Latin America

Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen]

My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, for instigating this debate. Unlike the noble Viscount and the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones, I do not have their in-depth knowledge of Latin America. However, like both the noble Viscount and the noble Lord, I have a great love for Latin America and its people.

I fell in love with Latin America when I attended Essex University in the 1970s as a mature student. I joined the school of comparative government, and because I knew very little about Latin America, I chose to compare the Government of the UK with those in Latin America to learn more about the region. Brazil was the major country that I studied, but I also covered Chile, Argentina, Peru, Mexico and Colombia. After my first lecture, I was hooked on the glories of this continent, and I remain so today. I am pleased to see the Minister on the coalition Front Bench to listen and respond to this debate. As the former chair of the All-Party Parliamentary British-Latin America Group, and now one of its vice-chairs, I sincerely hope that Latin America will move higher up the political agenda.

Despite the efforts of a number of very good and knowledgeable Ministers in the previous Government who had responsibility for Latin America, including the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, in this House and Chris Bryant in the other place, it was not as high a priority as many of us would have wished. Of course I recognise that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan took—and in the latter case, continue to take—a great deal of government time, energy and resources. However, I was disappointed at what I felt was a lack of recognition of the potential of this continent, and how investment and closer working relationships could benefit the UK and individual Latin American countries. I know that a number of their ambassadors based in the UK felt as I did. I am hopeful that the present Government will wish to build on the relationships which exist currently, with the aim of even closer working relationships in the future.

I have been lucky enough to visit Bolivia in 2009, and Cuba in 2009 and earlier this year. Both countries are progressing, despite the difficulties that they face. Bolivia is a fascinating country where the Evo Morales Government came to power in 2006 in a blaze of glory. For the first time, the indigenous peoples of Bolivia were included in the Government and they look forward to greater involvement in all walks of Bolivian life. As I have said previously in this Chamber, when our delegation met the Bolivian people last year we realised that their expectations may be higher than any Government could satisfy in a relatively short space of time. To some extent, this has proved to be accurate. Despite the fact that Bolivia’s economy has managed to perform well during the global economic downturn—a point to which I shall return—there have been signs of unrest among the working people in Bolivia.

On May Day this year, the Central Obrera Boliviana—the COB—Bolivia’s trade union confederation, called an indefinite strike and organised a march on the city of La Paz. This followed a dispute over salaries and new pension laws. The march began in Caracollo, 200 kilometres from La Paz. The Government were offering a public sector pay rise of 5 per cent—well over the current level of inflation—but the COB rejected this and also called for the retirement age to be reduced to 55. The large march consisted mainly of factory workers, miners and teachers. The powerful peasant union did not participate; instead, it supported the Government. An agreement was reached to lower the general retirement age to 58 and to 51 for miners, although their pensions are still under discussion. Does this seem a little familiar?

There has been tension in Bolivia between the La Paz regions and those in and close to Santa Cruz since the Morales Government took power. The governor of Santa Cruz, Rubén Costas, is the main political opponent of President Morales. When we visited in 2009, the tension was almost tangible. However, there are signs that things may be improving. This month the two leaders have met, in both La Paz and Santa Cruz, and the President has promised to help to facilitate new loans to the department responsible for road building and development projects. It is hoped, therefore, that a warmer and more positive relationship will develop between these two vital regions for the Bolivian economy.

I mentioned the economy earlier, and this is proving a positive force in Morales’s political and social reforms. He came to power promising a rise in living standards for the majority of the Bolivian people. Although Bolivia remains a poor and unequal country, the rates of relative and extreme poverty have, over recent years, shown improvement. Political and structural reforms appear to be working.

Bolivia recorded the highest rate of economic growth in the western hemisphere in 2009 in the midst of the global economic downturn. According to figures from the Bolivian National Institute of Statistics, economic growth in 2009 was 3.36 per cent. This compares favourably with other countries in the region that are much larger than or equally as large as Bolivia and are possibly more forward-going, such as Brazil and Mexico. That is an impressive achievement given many of the external conditions affecting the economy, mainly as a result of the financial crisis. These include falling remittances, limited foreign investment, the cancellation by the United States of trade preferences and export prices declining for part of the year.

That follows a trend of sound macroeconomic management that has seen Bolivia’s economy perform consistently well since the Morales Government came to power. In 2008, for example, Bolivia’s GDP grew by 6.1 per cent. The country also managed to keep inflation low in 2009, at 0.26 per cent. This follows higher inflation rates in 2008, partly due to trends of rising global food prices and high oil prices.

One of the first major reforms carried out by the Morales Government on taking office was the nationalisation of the oil and gas industry. The Bolivian state took ownership of all oil and gas reserves, and foreign investors were asked to renegotiate their operating contracts. The new contracts increased taxes paid on income from sales of gas from 18 to 50 per cent, thus returning to the situation prior to privatisation. Indeed, our 2009 delegation visited BG Bolivia, as it is now called, and its relationship with the Bolivian Government seemed to be both constructive and working. This nationalisation continues. In May this year, an electricity generator owned by a British company, Rurelec, was nationalised. The Bolivian Government have given assurances that adequate compensation will be paid, and in a statement that he made on 2 June the Rurelec chairman, Jimmy West, expressed confidence that that would happen.

I turn now to the other country that I have recently visited—Cuba. One of the more important things about Cuba is that its constitution gives the Cuban people certain rights, including the right to work, to a house, to education, to health and to safety in their environment. I want to speak briefly about Cuba’s healthcare system and share a little anecdote about it. Its health service is renowned throughout the world for its advanced medical capabilities. Cuba exports its doctors, in particular, to many other countries in Latin America and further afield, and is rightly proud of so doing. However, it is the healthcare of its own people that is quite outstanding. The health of its people, and especially its young people, is obvious to anyone who travels around Cuba. This is because, although the adult population faces the problems of food rationing—mainly because of the continuing American blockade, which the UK Government do not support—the young in Cuba get a regular supply of eggs, milk, cheese, meat and vegetables to ensure their fitness.

On my first visit to Cuba, I visited a healthcare centre in a tiny village in the centre of the island. Cuba provides a healthcare centre in each small grouping of houses. The doctor and his family lived in the upper apartment, and the nurse and her family in the lower one. On the whitewashed walls of the waiting room, there were graphics explaining how women should examine their breasts for the first signs of breast cancer. There were also a great many leaflets about other medical conditions. After talking to the medical staff, we were asked whether we would like to see the garden. Slightly puzzled but not wishing to appear rude to our hosts, we agreed. What the nurse wanted to show us were the herbs that they still use for some ailments, just as we used to do. So, from the specialist hospitals in Havana—for example, those dealing in eye or brain surgery—to the smallest medical house in the countryside, the Cubans have a wide degree of medical care, including their herb gardens. Perhaps somewhere along our way of providing medical care, we have thrown the baby out with the bath water.

We will be hearing a great deal about this diverse continent in the debate and, as always, I will learn a lot. I am well aware of the darker side of Latin America: the drugs and human trafficking; the political corruption, which has to be fought and sometimes fought again; and the potential for natural disasters such as floods and/or earthquakes, which is ever present. However, today I have chosen two more positive examples of Latin America and I hope that they have added to the debate.