President of the European Commission
Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Lord Hamilton of Epsom(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)
We have taken quite a forward view. We think there is a moral and political case for doing this, and we do not see the supposed economic damage that would be done as a strong argument against it. It is certainly true that some other countries are more cautious. Some EU countries are looking at spending the interest on the capital sum rather than the capital sum itself, but we are still making the argument for the maximum amount that can be done. Our view is simple: one day, Russia will have to pay reparations, and it does not make sense to wait for those reparations. It makes better sense to use the frozen assets and to make that that money available now.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, one of the weapon systems that Ukraine could certainly deal with is the Taurus missile from Germany. The German Parliament has passed this to be sent to Ukraine, but for some reason Chancellor Scholz is holding it up. Can we do anything to encourage the Germans to send the Taurus missile to Ukraine?
Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)
I am grateful for the noble Lord’s question. I spent some time in Germany last week making exactly this argument. It is obviously a sovereign decision for Germany, and so, just as we do not like other people telling us how to make sovereign decisions, we should couch our arguments carefully. However, I made the argument that there is no doubt that Storm Shadow has been incredibly effective, and no doubt that it has not been escalatory, because it has been used responsibly and correctly. The other point worth making is that if we want peace, we are more likely to get a just peace through strength and through backing our words with actions. We make these points to our German allies, but ultimately it will be for them to decide.
Developing World: Debt Reduction
Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Lord Hamilton of Epsom(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)
One of the most important ways to counter it is by offering an alternative, so that when countries are developing there are other offers on the table. That is why the expansion of British International Investment—what used to be the Commonwealth Development Corporation—is so important. We are also countering it through the expansion of the multilateral development banks, and in our White Paper we demonstrate how we can expand their balance sheets and get them to lend more. However, the noble Lord makes a very good point: if we look back 10, 15 or 20 years, when we were running debt forgiveness programmes to help highly indebted countries, we see that it was mostly Paris Club countries such as France, Germany, Britain and America that were responsible for the debt, so if we wanted to write it off then we could. Now that so much of the debt owed is to China, which does not believe in debt write-offs, we have to find other ways of delivering restructurings to help those countries which have got into trouble.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, if we write off the debt of these developing countries, what is to stop them running up more debt in future?
Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)
As ever, my noble friend makes a very good point. If we look back at the successful programmes that there were, such as the heavily indebted poor countries initiative, we see that they helped, but many of those countries have gone back into debt—although the situation is not as bad as it was before: the debt-to-GDP ratios in very indebted countries is some 60%, whereas it had got to 100%. One of the best things we can do for those countries is to help them to have better fiscal systems so they can raise their own taxes. I know that noble Lords like a Rwanda update: we have been working with that country since the 1990s and helped it to increase its tax revenue tenfold, and its ratio of tax to GDP has doubled from 8% to 16%, the highest in the region. That is a better thing to do in many instances than lending those countries money.