International Trade and Development Agency — House of Commons, 2018-12-12
Topic: International Affairs
James Spencer Cleverly (Conservative, Centre-right): I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to establish an International Trade and Development Agency to coordinate the development and delivery of policy between the Department for International Trade and the Department for International Development; and for connected purposes I am sure that all Members of this House will be familiar with the old adage, "Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for life." But I feel that another line should be added to that: "Buy that man’s surplus fish and watch him lift himself out of poverty." In March 2016, I went to Sierra Leone, the country of my mother’s birth, to see the impact that UK aid has had. Sierra Leone is a country that was ravaged by civil war—a civil war that was ultimately brought to a close because of the involvement of British armed forces. More recently, Sierra Leone was hit by Ebola, a disease that was able to take hold because the social and medical infrastructure of the country was smashed during the civil war. British aid and British medical professionals were instrumental in winning the fight against Ebola. When mudslides in Sierra Leone’s capital of Freetown took the lives of hundreds, UK aid stepped up and supported the country once again. However, when I spoke to the people of Sierra Leone—a country that was hit by war, disease and natural disaster—on my visit, I found that the thing they craved most from their relationship with the UK was not further aid, thankful though they were for the aid they had received, but increased trade. They wanted to be able to sell to us and to be able to buy our products and services in return The Department for International Development has the remit to end extreme poverty and tackle the root causes of disease, mass migration, insecurity and conflict. I know that DIFD does look at helping countries on the journey out of poverty by supporting the development of their commercial potential and establishing the foundations for future trading relationships, but it will always feel pressure to focus on countries with the most poverty and at the times of greatest hardship. Our constituents very rarely complain when they see UK aid supporting those in the most extreme hardship. We are, at heart, a nation of people with an internationalist outlook and a desire to support people when they are at their lowest ebb. There is, however, less vocal support for our development spending when it is not targeted at the points of most extreme poverty and hardship. Yet it is this area that gives countries the best chance of becoming permanently economically self-sufficient. Since the EU referendum vote, the people of the United Kingdom have embraced a new-found interest in international trade policy. We have seen a significant appetite to build on our current relationships and become, once again, a global trading nation. It is right that in the immediate post-Brexit world, the International Trade Department prioritises increasing trade flows between the UK and other larger developed economies. This is the most efficient use of limited Government resources: time, money, and people. But there is a danger that countries who are neither at the poorest nor the richest end of the spectrum fall between the two. We see very little public disagreement when our aid spending is directed at countries like Sierra Leone, which has gone through such difficulties, but when it is directed at countries like Nigeria and Pakistan, we too often see negative headlines and public disquiet. Yet it is countries like these—not at the lowest ebb but certainly not yet fully economically stable—that could be permanently helped out of poverty through trade with the United Kingdom If the UK is going to take up its rightful position as a truly global leader in this field, we need to ensure that we have a repository for the kind of expertise necessary to look into things like trade preferences for least developed countries and how we make sure that countries growing out of LDC status are not presented with a cliff-edge change to their trade status. Addressing those complexities is a tall order for our civil servants, spread across two Departments, and takes deep, specialist expertise. Civil servants rotate through different jobs across Departments every few years, so we often have to rely on outside expertise, and unfortunately there is little institutional memory in this area. Equally, asking civil servants to assess the impact of policies and programmes they have designed is like asking someone to mark their own homework. Parliament must also be able to access independent evidence and analysis, be well informed about the shape of our new trade arrangements with developing countries as we leave the EU, have visibility of the impacts of those trade arrangements and, if they are performing less well than expected, call for improvements A similar basket of requirements brought about the creation of the United States International Trade Commission some 100 years ago. That is why we should have a similar but enhanced organisation here in the UK at this pivotal moment in our history. The agency would be a statutory body, reporting to Ministers and Parliament, probably with a staff of around 50 full-time professionals. The agency would have five main functions First, it would carry out analysis and consultations with businesses in the UK and in developing countries to build up a robust evidence base, monitoring our trade with developing countries and assessing the impacts on growth, employment and development, reporting to Ministers and Parliament annually Secondly, it would specifically review the scope and design of our trade preference systems for developing countries and advise Ministers at least every two years on how these were performing and where improvements were needed, including which countries should be included, excluded or graduated Thirdly, it would recommend how we can best craft our future trade agreements with developing countries in goods, services and technology to maximise the benefits for promoting shared prosperity at home and abroad and overcome red-tape barriers for developing countries exporting to the UK Fourthly, it would undertake sustainability impact assessments of all future UK trade agreements with developing countries, following the model that has been used extensively by the EU but for which we currently have no system here in the UK. Finally, the agency would track our Aid for Trade programmes, assessing performance against Government targets and recommending best practices for joined-up and effective UK aid spending in this area We have the opportunity to create an organisation of truly global standing that could be a model for other OECD countries and an international centre of excellence. We have the chance to make a statement to countries around the world, rich and poor, that we do not just want to make poverty bearable; we want to make poverty history.