WTO: Cancun Meeting (Hansard, 3 June 2003)

§ Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean
My Lords, Her Majesty's Government have regular detailed discussions with European partners at ministerial and official level on issues relating to the current World Trade Organisation trade round. Our current priorities in the run-up to the ministerial meeting in Cancun are agriculture and a settlement of the issue of trade-related intellectual property rights and access to medicines. I am next due to meet my European Union colleagues in Palermo on 6th July.

§ Lord Dubs
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for her helpful Answer. Is she aware that the average European Union cow is subsidised to the extent of 2.4 dollars a day and that that compares with the 2 dollars a day on which more than 3 billion people—more than half the world's population—have to live? In light of that statistic, is it not clear that the main 1164 priority in Cancun—I believe that my noble friend more or less said this—must be to help developing countries to achieve a more competitive position in the world agricultural market, given that they face heavily subsided products from rich countries?

§ Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean
Yes, my Lords. I am very much aware of the appalling statistic that my noble friend rehearsed. The figures vary slightly but I use those statistics myself in trying to persuade my European colleagues that it is monstrous that we do not move from the current position on agricultural subsidies.
I have just come from a meeting this lunchtime of members of the various high commissions of the Commonwealth from around London, where we discussed the WTO. The opening contribution from a developing country was precisely the point raised by my noble friend; that is, that before everything else, the issue involving agriculture is absolutely vital to developing countries.

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, does the Minister recognise that this is a central issue for the development of policy? A world in which there is such a gross difference between the wealth of different communities is not only immoral but also unsafe. Does she also recognise that it will take great political courage to undertake policies that must in the end involve costs for this country? That courage is greatly needed in governments of any party.

§ Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean
Yes, my Lords. I hope that not only I recognise that but my right honourable friends the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and my noble friend the Secretary of State at MID recognise that as well. This is a central issue. As the noble Lord said, this is a moral issue and it also involves safety. As we have discussed in your Lordships' House, the increasing levels of poverty in some parts of the world provide fertile territory for those who wish to exploit them for purposes of terrorism and other issues. It is vital that the trade round is a success but I shall not try in any way to undercut the real difficulties that I have foreseen in the trade round. It is already an uphill struggle and there is no indication that it will get any easier in the next few weeks and months.

§ Lord Hannay of Chiswick
My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that the issue that we must address as a member of the European Union is only part of the problem? It is good to hear that we are fighting our corner in that regard to get a better trade system. However, the United States must also pull its weight in this regard. Is she satisfied, from what President Bush said at the Evian Summit, that the United States will be prepared to reduce the level of subsidy that, in a different way, is just as damaging to developing countries as to ours?

§ Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean
My Lords, the United States must pull its weight; I absolutely agree. The farm Bill, which was passed shortly after the Doha declaration and which referred to phasing out farm subsidies, was a great disappointment to many of us. We must be careful in this regard. The fact is that the United States subsidises its agriculture to the extent of about 23 per cent of expenditure but we in the European Union do so by in the region of 35 per cent. I am afraid that we must also look very carefully at our own house. This issue involves not just the United States but also Japan. The failure to reach an agreement on this at Evian is very disappointing. The export subsidies moratorium that was suggested was not agreed at Evian. I hope that we can return to that issue at the ministerial meeting at Cancun.

§ Lord Razzall
My Lords, to follow the Minister's response to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and in view of Her Majesty's Government's support for the United States in our joint adventure in Iraq, does she accept that this is perhaps the best moment for a decade to extract a quid pro quo from the United States Government in return for our support? I refer in particular to farm subsidies, which, as has been indicated, are particularly damaging to Africa. That does not merely involve farm subsidies; there is also the matter of the steel industry. Noble Lords will be well aware that the United States is in dispute with the World Trade Organisation over potential subsidies. Is this not a moment for the Prime Minister to exercise his muscle with his new-found friend?

§ Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean
My Lords, the United States is not our new-found friend; it has been our friend for a very long time.
I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Razzall. I do not accept the equivalence of the steel dispute and the issue of poverty in developing countries. I am sorry but I believe that they are very different. The sort of equivalence that the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, gave them is inappropriate. My argument in relation to the United States involves not a quid pro quo, as the noble Lord put it, but the fact that it is in its interest for the world's prosperity to be more equally divided, in order to create the safer world to which the noble Lord, Lord Elton. referred a moment or two ago. World prosperity is continuing to grow—we should make no mistake about that—although it currently does so somewhat unevenly. If fewer countries are able to access that growing prosperity, and if thereby the gulf between the rich and the poor becomes ever wider, the unsafe world to which the noble Lord, Lord Elton, referred would become even more of a difficulty.

§ Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
My Lords, can the Minister—

§ Lord Williams of Mostyn
My Lords, we are out of time now.