Colombia: Bilateral Investment Treaty

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I think so—but there is a difference between being consistent and having a cut-and-paste approach. Every context is unique and Colombia is a particularly special partner for us, for reasons that noble Lords will understand.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as director of the Hay Festival Cartagena in Colombia. We will have our 20th anniversary next week, when we will be joined by many politicians, environmentalists and tribal leaders. Perhaps I might extend the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, about the $13 billion. Australia does not have an ISDS agreement with Colombia. The mega mining group BHP has found a workaround via its UK-registered spin-off company, South32, to sue Colombia for $94 million over alleged unpaid royalties from a mine that the Constitutional Court of Colombia has ruled causes serious long-term health and environmental issues. As the penholder, can we not intervene in this? Colombia has 10% of the world’s unique birds and, just in the last 12 months, it has found 12 new species of plants and an animal, an amphibian, that we did not even know existed.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

Colombia is an astonishing country, not least because of its biodiversity. It would not be right to try to leverage our role as penholder for the peace process at the Security Council to intervene in issues of trade. The UK is the fourth-largest investor in Colombia and we seek to work through these issues alongside Colombia in the spirit of mutual respect and partnership.