G20 Summit

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

We remain committed to the deal that we have negotiated with the EU and believe that it is the best deal, but my noble friend is absolutely right: both we and the EU are preparing for no deal. There have been many conversations, both bilaterally and with the EU, about preparations. We are taking forward our plans, as are the Europeans, but certainly conversations have been had.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, will the Minister accept a warm welcome for the reference in the communiqué to supporting a rules-based international order, even if some of the signatories are somewhat unlikely supporters of that proposition? I welcome the Prime Minister’s efforts on that, with many of her colleagues. I have two questions. Reform of the World Trade Organization is obviously a sensible way to go, but the United States has made no secret of the fact that it wishes to dismantle the dispute settlement procedures of the World Trade Organization, so will the noble Baroness say that the Government will under no circumstances accept a weakening of the dispute settlement proceedings and will, indeed, think about ways of circumventing the US tactic of failing to appoint new members to the panel? On migration, there are two rather obscure passages in the communiqué —paragraphs 17 and 18. Will the noble Baroness say how Britain is going to be represented next week at Marrakesh at the meeting to sign up to the UN compact on migration?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I thank the noble Lord. He is right that there was agreement that reform is needed to improve the WTO’s functioning. A step forward was that progress on this will be reviewed at the next G20 summit. The G20 has given the WTO a strong mandate for reform and we now want to see everyone working together. I can certainly assure him that our priorities for WTO reform include ensuring the continued effectiveness of the dispute settlement mechanism, including the role of the appellate board. We want to enhance transparency in the system to improve trust and to enhance the rules by ensuring clear disciplines on distortive subsidies and state-owned enterprises. We will be taking these forward strongly. He asked about migration. I can say that we will indeed be at the upcoming intergovernmental launch of the global compact. We support this compact, both in terms of international co-operation and as a framework to help us deliver our commitments under the sustainable development goals.