Latin America: Future Foreign Policy

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Wednesday 21st April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I hope that the responses that I have given already, including today, will address some of those concerns. The noble Lord mentioned Peru among other South American countries, and I shall give him a practical example. The United Kingdom recently signed a second Government-to-Government contract with Peru worth over £100 million, which is helping to rebuild schools and hospitals in that country that were damaged back in the 2017 flooding. That is just one practical example of the strengthening relationship between the UK and Latin America.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con) [V]]

My Lords, as chairman of the UK branch of Plan International, a charity, for about 20 years, I have regularly visited most of the countries in Latin America. The major problem always was that people obtained all sorts of wonderful things and shelves were stocked but no one knew how to use them. That was rather wasteful and we wanted to do something about that. Can the Government, given that development is now included in the Minister’s portfolio, assure me that the experience of non-governmental bodies that already work in Latin America will be involved in any plans, as their experience is invaluable in providing insight into opportunities and areas of need? The lesson that I learned was that it was important to have someone explain how to use things, not just to present them and then hope that people would be able to put together a prefab school or all sorts of things for educational use. In the light of the—

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, please let the Minister respond.