G7

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I do not think that my noble friend is suggesting that we are at the point where we might extend the G7 to include China. But he is right about China being so important to the future prosperity and security of the world at large. Again, this is an area where we have been very much in the forefront in recognising the growing importance of China. Before the general election, the UK was the first G7 country to join the AIIB, which is the new Chinese version of the World Bank. Because of our leadership there, other G7 countries have joined that bank.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I am sure the noble Baroness will be pleased to be reminded that the current EU Trade Commissioner is a woman, Cecilia Malmström, so she should therefore have said “her predecessor” when referring to the EU Trade Commissioner.

On TTIP, the transatlantic trade association, I hope the Government are well aware that there is an active campaign on social media and in the NGO community against this whole transatlantic free trade agreement as a capitalist ramp that will give multinational companies access to our markets at all sorts of cost. That is as irrational as much of the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union. Are the Government planning any major information campaign to combat that underlying distrust of the entire transatlantic trade agreement?

On the EU, are the Government also proposing to use the balance of competences exercise of the last coalition Government to inform the public, given that I read in the newspapers every day of major claims being made by members of the Conservative Party for the repatriation of substantial powers from the European Community, for which the balance of competences exercise produced no evidence?

Lastly, we all welcome the Government’s views on corruption, and we all see again from the FIFA example that the overseas territories and Crown dependencies under British sovereignty form part of a network of transnational corruption. Are the Government planning to take powers to tighten controls over overseas financial centres under British sovereignty?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, there is quite a lot there, but first I must thank the noble Lord for correcting me on the current EU Trade Commissioner. He follows these issues far more closely than I do myself and, unfortunately, I had not spotted from the name in my brief that I had got the gender incorrect, so I am pleased to be told that the Trade Commissioner is a woman.

On TTIP, the noble Lord is absolutely right to say that there are a huge number of benefits in the agreement for small businesses because it will help them to export, as well as for consumers generally in terms of cheaper goods and increased trade. I will reflect on his comment about the promotion of the benefits of TTIP, but that leads me back to the point I made earlier, which is that because there is so much to be gained from this trade deal, I think there are some misplaced concerns about issues which are not relevant. They are not ones that we need to be concerned about because we have got the necessary assurances. I know that the noble Lord was very much involved in the balance of competences exercise. I will look at it again.

On corruption and the overseas territories, although I may not be able to find the specifics, I can make the general point that one of the things that we as a Government have done in terms of increasing transparency is to ensure that the Crown dependencies are part of the first wave of the new arrangements for ensuring that transactions are properly recorded as part of one of our new measures to increase transparency, so they are very much part of the effort to make progress in this area.