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

Lord Hain Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Hain (Lab) [V]]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, for his characteristically well-informed and expert introduction. I welcome that way that this report has highlighted the potential to the UK of the Pacific Alliance, established in 2011. That importance is underlined, as the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, said, by the fact that the leaders of China and another 14 countries in the Asia-Pacific region signed in November 2020—just two months ago—one of the biggest free trade deals in history, covering 2.2 billion people and 30% of the world’s economic output. Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea signed the deal, alongside members of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations, including Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand.

Can the Minister comment on the weekend news that the UK is applying to join a free trade area made up of 11 Asia-Pacific nations, under its post-Brexit plans? The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership—CPTPP—includes Australia, Canada, Japan and New Zealand, covering a market of around half a billion people and generating more than 13% of the world’s income. As the Minister will be aware, there are 11 countries in the CPTPP, some overlapping with the Pacific Alliance. Formed in 2018, it comprises Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. Can the Minister say when negotiations will begin and what human rights, employment protection and sustainable growth clauses Britain will seek to place within it?

The committee reports:

“The Government appears to lack a coherent, well thought-through approach to Latin America as a whole, and to its regional and subregional organisations.”


Yet many of the countries in the region, including members of the Pacific Alliance, are ones with which the UK shares considerable common ground on policy issues, such as on the global economy, trade, sustaining the rules-based international order, upholding human rights and addressing climate change. I agree with the committee that the Government should raise and promote the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, particularly in the context of UK companies’ activities in the region, and that they should promote only sustainable, inclusive growth in a continent where nature has been devastated by human commercialism—Brazil’s Amazon rainforest is still being plundered—and which engages with the concerns of indigenous peoples.

Given that this month the UK will take up the presidency of the UN Security Council, and that Mexico is currently serving as a non-permanent member of the council, what effort are the Government making to co-operate with Mexico as one of the most influential nations in the Pacific Alliance? As part of the COP 26 presidency, what steps will the Government take to tackle the climate crisis, specifically in the Pacific Alliance countries, Peru in particular? What are the Government doing to ensure that the Colombian Government uphold their commitment to end violence against human rights defenders and trade unionists? Because UK citizens can be safe during the Covid-19 pandemic only if everyone in the world is safe, what steps have the Government taken to support vaccine access for central America, when Pacific Alliance countries such as Colombia and Chile are yet to even begin their full vaccination programmes? After the Government’s pernicious cut in aid, what proportion of the multibillion aid cuts will fall on the programmes in the Pacific Alliance?

As the committee argued, together these four Pacific Alliance countries constitute the world’s seventh-largest economy, with “great” potential for increases in the current miserly levels of UK trade. I applaud its recommendations for: around 400 Chevening scholarships to students from Pacific Alliance countries; support for green finance; support for girls’ education, especially in science, engineering, technology and mathematics; and help to strengthen the countries’ competition authorities. I also urge more support for the British Council, which has also suffered big cuts in its vital training, arts and engagement exercises. Like aid cuts, this is a pathetically self-defeating policy for a Government who trumpet “global Britain” yet undermine the British Council, which, as I have seen as a Minister abroad, has been so brilliant at promoting Britain.