Southern Africa: Trading Relationships

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

I thank the noble Lord for his welcome. As I mentioned before, my noble friend the Minister of State for Trade Policy is in South Africa and Namibia this week. He will meet the SADC secretariat as well as Trade Ministers across the region. In addition to those talks, at the Commonwealth Trade Ministers’ meeting in March he met SADC counterparts, and there continue to be ongoing meetings with officials.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

Plenty of opportunities will arise from Brexit to develop our relationships with Africa. However, there will also be substantial threats, including the development within the EU of EPAs, which of course have a huge development side to them, and we will not be able to influence those. Can the noble Baroness assure us that in future talks on Brexit these issues will be embraced by the Department for International Development and by other departments with an interest in development as well as in trade?

[Baroness Sugg]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. I read with interest the Africa APPG report, which raised many of these issues. We have been a long-standing supporter of EPAs and will continue to be so. They put our trading relationship with Africa on a more equitable, mature and business-like footing. As we leave the EU, we will, first, ensure continuity with our trading partners. In the longer term, we will have the opportunity to negotiate new trade deals, and we will look to strengthen our trading relationships with developing countries in the future.