My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, for giving me the opportunity to press the Minister on a couple of issues in the context of these amendments. Amendment 39, which relates to the sustainable development goals, is presumably a bit like motherhood and apple pie—something we would all wish to sign up to. Equally, Amendment 97, which calls on the Minister
“to report annually on the impact of trade agreements to which the UK is party on the world’s least developed countries”
will strike a chord with the Minister—my noble friend Lord Younger—regarding his remarks to me on day two of Committee that we want to avoid the unintended consequences of free trade agreements with these countries.
My specific question follows on from the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, who expressed her wish to have expedited rollover agreements with African countries. I would like to press my noble friend on this. This seems bizarre. The United Kingdom was at the forefront, since so many of our Commonwealth countries were involved, in negotiating agreements with African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. These agreements, I understand, have now been rolled over into—I forget the exact term—European partnership agreements. Will my noble friend take this opportunity to set out which ones have been rolled over, what the timetable is, and why we seem to be dragging our feet on them when it surely must be a political priority, given our historic relationship with so many of these countries?