My Lords, I, too, welcome this trade agreement. I will mostly confine my remarks to Colombia, which I was lucky enough to visit last year as part of an IPU delegation. First, I shall make a couple of slightly regretful general remarks. Originally, this free trade agreement was to be for the whole Andean region of Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia. For reasons which I imagine partly are what the Minister was alluding to when he said that this would send a strong message, Bolivia and Ecuador are not included in this agreement. There are two obvious difficulties with that. One difficulty is that, for those of us who believe that open markets and free trade bring prosperity, it will make an even more two-tier Andean region. We have seen some of the effects of Colombia’s successful push against illegal coca growing, which has been pushed towards Bolivia and Peru. I am nervous that we should do anything further to divide the region when I am sure it would benefit from a more cohesive approach.
That said, I shall concentrate the rest of my remarks on Colombia. Obviously, Colombia has particular issues because it is coming out of decades of conflict and is just entering into, it seems, a successful peace negotiation. That puts a particular onus on those of us who are entering into a free trade agreement to put human rights issues right at the heart of our considerations, partly because human rights are self-evidently incredibly important but partly because the speed of development is going to have a tremendous impact on Colombia, with all the interest in it and indeed with the Colombian Government’s own efforts to develop its infrastructure and to raise the people of its regions out of poverty, especially as a lot of the development will be concentrated on the extractive industries and agriculture.
I get the extremely good briefings from our embassy in Colombia, which highlighted in its September briefing that some of the conflicts have resulted in the deaths of protesters: four protesters were killed in one conflict and one in another, and indeed one policeman has been killed, so it is a matter of life and death.
I underline my praise for the British embassy’s work there. We met His Excellency John Dew, who has since handed over to a new ambassador. The embassy’s work in highlighting the importance of human rights in welcoming in various groups, whether from the peace communities, which are small agricultural farmers, or the trade unions, has been very important. I am sure that its efforts will not lessen with this trade agreement going through.
If the first issue is human rights, the second is biodiversity. The country is one of the most biodiverse in the world. I know that the Colombian Government are well aware of the treasures that they have, but again the extractive industries tend to need infrastructure
and are often looking at extracting minerals from some of the most sensitive areas of the country. All this poses a challenge for any companies going in, and I hope that all British companies involved will be very mindful of these issues.
My question to the Minister is: how will we monitor the human rights issues and what is happening with them? Clearly our own embassy is doing that but the trade committee in Europe that is concerning itself with the free trade agreement does not really have a human rights remit at all. That is the question that I would like the Minister to answer.