Free Trade Agreements: Cameroon and Ghana

Debate between Alex Cunningham and Sarah Olney

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney]

The hon. Member admirably makes my point for me: at every stage this Government have refused scrutiny. We cannot and do not have any oversight at all of what the British Government are doing in our name and how they are supporting our African partners.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Following on from what my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) said, the hon. Lady will have heard the Foreign Secretary say that, when it comes to trade deals,

“I can think of behaviour that would cross the line and render a country beyond the pale.”

The Biya regime is responsible for mass executions, burning villages, the killing of women, children and the elderly, torture, disappearances and sexual abuse. That is not just a one-off; it has happened on a sustained basis over four years against the English-speaking population. Can the hon. Lady possibly understand why the Government do not consider that that behaviour crosses the line and puts Cameroon well beyond the pale?

[Sarah Olney]

The hon. Gentleman is precisely right. The lack of scrutiny means that the events that he describes do not come to light and that we do not get an opportunity to express our view as a British Parliament on whether that is acceptable.

It is not only MPs to whom the Government are not listening. Ghana and Cameroon are part of the Economic Community of West African States, which is composed largely of least developed countries that have been automatically offered tariff-free access to the UK market under the Everything but Arms scheme. The Conservative Government had previously made it clear that regional trade was one of their major priorities for African economic development through the support of the UK’s aid budget, namely £4 million between 2010 and 2016, yet Ghana’s requests for an approach that would not cut across its ECOWAS commitments were consistently rebuffed. The liberalisation schedule will see Ghana beginning to open its markets to UK goods immediately, on a timetable that is at odds with its neighbours in the ECOWAS customs union. That totally undermines regional trade in west Africa.