Economic Partnership Agreement: Kenya

Earl of Sandwich Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB) [V]]

My Lords, as a rollover agreement, the UK-Kenya EPA has had rather a bumpy ride through Parliament, both here and in Kenya. This stems mainly from the cavalier treatment of the other EAC members, which are assumed to go along with it since they already benefit from LDC and EBA preferences.

Like other members of the IAC, I have been especially concerned about whether any countries were consulted as individual nations, as well as via the EAC itself. Nairobi has always had the monopoly of communications, as well as of trade, in east Africa; that is a fact of life. But Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and even South Sudan, and the new applicants DRC and Somalia, all have strong interests in trading with the UK. They do not want any disruption. Even in Nairobi, several MPs complained that their Government had failed to consult fully with their own stakeholders on the agreement, with the result that parliamentary debate was held up and the deadline for ratification missed.

There were some deep-seated civil society and farming concerns that the EPA, like its EU-ACP predecessor, tended to treat Kenya as a supplier of raw materials and primary products, rather than encouraging its SMEs and businesses to develop its manufacturing base. For some, this recalls the UK’s neo-colonial links with Africa and is still a long way short of the vision of fair and sustainable trade that helps the poor. The noble Lord, Lord Boateng, made powerful points on that as well.

There is a real risk that the EPA could destabilise the EAC itself by negotiating with only Kenya and the bloc rather than with individual members. The community was founded in 1999 and is still the strongest regional association in Africa. It held its 21st summit last weekend. It has achieved a degree of integration, but its members still control their own foreign policy. The Minister has claimed that the DIT kept in touch with individual states, but perhaps he could give details today. The fact that they have been formally invited to join the agreement after the event hardly makes a difference if they each have different policy objectives.

I do not blame Brexit for all this directly, but I can point a finger at the last-minute arrangements devised by the Government to patch up a lot of these important trade agreements. The Minister might argue that this was a cunning plan to ensure that the agreement went through just in time, but most people would think, and perhaps Ministers would admit, that it was a messy consequence of doing things in too much of a hurry.

I welcome the noble Lord, Lord McDonald, to our Cross Benches, and thank him for his unambiguous support for our aid programme.