Commonwealth Development Corporation debate

10 Apr 2002
Dr. Julian Lewis (New Forest, East): This is the first time that a so-called Westminster Hall debate has been held anywhere other than Westminster Hall. As we all know, it is because of the arrangements for the lying in state of the late Queen Mother. It is therefore appropriate that the subject of our first debate since Parliament has resumed is non-partisan and concerns the good will of people in prosperous countries towards those in poor countries.

I shall begin the debate on a local note. The Hampshire Scout Expeditions has been engaged in an expedition to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Within the past few days, on their way back, the scouts visited poor villages in Tanzania to engage in developmental projects and put something back into the country in return for their adventure. The spirit behind that generous contribution was similar to the spirit in which the 1945-50 Attlee Labour Government set up the Colonial Development Corporation, which subsequently became the Commonwealth Development Corporation.

The raison d'etre behind the corporation was to boost investment for development in some of the world's poorest countries. When the legislation for the part-privatisation of the CDC was debated in the House in 1999, the wish to make it work enjoyed cross-party support, but there was considerable concern that it might not succeed. When the Bill was first debated in Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter), the then shadow Secretary of State for International Development, sounded the clearest possible warning when he said that


    "the new CDC may be the worst of all worlds: it will attract little interest from the private sector and will therefore be undersold, but will be moved away from its developmental objectives over the next few years by shareholder pressure.—[Official Report, Standing Committee D, 19 June 1999; c. 4.]

Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney, North and Stoke Newington): I sat in on that debate in 1999. Labour Members were assured that the new arrangements would not alter the CDC's traditional developmental role by one jot or tittle. That is the basis on which we voted for the Bill.

Dr. Lewis : The hon. Lady is absolutely right and that was the basis on which the Opposition did not vote against the Bill. However, fears were expressed that the consequences that I have outlined might follow if the arrangements did not work.

...

Ms Abbott : On agricultural policy, the issue is not just the total number of people employed in agriculture, but the fact that those people work in the countryside. If agriculture collapses, they drift to the cities. Many of the people involved in agriculture cannot easily be deployed to computer inputting, or whatever DFID is promoting.

Tony Worthington : I agree completely. That is a neglected issue; all over the world, there is a drift into mega-cities that do not have the services, facilities or work to provide something better than working on the land. We must consider that inter-relationship. There have been examples of success, such as the amazing growth of flower growing in east Africa. That requires the most sensitive kind of manufacturing. It is sensitive to time and quality; nobody wants to buy a flawed red rose. That has been achieved in a part of the world that does not have a settled political atmosphere, which proves that such things can be done, but why have not enough of them been done in Africa?

...

Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney, North and Stoke Newington): I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) on securing an important debate. We can all agree that the role and work of the CDC has not been sufficiently scrutinised since the decision was taken in 1999. The hon. Gentleman seemed alarmed when I sat on this side of the Committee Room. Although we are physically in Committee Room 10, philosophically this is a Westminster Hall debate, and such debates are normally conducted on non-partisan lines. I would like to participate in a non-partisan spirit.

I remember the 1999 debate very well. There was little controversy, and the House was united in believing that the matter was technical and would better enable the CDC to fulfil its developmental remit. In that spirit, the measure was passed with questions asked, but no opposition from either side of the House. The evidence is partial and anecdotal, but it seems that under the new dispensation the CDC has moved from its developmental remit. It seems that way because we do not have enough information. The avenues are not open to the House to allow us to scrutinise properly what the CDC is doing. We know that the CDC is withdrawing from agriculture throughout the world because it does not pay enough. The return that the CDC wants cannot be obtained from investment in agriculture.

I want to add my voice to those of hon. Members who have said that the Government should scrutinise their policy on agriculture and development. In addition to employing a large number of people in third world societies, agriculture is often the anchor of social stability. I am chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on the British Caribbean and my family comes from there. I visit the Caribbean most years and will be there in a few weeks. What has happened following the collapse of agriculture in rural Caribbean countries?

Mrs. Marion Roe (in the Chair): Order. Will the hon. Lady speak a little more loudly? I am having difficulty hearing her and others are also indicating that they cannot hear her. Her points are important and we would all like to hear what she is saying.

Ms Abbott : It is not often that I am accused of not speaking loudly enough.

Agriculture is the anchor of stable civil society throughout much of the third world. When traditional rural agriculture collapses, those who were employed in agricultural pursuits cannot diversify into computer inputting. They cannot even diversify into growing flowers because the new forms of agriculture do not employ labour in the same numbers as traditional agriculture. What often happens in Africa and the Caribbean is that people drift to the city with the resulting problems of instability. When legitimate agriculture does not develop and is not allowed to flourish, people all too often diversify into illegitimate agriculture. There is a clear relationship between the collapse of agriculture in the Caribbean and South America and a move into drug production. I only wish that the Government, who talk so much about joined-up thinking, would apply some joined-up thinking to the relationship between the lack of an agricultural development policy and the war against drugs. Without a coherent policy on developing and sustaining agriculture in the third world the international war against drugs is doomed to failure.

As chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on the British Caribbean, I was privileged to lead a delegation to Belize in the Caribbean last year. I heard bitter complaints from all sides about the role of the CDC. At that time it was a major investor and employer in citrus production, which is a key anchor of stable civil society in Belize, as elsewhere. The CDC was in the process of selling lock, stock and barrel its holding in citrus production. Many people—not just politicians, but agriculturists and workers in citrus production—could not understand why the CDC was selling, helter skelter, its interests without even trying to identify whether local co-operatives and growers could step in. They wondered how it could call itself a development corporation when it was selling off a key industry in Belize apparently without thought for the short and medium term developmental consequences of that sale to the people of Belize. It is all very well for the CDC to have to obtain the maximum return on its investments to be viable, but the example in Belize is that the CDC makes short-term, shareholder-driven decisions to the exclusion of any consideration for the short and medium-term development cost.

Belize, where the situation has not been reconciled, is an example of the decisions that the CDC is making in its new manifestation as a sort of Goldman Sachs of the development world.

I can only repeat what has been said earlier. It must worry any hon. Member who is concerned about development and the third world that investment in sub-Saharan Africa by the CDC has dropped by £30 million. It is difficult to understand the logic of closing down offices in Jamaica, the Ivory Coast and Uganda and opening them up in China. China is not short of investment. The logic of the CDC opening an office there is wholly commercially driven. I share hon. Members' concern about what is happening to the CDC, which now appears to be wholly driven by the interests of shareholders. I share their concern about what is happening as experienced agriculturalists, engineers and business managers leave to be replaced by people who understand the market and about making deals.

If we are serious as a Government about raising the standards of living of people in sub-Saharan Africa and Africa as a whole, in the Caribbean and all those parts of the world that have historic links with this country, we must take the role of the CDC more seriously and subject it to more scrutiny. Yesterday, the whole country was swept up in the emotion of the Queen Mother's funeral. But if the Queen Mother and the royal family mean anything, they mean a commitment to those parts of the world that were part of the empire and are currently part of the Commonwealth. I need to be reassured by Ministers that the CDC's current policies firstly are subject to sufficient scrutiny by the House and, secondly, fulfil our historic and moral responsibility to the Commonwealth.



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