ties with some of our Commonwealth partners. It is because of that that I am particularly pleased at the announcement of the economic partnership agreement with CARIFORUM, which covers many countries with whom we continue to share a head of state.
My diocese is linked with the Windward Islands, and we are glad to have a large community of Vincentians living in Luton. They have told me of the extraordinary economic disruption that occurred to them when we joined the EEC. Although many of these Commonwealth realm territories contained within the CARIFORUM agreement are small in GDP terms, there is a symbolic importance to this agreement, and I hope it will be a platform to further invest and engage culturally with these territories to strengthen our existing ties.
While any future agreements with Commonwealth countries have the potential to create prosperity, it is vital that this prosperity is truly mutual, delivers material improvements to the ordinary citizens of those countries and does not constitute the sort of extractive relations of the past. However, as we know, the Commonwealth is primarily an organisation that affirms our commitment to shared values—democracy, human rights and freedom of religion, to name a few—and it is important that future economic agreements promote these values. We cannot presume that free trade and market liberalisation alone will naturally deliver liberal and tolerant societies, and I hope that our continued engagement with the Commonwealth does not devolve into a quid pro quo economic relationship stemming from our need to sign trade agreements. We should not shy away from the fact that some Commonwealth members do not have the sort of record on our shared values that one might expect or hope. As part of the Government’s vision of global Britain, I hope that we will explore seriously the ways we can embed positive social consequences into trade deals and truly be that force for good in the world that the Foreign Secretary has spoken of so powerfully in the past.
Extracts from the speeches that followed:
Lord Triesman (Lab): My Lords, I too declare my interest as a former Commonwealth Minister, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Howell, for initiating this debate. It is also a pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans.
I start by wishing all of us well, here and in the Commonwealth, in our trade relationships. I do not think you could create the Commonwealth today; it is a unique organisation, and it has deepened its relationships with all its members in so many ways. I also want to say that the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, is a very fine ambassador for trade.
But our optimism about it needs to be tempered by some realism, particularly as we want to see global developments in trade. The noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, used the term “geopolitical proximity”, and that is always a genuine issue. I just want to make the point that distances cannot be dismissed lightly. According to the Library briefing, the average distance by air from London of our top 10 trading nations in the Commonwealth is 9,601 kilometres. The average for the top 10 of our former EU partners is 1,020 kilometres—and that is by road, which means that the delivery of goods is significant. We are looking at 9.4 times the distances we have traditionally looked at. That is significant because our trade is largely in goods, not so much in services. We use shipping. We have seen that even one ship in the Suez Canal can create considerable difficulties. Most shipping is using bunker fuel and emitting huge amounts of sulphur into the atmosphere. These are all important factors we need to overcome.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP): My second issue is also about approaching trade through a fair-trade lens rather than a free-trade one, building on the concerns expressed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Saint Albans. Given the global problem of the low levels of corporation tax being paid, we have heard in the last couple of days the US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen saying that the US will be pushing to raise the 15% floor agreed as a minimum corporation tax rate by 130 countries last week. One member of the Commonwealth that stands out here particularly is Mauritius, a middle-income country and in many ways a success story but also a tax haven that has allowed global companies to siphon millions of tax dollars away from low-income African nations, including other Commonwealth members. Are the Government going to seek to encourage the Commonwealth to be a positive actor for tax justice, stopping the parasitism of multinational companies that afflicts the whole world but particularly the world’s poorest nations?
Lord Haskel (Lab): At a time when, as others have put it, we are waking up to the legacy of our colonial history, we must ensure that it is not used to damage Commonwealth trade by undermining the shared values mentioned by my noble friend Lady Chapman, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans and others.
In spite of many speakers’ enthusiasm, renewing trade with the Commonwealth will provide only a minor boost to our economy. Surely our priority must be to find ways to boost productivity and innovation here, to equip workers with the necessary skills and, as my noble friend Lord Triesman said, to build bridges with our nearest and largest market.
Lord Grantchester (Lab): Another important aspect of international trade is its effect on the progress of human rights. I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, who spoke forcefully on this aspect, as did the noble Lord, Lord Hussain, and my noble friend Lady Quin. The Government have repeatedly said that they were involved with international forums, including the Commonwealth, to promote human rights, but in rollover deals and deals in progress, the UK’s approach has been marred by inconsistencies. In your Lordships’ House Ministers have repeatedly said:
“Trade does not have to come at the expense of human rights.”
The Government argued forcefully against my noble friend Lord Collins’s human rights amendment to the Trade Act. They argued against the genocide amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Alton. They argued again against the Motion to Regret on the Cameroon agreement. In Cameroon, another Commonwealth country, the Government there have committed widespread abuses of the English-speaking population since 2017. Yet the Government rolled over this EU agreement, without allowing a proper debate to take place in the Commons.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con, DIT): I would now like to touch on a number of themes that were raised during this afternoon’s debate. One thing that came across loud and clear was the question of human rights, which was raised initially, I believe, by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, and also touched upon by the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, my noble friend Lady Hooper, the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, and the noble Lord, Lord Hussain —particularly in respect to Kashmir. They were all important speeches.
I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, will forgive me, because I will be repeating some of the lines that he was repeating from what we have said. It is true that we are clear that more trade does not come at the expense of labour, environmental rights, human rights, or sustainable development. We want to ensure that economic growth, development and environmental protection go hand in hand. As an independent nation in control of our trading future, we will work with partners to support freedom, human rights and the environment, while boosting enterprise by lowering barriers to trade.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con): My Lords, I thank everyone in the Chamber and our electronically connected friends for all their excellent speeches. Indeed, I thank the Minister for his excellent survey of the Government’s position and his round up of the debate. All of the speeches have been reminders that there is much more to trade and commerce than just trade itself. Without the wider conditions, there is no trade, nothing occurs, and prosperity disappears.
There is the health and vaccine issue. The noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, was right to draw our attention to that, as did my noble friend Lady Hooper. The secretariat played a strong role in that, led by the secretary-general, Patricia Scotland, which I think has borne fruit, even with India’s colossal difficulties. There is also respect for human rights, which the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans reminded us about. There is the temptation or desire for others to join the Commonwealth, as my noble friend Lord Risby and the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, said. That point seemed to be more eloquent than any speech: if people want to join something, it must be good.
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