G20 Summit

Lord Lester of Herne Hill Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds]

My Lords—

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

My Lords—

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, can we hear first from the right reverend Prelate?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I thank the right reverend Prelate for his general welcome. I cannot add anything more on the anti-corruption plan because G20 officials have been asked to come forward with details over the next few months. We will have to wait and see what will happen on that. As to food security and technology, the UK met its L’Aquila financial commitments in full and will continue to provide broadly equivalent resources to help food security. We made welcome progress at the G20 on implementation of commitments made last year at Cannes, including rolling out the Agricultural Market Information System to improve transparency, endorsing the Scaling Up Nutrition movement, and pledging to continue our work in other areas, such as the platform for agricultural risk management. This is an area to which a substantial amount of importance is given, as is the hunger event at the Olympics in London during August. I think that the idea is to hold a conference to concentrate people’s minds on the issue of hunger around the world, but if I can add more I shall let the right reverend Prelate know.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

My Lords, is my noble friend the Leader of the House aware that when a great democratic socialist—namely, Roy Jenkins—served as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he was of the view, and remained of the view when he became Home Secretary in the second Wilson Government, that the national debt should not occupy more than about 40% of GDP? That view was expressed by Mr David Laws in an interesting article in the Sunday Telegraph this weekend. Is my noble friend aware that it is possible to have that view and yet be a democratic socialist?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I think my noble friend is trying to be helpful. Indeed, he is being very helpful. Our net debt to GDP is considerably higher than 40%. My noble friend is right: as President Hollande has shown, the answer does not lie in increasing debt.