Visit to Anne Campbell MP
Make Trade Fair
Friday 3rd May 2002
Will Kirby & Caroline Moreiras
Problem
We concentrated on issues related to trade as Mrs Campbell is Parliamentary Private Secretary to Patricia Hewitt in the Department of Trade and Industry. Dumping goods (especially subsidised agricultural products on Mexico) is a problem which prevents developing countries from trading on fair terms with the West. A related problem is tariffs imposed by Western countries on imports, specifically we mentioned American steel tarrifs and European farming subsidies. We complained about the lack of power developing countries have in trade negotiations. We also expressed concern that developing countries were being encouraged to open up markets to international competition before they were ready.
Response
Mrs Campbell agreed that international poverty was a problem and said that she was in favour of making trade work more fairly and that the government would be pushing for this at the Johannesburg summit in August and at G8 and EU meetings in June. Patricia Hewitt (her boss) was working with Pascal Lamy the EU trade commissioner to try and change US policy on Steel imports. She offered to write a letter to try and have reform of the Common Agricultural Policy speeded up.
Mrs Campbell supported the government's policy of establishing a fund to provide negotiating support for developing countries at summits. She denied that there were conditions attached to loans and debt relief which made developing countries liberalise their economies prematurely.
Action
We encouraged Mrs Campbell to write to Tony Blair on these issues but she suggested writing to Patricia Hewitt who would be involved in trade negotiations. We were unable to ask her to sign the Early Day Motion because of her position in the government but she said that she would be likely to support the Trade Justice Movement's mass lobby of parliament on June 19th in Westminster. If people from Cambridge go to the launch, she would be happy to appear with them in a publicity picture. Mrs Campbell said that she would visit Oxfam's 'big noise' website and decide whether or not to sign up.
Generally we got the impression that Mrs Campbell was concerned about poverty in developing countries and supportive of the Trade Justice Movement. She is a Minister in the Department of Trade and Industry therefore she might be in a position to infuence negotiations over the summer.
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