G8 Summit

Lord Bates Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. He and I, along with my noble friend Lord McColl, took part in a wonderful debate last Tuesday, initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Empey, on overseas aid. We were on the same side in expressing our pride and delight at what was being done and at how this Government, in very difficult times, were making the care of the poorest in our world an absolute priority. We can take pride in that.

We have already seen the number of under-fives dying from preventable diseases fall quite dramatically over the past 15 years, from an average of 12 million per year to just over 6 million now. Last weekend, the Nutrition for Growth summit, which came out of the Olympic hunger summit and which the Prime Minister has followed along with his responsibilities on the UN high-level panel on finding successors to the millennium development goals, agreed yet more funds that can be directed to that task. That funding should ensure that a further 1.7 million children under five will be saved as a result of these initiatives by 2020. That is profound. I cannot think of anything else that could come out of the summit that could possibly match it. I take pride in our Government’s role. I was struck by Bill Gates’s declaration when he said that the leadership in this area by the Government and the Prime Minister,

“will be a source of British influence around the globe for years to come”.

That is something we can take immense pride in.

I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Trimble for securing this debate. I was delighted with his introduction and his invitation to visit County Fermanagh. With a following wind, I might reach County Fermanagh on 9 September having walked from London to Dublin—with a little help from the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company between Heysham and Douglas in the Isle of Man and then on to Dublin—to raise funds for Save the Children in connection with this initiative. It is what goes down in government circles as an aspiration. One need only look at my physique to realise that perhaps it is a triumph of hope over experience. None the less, I have always been an optimist; in fact my blood group is B-positive. I look forward to seeing County Fermanagh for many reasons this year.

I want to follow on from my noble friend Lord Howell’s fascinating speech on the global scene to make some structural points about the G8 and to seek some comments from the Minister, who I know is academically and politically well informed in these areas. Any gathering that seeks to achieve anything needs all those present to be capable of acting on what comes out of it. I want to test that a little further. Does the G8 as presently configured meet the global challenge? The group originated in 1975 at Rambouillet when it was convened by President Giscard d’Estaing to bring together the world’s most powerful industrial nations and market economies. It really followed the collapse of the Bretton Woods agreement, which had modified international exchange rates until then and a successor body was needed to bring the industrialised nations together to iron out global economic problems.

When it was initially convened, it was the G5, and then Canada was added the next year. Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, Russia became a member. Then the G8 was extended to the G9, with the EU being given observer status. I want to test whether we need to look at this again. What was right in 1975 does not necessarily reflect the world in 2013. Of the current top 10 economies in the world, China, Brazil and India are not present at the top table, although I accept my noble friend Lord Howell’s point that in a network world such terms are not entirely accurate. Is it right that the EU should have an additional voice at the G8 when it already has four very powerful voices in Germany, France, the UK and Italy, and yet the powerhouse of Asia has only one representative at the table, Japan?

Should the G8 fit more closely with the permanent members of the Security Council? Again, they were relevant in 1946, but with the absence of Brazil, Germany, Japan and India, the composition is limited when agreements are reached that require political and sometimes military action. In short, it seems entirely right that the most powerful political and economic countries in the world should have a special relationship. The helpful briefing document prepared for this debate contains the original 1975 Rambouillet summit declaration, which says:

“In these three days we held a searching and productive exchange … on the world economic situation, on economic problems common to our countries, on their human, social and political implications, and on plans for resolving them … The growth and stability of our economies will help the entire industrial world and developing countries to prosper”.

That makes a clear link between economic growth, the major economic powers and responsibility to the poorest in our world.

It was also refreshing to read the remarks made by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister on 21 November 2012, when he set out what he wanted for the G8. He said that he wanted to,

“go back to those first principles … No mile long motorcades. And no armies of officials telling each other what each of their leaders thinks—or should think. Instead we will build on the approach taken by President Obama at Camp David this year: one table and one conversation”.

That is a very noble thing, which improves the chances of success. Those chances would be improved still further if the G8 included around the table those countries that are absent simply because at the point of formation they were not the economic powers that they now are.

In fact, there is a strong case that the permanent 10 members of the UN Security Council and the economic members of the G10 should be the same. If you ranked countries by economic power, we would have the US, China, Japan, Germany, France, UK, Brazil, Russia, Italy and India. If those countries were connected and represented around the table, the chances of solving some of our intractable international problems would be greatly increased.