§ 2.53 p.m.
§ Lord BROCKWAYMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government what conclusions were reached at the conference of Commonwealth nations on 14th and 15th April to consider the implementation of a Common Fund to facilitate co-operation in prices, trade and production.
§ Baroness STEDMANMy Lords, a Commonwealth meeting on the Common Fund was held at ministerial level in London on 13th and 14th April. It was attended by 32 Commonwealth countries and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Trade represented the United Kingdom and chaired the meeting. We believe that all the participants regarded this meeting as a success. We particularly welcomed the opportunity to outline the positive nature of our own approach to the Common Fund negotiations. The Ministers sought to identify, without prejudice to their national positions, elements of an approach which could contribute constructively to the wider international consultations which 1803 are now in progress on the prospects for a resumption of negotiations in UNCTAD. My Lords, I am placing in the Library of the House copies of the statement made at the meeting by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Trade, and the text of the communiqué that was issued at the end of the meeting.
§ Lord BROCKWAYMy Lords, I thank the Minister for that very full reply; I am always amazed at the activity of the Front Bench on these issues. May I ask the noble Baroness whether any decisions were reached on the two issues which have caused divisions? The first is some Government contribution to the Common Fund, and the second, use of the Common Fund for the diversification of products in the developing territories.
§ Baroness STEDMANMy Lords, we have not accepted any commitment to direct contributions. As my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Trade made clear at the meeting, commodity consumers and producers in international commodity agreements must, in our view, remain the prime source of finance contributed by the Governments to the Fund. Further international work is needed to establish whether any element of direct financing could be compatible with this principle.
On the second point, we have not accepted any new commitments of principle in this area, but we have made it clear that we take very seriously the possibility of a role for the Fund in regard to measures other than buffer stocking, and that we are encouraging the other developed countries to do the same. Bearing in mind the extent of the existing international activity in support of other measures, it is clear that any second window would have to be limited in scale and that its scope would have to be very precisely defined; and the basing of the financing would, in our view, have to be voluntary. But there have been moves in that direction.
§ Lord BROCKWAYMy Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness whether she recollects that the Foreign Secretary has recently said that we must have a new world economic order? Should that order not include the diversification of 1804 products? —because commodities are often the only products from a given territory—for example, copper in Zambia and groundnuts in Gambia. Therefore, would not help for diversification be a progressive step?
§ Baroness STEDMANYes, my Lords, I think if we could have ordered help for diversification it would be. What we are hoping is that the UNCTAD Secretary General will soon be able to reconvene the conference. Then we can start to play our part in trying to help the underdeveloped nations and trying to get all the developed nations to give more help.
§ Lord ELTONMy Lords, can the noble Baroness tell us what steps are being taken by Her Majesty's Government to ensure that the Group B countries arrive at the next UNCTAD conference with the same degree of agreement about their policies as did the Group of 77 at the last?
§ Baroness STEDMANMy Lords, that is not really a matter for us alone to do. We want to see this conference take place as soon as possible. There have been moves, and I think there is more flexibility in the attitude of both the Group of 77 and the Group B nations. We can only hope that when the Secretary General can reconvene the UNCTAD conference we might see something rather more positive from it than we have up to now.
§ Lord ELTONMy Lords, does the noble Baroness's reply mean that in fact we are waiting for the conference itself before reaching an accord with those who share our position on this?
§ Baroness STEDMANNo, my Lords, we were working in the recent conference to which I referred, and a copy of the communiqué is to be placed in the Library. We are working all the time towards getting agreement among our own Group B nations, and we are hoping that there will also be some movement and some flexibility from the Group of 77.