G20 Summit

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Monday 8th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, who brings not only his experience but his refreshing objectivity and common sense to both the committee and many of these debates. I want to agree with him on a couple of points and will address them from my perspective in a short while.

On the structure of the G20, while it is welcome that South Africa is a member, I also wonder why Thailand, Nigeria, Taiwan, Iran or Colombia, which have bigger economies, are not participating. Ultimately, however the G20 is constituted, it is clearly better for leaders of nations to talk than not to. It is better to attend and participate actively, rather than following the approach of the leader of Mexico, for example, who chose not to attend, or President Bolsonaro, who cancelled a meeting with President Xi because the Chinese were late. It is clearly also better to seek consensus on the global challenges facing the biggest economies and the largest proportion of the world population.

While I greatly admire the diplomatic dexterity in the drafting of the communiqué on some of the key issues, it is becoming harder and harder to secure consensus in many respects, because of the symptoms the committee had already identified in its report on shifting global patterns. The USA, Russia and, in many ways, China look much more towards a transactional diplomacy than a multilateral one. We could see that in the Prime Minister’s reference to maintaining support for the JCPOA—the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, or others may address that in this debate. Just this weekend, in referencing his regret about the coming apart of that, a former diplomat who worked for former Secretary Kerry in the United States said in very clear American terms that the US, all the P5 countries and all the EU agreed on this and it was the last time they agreed on anything. We can see this starting to unravel.

It is harder and harder to bring about consensus. That was seen on perhaps the biggest issue facing the planet. There was a distinct section on climate in the communiqué because the USA was distinct from the other 19 countries represented there. While other elements of the communiqué could well be warm, fine words, looking at those on cybersecurity or “Data Free Flow with Trust”, surely those in Putin’s circle would say that they are merely that—fine words. That said, the statement from the Prime Minister on the UK’s position is admirable, and the communiqué, and those from the Finance Ministers and others, covering women’s empowerment, tourism, innovation, digitisation, artificial intelligence, agriculture and development, are commendable. This is where I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. The question asked of the Prime Minister by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, was: how will we ensure follow-up? There was an even more specific example in the communiqué on anti-corruption. It said:

“We will intensify our efforts to combat foreign bribery and to ensure that each G20 country has a national law in force for criminalising foreign bribery”.


How does the G20 ensure that? I would be grateful if the Government could respond to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Howell.

During our hearing in the committee, I pursued a question to the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, one of our excellent witnesses, on whether a grouping such as the G20 is as effective as coalitions of the willing, given the current global political climate and the likelihood that it will be with us for the next decade, or perhaps for the remainder of the period covered by sustainable development goals? We saw one example on the Global Fund. There are many other examples of countries large and small, developed and developing, that come together for specific objectives being more effective than a slightly more arbitrary group of large economies parcelling out, south to south, countries or developing countries to themselves. The UK will need to be a driving force in establishing many of these coalitions of the willing. It is going to be one of our major opportunities and a challenge for the world.

Finally, something that really concerned me about the communiqué’s otherwise commendable language was the between-the-lines interpretation I took from it that Africa is still seen purely within the development framework. Africa, the most dynamic continent, with a young and fast-growing population, was still seen almost entirely through the prism of development. It was jarring to see no reference to the world’s largest free trade area, which is currently being formed. It has taken 20 years to negotiate, but the African continental free trade area has enormous global potential, not just for the UK but for all its partners in the developed world. If we continue to see Africa only through the prism of development and not as an opportunity, the other warm elements of the G20 communiqué will not be implemented. That is the opportunity for the UK to take the lead going forward.