Co-operation and Economic Development in the Commonwealth

Part of Opposition Day – in the House of Commons at 9:15 pm on 21 November 1983.

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Photo of Mr Eric Deakins Mr Eric Deakins , Walthamstow 9:15, 21 November 1983

I was referring to Britain and Canada simply in relation to the economic summit of the seven major trading nations. I was not thinking of other international forums where, obviously, India and other countries have a vital role to play.

We should also try to draw up a proper agenda for meetings of Heads of Governments within the Commonwealth. I concede that these meetings are often informal and that much of the best discussion takes place at the margins—to use that terrible Common Market phrase—outside the conference sessions. Nevertheless, at each meeting the Commonwealth ought to discuss trade and aid within the Commonwealth and what is happening about it.

The Commonwealth should discuss also its attitude to the reform of international institutions. As the hon. Member for Mossley Hill said, the Commonwealth experts' report from Delhi should be germane to those discussions. We cannot proceed, as the Minister said, when dealing with the debt problem and the IMF, merely with a case by case approach, because that smacks of expediency in the increasingly tense financial problems of the world. We must have a strategy to deal with the debt problems faced by many Commonwealth countries. It would be helpful if this subject were discussed at the Commonwealth conference.