EU: Trade Agreement on Banana Imports

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle]

My Lords, on behalf of the Opposition, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, for bringing forward this debate and for the charm and conviction with which she introduced it. In the debate, we have had many notable contributions. My noble friend Lord Foulkes made me dream of the white beaches and turquoise oceans, but he also spoke with great knowledge and experience from his time as a Minister at international development. We had the passion of the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, while other noble Lords, including the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery, the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, and my noble friend Lady Howells were speaking from personal knowledge.

Regarding my own knowledge of this issue, I suppose I should declare an interest. The part of my life in which I came across this was while I was in my noble friend Lord Mandelson's cabinet when, as Peter Mandelson, he was Commissioner for trade. This was one of the issues that came across one's desk then, and it is one of the longest running trade sagas in the history of the European Union. Its origins go right back to the start, when the French won preferences for their colonies against the resistance of Germany. When we joined the Common Market, we were able to get preferences for our colonies, which led to the formation of the ACP group. Since then, however, the brutal facts and realities of free trade have caused great difficulty for the vulnerable communities that have depended on these preferences.

There is an irony here. It is a tragedy that some of the general policies for which we, as a country and as the Labour Party, have fought—for instance, the idea that there be multilateral, supranational jurisdiction on trade issues—are good things but that is what, since 1993, has led to the EU having to abandon its preferences. Similarly, we want a general liberalisation of agriculture. We want to break down the protectionism of the common agricultural policy. So while we want liberalisation of agricultural trade, again, the harsh facts in this case mean very great difficulties for people to whom we owe a moral obligation.

This has been going on a long time. The EU fought a valiant battle to prevent this happening. The first case by the United States was brought in 1993 and the Geneva agreement was reached only in 2010. We stalled for years, first by fighting the idea that we had to give up on the preferences in Europe and then by saying that we proposed a tariff that was quite high in terms of protecting the Caribbean and other producers. Ultimately, because of the pressure from the WTO jurisdiction system, we have had to give way.

I turn to my questions for the Minister. First, what is her assessment of the banana market? What has the impact been? How serious is it in the countries that are affected? What is the Government’s view of what can be done to help? Secondly, the papers refer to the safeguard clauses that are allowed into the EU/Andean association agreement. How have they been implemented? Have they helped to protect the vulnerable producers? Thirdly, as many noble Lords have mentioned, what are we doing to ensure that the €190 million of special support is being wisely and properly spent? How can we ensure that that help is speeded up? What additional help will we be fighting for beyond 2013? I hope that we will regard this as a priority for the EU budget. Lastly, on a point that the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, made, what pressures are we putting on our supermarkets to try to support fair trade standards in the retailing of bananas, which would help the most vulnerable producers?

These are important questions and this is an important clause. We thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, very much for tabling this debate.