Latin America

Lord Brennan Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brennan (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, on introducing this debate, which is so important. I remind the House of my interests in Latin America, which are set out in the register, including advising companies and investors on how get into Latin America and once they are there to make a success of it, and vice versa, from there to here. My wife is patron of the Anglo Latin American Foundation, which supports poor and needy children on that continent.

Our country’s relationship with the countries of Latin America has been of historic duration. A key figure was George Canning. As Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister in the 1820s, he chose to persuade our Government to recognise the new countries and states that were setting themselves up on the Latin American continent. He shared wisdom and foresight, hence his statue in Parliament Square, put up within a few years of his death, and hence the blue plaque on his house in Berkeley Square. It says simply but nobly “George Canning”, his birth and death years below, and, in the middle, one word: “statesman”. He recognised the creation of a group of nations that had a long-term future with which we should be associated.

Let us remember that it is not just the rich and famous companies or people who went to Latin America. Cornish tin miners mined in Mexico when tin stopped being mined in Cornwall. Welsh farmers set up farms in Patagonia, and the Welsh community there is still extant a couple of hundred years later. In London now, we count ourselves lucky to have top-class diplomats from these countries, working hard in their interests and ours, two of whom are in the Gallery today, from Peru and Costa Rica.

What about the future? Latin America is approaching 700 million people. They are educated people, with a high literacy rate in most countries. They know what they are doing. It is the largest net food exporter territory in the world. The beef exports are world famous. The next time you buy a tin of Fray Bentos, have a look. Fray Bentos was the port in Uruguay through which the beef in the tin came from there to here—hence Fray Bentos, started by the Vestey family here in England.

Argentina has a huge shale field for oil and gas. Brazil, Argentina and Mexico are three very important countries for oil and gas. As for renewable energy, solar intensity is very high in some areas of Latin America. The winds are long and strong in some areas. They are ready for renewable energy and for us to help them.

The noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, mentioned Guyana, which is a member of the British Commonwealth. It was colonised as a new country by us in the 18th and 19th centuries. Last Friday, 1 December, the International Court of Justice, in front of which there is a case about the territorial claim by Venezuela, made a statement requiring Venezuela not to take any action involving Guyana until the court had made a judgment. I trust that our Government will stand by that attitude of the ICJ. On Sunday in Venezuela, a “referendum vote”—in inverted commas—is supposed to have asked the people of the country to help invade the disputed territory, which has plenty of oil and gas. We must help as and when required—certainly, diplomatically.

There is plenty of mining of the strategic minerals of lithium and nickel in the southern Andes. We have listed on our stock exchange the largest precious metals company in Mexico, Fresnillo, and the largest mining company in Peru, Hochschild, because we value the benefit of their business internationally.

I turn to the climate change of the future. Of all the global places about which we have heard, the Amazon rainforest is probably the last place where the world is breathing safely. Let us help Brazil in particular to look after that important sector.

Let us be careful, because China is in Latin America—big time. The trade between China and Argentina is measured in billions of US dollars. China is helping to build a new railway system in Argentina, and—hear this—it wants to open a Chinese subsidiary port in a place called Ushuaia in the deep south of Argentina, opposite the Falklands and next to Antarctica. It is on the Atlantic coast, not the Chinese-facing Pacific. This is serious stuff.

Therefore, let us look for a balanced relationship. This is an important part of the world. Its countries will look to us in the future as they have done in the past. As we start the third century of our long-term relationships, let us go to it.