Make Poverty History

October 2005

I will be in Parliament on Wednesday 2nd November 2005 to meet constituents who are coming to Parliament to lobby their MPs on behalf of Make Poverty History and the Trade Justice Movement

I along with the Liberal Democrats support the need to put in place trade policy changes to reduce poverty and help achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

The UK is in an unique position in 2005 to help influence events as it has both the presidency of the EU and the chairing the G8 group of richest nations.

The Trade Justice Movement is concenred that the world’s poorest countries have often been required to open their markets to foreigh exporters as a condition of receiving aid, locals or debt relief from donors such as the UK government and from international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The Commission for Africa stated in its March 2005 report Our Common Interest: “Forcing poor countries to liberalise through trade agreements is the wrong approach to achieving growth and poverty reduction in Africa, and elsewhere.” Although Tony Blair committed the UK government to implementing the Commission’s recommendations, there has been no practical shift in trade policy.

I support the Trade Justice Movement’s calls for the UK government to stop putting pressure on developing countries to open up their markets still further, at the expense of poor people and the environment. This pressure is exerted in a number of institutional settings in which the UK, along with its EU partners, is a major partners.