Brexit: Least Developed Countries

Lord Jay of Ewelme Excerpts

Thursday 16th November 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Jay of Ewelme (CB)]

My Lords, I too congratulate my noble friend Lord Sandwich on organising this debate. Much debate on Brexit is about what will happen over the next 21 months or so, and it is good to be able to look a bit beyond that. Indeed, it is good to look at some aspects of Brexit that might conceivably even be of some advantage to the United Kingdom, rather unusually.

The size and structure of the British aid programme has been rightly admired around the world, if, alas, not always in this country. The focus on aid to the least developed countries has been a key part of that, together with the very good work of NGOs, which has not been mentioned so far today and which deserves great praise. It has made a real difference to the lives of some very poor people around the world. I hope that the emphasis in the aid programme on the least developed countries will continue after Brexit. I cannot see why it should not; indeed, I can see every reason why it should. It would be good to have confirmation from the Minister that that will be the case.

Less than perfect administrative capacity is inevitable in the least developed countries, which means that the misuse of aid must be minimised. However, it will never be eliminated. We have to accept that, from time to time, there will inevitably be complaints about the way in which aid has been used; alas, that will not always go down well in the papers here, but it is an inevitable consequence of a focus on the least developed countries. There will always be tensions too between the wish to support the poorest people in poor countries and real concerns about supporting countries with questionable political systems.

The key here—I very much agree with what was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker—is that the FCO and DfID should work closely together and complement one another. I am sure that they will do that in future, after the adventures of the past few weeks. For the avoidance of doubt, and as a Cross-Bencher, I should say that poor relationships between the FCO and DfID are not new and not a prerogative of any one particular political party. As Permanent Secretary to the Foreign Office, I remember calling on Prime Minister Meles in Addis Ababa to pass on the rather firm message from Prime Minister Blair and the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw that locking up the opposition was not the best way to burnish his social democratic credentials—only to find that the DfID representative in Addis Ababa had called on the Financial Minister the very same day and promised him a rather large sum of money. I did not feel that that enhanced the message I was trying to give. However, I am quite sure that that will not happen in the future.

As the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, has said, trade is important. I am glad that the Government have said that after Brexit they will, as a minimum, provide the same level of access to developing countries as the current EU trade preference schemes. That is a very important commitment. The EU has not been as generous as it might have been in its trade policy to developing countries. I hope that the Government, outside the European Union, may be able to devise more generous policies, especially to the poorest countries. I welcome anything the Minister can say about that too.