David Lepper

Labour Party | Brighton Pavilion

Co-operative News: Westminster Diary

The Co-operative movement is an internationalist movement.

It is appropriate, therefore, that “Enterprise Empowerment Accountability: The Co-operative Agenda for Labour –2”, published in the summer, includes proposals to enhance the ethical dimension in international development and trading policies which has already been a key- note of Labour's policies under Clare Short since 1997.

The Co-operative Group has an Ethical Trading Code of Conduct and was a founder partner in the Department for International Development's Ethical Trading Initiative to “promote good practice in the implementation of codes of labour practice.”

Labour's White Paper “Eliminating World Poverty – a Challenge for the 21st Century” emphasised the importance of working with self-help housing groups, for instance, and stated, “We will support policies and projects for…the promotion of finance for private business- through providing lines of credit and expertise to … co-operatives, that offer loans to poor farmers, poor people in towns.”

Last year Edgar Parnell's New Mutualism pamphlet “Helping Self Help” set out the case for a unit in DfID to give guidance on and to Self Help Organisations and ensure that self-help solutions are always considered in DfID's aid programmes and projects.

Since 1997 the Labour government has taken a lead in global initiatives such as the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative to tackle the unsustainable debt burden of developing countries. In 1999, the government secured agreement on a radical overhaul of the HIPC Initiative, to ensure faster, deeper debt relief, strongly linked to poverty reduction. Up to 0billion debt could be written off for the 42 HIPC countries.

23 countries have so far qualified for exceptional debt relief under HIPC. bn in debt relief will be provided to these countries, reducing their debts by around two-thirds. As a result, social expenditure in these countries is expected to rise by around .7bn per year. Ghana, Ethiopia and Sierra Leone could join qualifying countries over the next few months. But further progress will be difficult as many of the remaining eligible countries are affected by conflict or face serious internal political problems.

Actually the UK goes further than the HIPC initiative requires and provides 100% relief on its bilateral debts to HIPCs once they qualify, and holds any debt repayments 'in trust' in the meantime. The UK is also the second largest contributor (6m) to the trust fund for financing the international costs of HIPC, and co-finances a major project to strengthen the debt management capacity of developing countries.

Our Labour government's reform of the basis of the UK's international development work progressed in early November when its International Development Bill had an unopposed Second Reading in the House of Commons having already gone through the House of Lords.

This important Bill had first come before the Commons in February this year but was still going through Parliament when the general election was called. Unfortunately at that stage agreement could not be reached with the Opposition to allow it to pass before the election. Within a month of 7th June it had been reintroduced, this time in the House of Lords.

This International Development Bill aims to ensure that development aid, with the exception of assistance to our own Overseas Territories and that given in response to man-made or natural disasters or emergencies, must contribute to the reduction of poverty through sustainable development or welfare improvement for people. It would, therefore, end the practice of tying aid to trade.

This is important not only because it is estimated “tying” reduces the real value of the aid given by 25% but also because “tying” gives out the message that we are only interested in development programmes if they are good for UK businesses.

Once the Bill is passed any future government would have to come back to Parliament if it wanted to re-introduce “tying”. The Bill will also provide a framework within which the Labour-Co-op Parliamentary Group of MPs can put an even stronger case for a co-operative, mutual and self-help focus to aid.

The Bill now goes to a Commons Standing Committee for detailed consideration.