The UK’s Relationship with the Pacific Alliance (International Relations Committee Report)

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Alderdice (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, both for the important report that he and his committee have written and for obtaining this substantial debate. It gives us an opportunity to discuss the relationship with the four countries of the Pacific Alliance and advise Her Majesty’s Government on how they should prioritise and promote this set of relationships.

I have a long-standing interest in this area, particularly in Colombia and Peru. I declare my registered interest as the president of the Peru Support Group. I pay particular tribute to my predecessor, the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, who, as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, pointed out, played an important role in the origins of the report and spoke with such passion and insight this afternoon.

My relationship with those countries and my visits to them began many years ago when Northern Ireland, my own part of the United Kingdom, was emerging from a long and painful experience of terrorism. Both Peru and Colombia were seeking to do the same. Of course, the underlying issues that find tragic expression in terrorist campaigns do not easily or quickly go away—even when, as in Colombia in particular, there has been a substantial effort at peacebuilding. My connection with both countries still includes regular contact with colleagues there who continue to work to build peace, stability and reconciliation, as is also the case in Northern Ireland.

However, like the Select Committee report does, I will focus on some other important elements of our relationships and how they can be developed to our mutual benefit, especially in this post-Brexit period. One of my frustrations over the years has been the way in which our Governments have consciously turned away from long-standing relationships with Latin America. I well recall protesting in your Lordships’ House against the decision of the Blair Administration to withdraw resources from Latin America in favour of a focus on China. The closure of the British Council office in Lima in 2006 is just one example of this serious strategic error of judgment, which was clear to me at the time—and I said so. Abandoning long-standing relationships of that kind in favour of hoped-for economic benefits from countries that do not share our values is almost always foolish and misguided, as those decisions have proved to be.

I hope that the announcement just made by the Government of their intention to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership is a genuine resetting of our orientation. We have a long-standing relationship with these countries. I was reminded—your Lordships may be amused to hear this—of the length of that relationship when I saw that the main highway in Santiago was named after Bernardo O’Higgins: a clear demonstration of the long-standing relationship and one with which the noble Lord, Lord West, would be particularly pleased since O’Higgins was an admiral.

I also hope that the relations with the Pacific Alliance countries that are currently members of the CPTPP will expand—and include all of them, of course—and will be real priorities and not secondary to those with some of the other members that are also long-standing and valued friends.

In our negotiations and in the deepening of the relationship with the Pacific Alliance countries, particularly Peru and Colombia, I have four requests of Her Majesty’s Government. The first is that, to facilitate business, tourist and citizen contacts, the UK needs to change its visa regulations for Peru and Colombia. I have mentioned this before and I am delighted to see that the report is very clear about its importance. I suspect that the unspoken reason for the stonewalling by the Government is to do with security. I am familiar with those issues but I do not think that they should be regarded as a problem. The potential benefits of mutual contact between our countries cannot be overestimated, but even as we all suffer from the profound restrictions on travel very properly in place because of Covid, there is much that can be done online in language, culture and the future opportunities of digital developments.

Secondly, we have long-standing substantial investments in the region, for example in the extractive industries of Peru. I want to see that develop but I also want to see it taking place with due regard to the welfare of the environment, with which the Pacific Alliance is so richly and variously endowed, and—thirdly—the interests of the indigenous peoples of the region, many of whom live in deep poverty and are suffering grievously from the pandemic.

The problems for indigenous peoples go back a long way, as does the concern of Her Majesty’s Government for their welfare. I remind your Lordships of the report on the Anglo-Peruvian Amazon Rubber Co. by Sir Roger Casement in the early 1900s, when he was a diplomat for the United Kingdom. Will Her Majesty’s Government undertake that in all relationships and agreements the interests of the indigenous people, and the people as a whole, will get due attention?

Fourthly and lastly, we want to see economic co-operation. We may well wish to be able to give health co-operation in this time when vaccines are needed. In all these and many other areas, there is much to be gained from our co-operation with the Pacific Alliance countries. I commend the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, and his colleagues, for this excellent report.