Colombia: Bilateral Investment Treaty
Debate between Baroness Coussins and Baroness Chapman of Darlington(3 days, 19 hours ago)
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Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord. I appreciate, as he invited me to, that these agreements stand over a very long period of time. Between an agreement being put in place and 10 years later—which is where we are now with Colombia—at which point there is an opportunity to look at it again, many things may change and it is open to either side to seek changes to the agreement, or to walk away entirely. At the moment, the Colombians have not indicated to us that that is their intention. It should be remembered that these bilateral treaties are helpful in providing assurance to investors, and that is something that we would not want to harm in any way.
Baroness Coussins (CB)
My Lords, as of last year, ISDS claims pending against Colombia exceeded $13 billion. As the penholder for the Colombian peace process at the Security Council, what assessment have His Majesty’s Government made of the impact of this on Colombia’s ability to resource the implementation of the peace accord? How can we leverage our role as penholder to help Colombia achieve this?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
The United Kingdom is absolutely committed to supporting Colombia in the peace process, and enormous progress has been made. We see these things as separate. I think Colombia has faced 26 cases since 2016. Only four of them have been brought by the UK, so we hope that we can continue to trade with Colombia and to invest in Colombia—it is an important partner for us—and to support it as it moves forward with its peace process.
BBC World Service
Debate between Baroness Coussins and Baroness Chapman of Darlington(2 months, 1 week ago)
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Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for bringing that to my attention. I was not aware that there was a strategy dating back to that time, but I commit to finding it and reading it.
Baroness Coussins (CB)
My Lords, will the Minister undertake to conduct and publish, before any future funding formula for the BBC is agreed, a dedicated impact assessment for the World Service which takes into account criteria such as the value of soft power and the need for built-in budgetary flexibility, so that the World Service can respond to geopolitical situations in times of jeopardy, which is part of what the charter says it is there for?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
The key thing is that we reset the relationship we have with the World Service and stop using the BBC as some kind of political football. In recent years, and without the knowledge of many people, BBC Monitoring and the World Service have provided the most accurate assessment of the Russian war dead in Ukraine. They are educating women and girls in Afghanistan who have been excluded from education. They are the most reliable source of information in areas of conflict, where there is very little else available that can be trusted. We call what they are doing soft power; I think that is the wrong name for it, frankly. Other nations are investing heavily in their propaganda. We do not do that. We allow the independent, high-quality journalism of the World Service to speak for us and to support people in country. I am immensely proud of it and we need to work long term to support it.