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

Lord McNally Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord McNally (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Howell, and his committee for this report. I am pleased that the Government drew our attention to the Canning agenda in their response, which was launched in 2010 by the then Foreign Secretary—now the noble Lord, Lord Hague. That was, of course, a statement of the coalition Government’s policy, and I am reassured that it remains the basis of the present Government’s approach.

Latin America always has difficulty in getting high up the list of British government priorities. We had only one colony on continental South America: Guyana. Spanish and Portuguese are the dominant languages. Customs and laws reflect their colonial past. Political and economic instability has too often been the norm, and external influences have often contributed to it. Little wonder it takes a little courage and fortitude to do business there. No one pretends that making a reality of building better, stronger and longer-lasting links with the Pacific Alliance will be easy, but global Britain should try.

In the brief time available, I will raise three points that would benefit from the Minister’s response. The first is the brush-off given in the Government’s reply to trade envoys. This is an error. This is not a job application, by the way, but I think it is a concept worth developing rather than sidelining. I have no direct experience of being a trade envoy, but I share an office with my noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter, who was for five years the Prime Minister’s trade envoy to Mexico. I can testify to the time, enthusiasm and hard work she devoted to that role, and how appreciated that work was by the Mexicans. The concept of Prime Minister’s trade envoys enables HMG to show a little tender loving care to countries and regions that may not qualify for a full ministerial visit. To inspire confidence, however, they should be clearly separated from any idea of personal patronage by the Prime Minister, although I see merit in associating the Prime Minister’s name with their mission.

Secondly, I mentioned that our only mainland South American colony was Guyana, but there are many Commonwealth members in the nearby Caribbean. Is there scope, in developing closer links with the Pacific Alliance, to encourage closer links between the Pacific Alliance and the Caribbean Commonwealth?

My third point concerns a more difficult part of our relationship. Mexico and Colombia are major sources of drug trafficking. Can our closer co-operation with the Pacific Alliance—and, if we foster them, its closer working relations with the Caribbean Commonwealth—help in the war on drugs?

It would be interesting to know whether the Foreign Secretary plans another Canning lecture any time soon, and whether it will contain any of the vision and sense of urgency contained in the 2010 speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hague. Will we, as he said in 2010, be keen to broker

“a strategic alliance between Latin America and Europe on climate change”,

or seek to make the UK

“the partner of choice in education and culture, offering new English language skills to a wider audience and fostering knowledge sharing and creativity in arts and science”?

The Canning House paper published in 2020 to mark the 10th anniversary of that speech noted some fear in the region that it would once again slip down our priority list. I know the Minister will be reassuring in his reply because he is the Minister for reassuring replies, but action, not words, will determine how far we have moved from the vision presented by the noble Lord, Lord Hague, on behalf of the coalition 11 years ago and the reality of our future relations with the Pacific Alliance.