JOHN HUMPHRYS:                Margaret Beckett, Rio, as 
we all know was ten years ago . Do you accept that not much has been achieved 
since then.

MARGARET BECKETT:                I  think that's a bit harsh, 
quite a good deal has been achieved but not as much perhaps as some people 
had hoped and what the purpose of Johannesburg is, is not to sort of rake 
over old grounds, say, oh so and so didn't do this and this person didn't 
do that, but to say how do we take this agenda forward. We've got a fair 
amount of international agreement on the millennium development goals to 
get access to water, access to energy particularly for people in the developing 
world, what concrete steps could we agree at Johannesburg that really will 
move things forward?

HUMPHRYS:                    I suppose the big problem 
is globalisation and  
how the big multi-national corporations operate.  Organisations such as 
Friends of the Earth say  that they have to be reined in.

BECKETT:                        I think the point 
that they have is that there are dangers obviously, I mean you can't just 
say stop the world we don't like globalisation it's there, it's a fact 
of life.  The question is the issue of Johannesburg is, can we make globalisation 
work for the poor and it isn't just a simple matter of saying stop big 
business or rein in big business. There are quite major international companies 
that are involved in some really worthwhile projects to try to deliver 
sustainable energy, to try to deliver access to fresh water and sanitation, 
and that's what we have to encourage those companies that are prepared 
to act responsibly to be part of that international partnership.

HUMPHRYS:                    Well, it's more than 
encouraging the good companies isn't it.  It's stopping the bad companies, 
the companies that Friends of the Earth for instance say are trashing the 
environment, and we know that it goes on, illegal logging and all that 
sort of thing.   Those companies have to be stopped don't they?

BECKETT:                        We have got to try 
to stop people who are wrecking other people's livelihoods and the environment 
yes, but what we also have to do is to try to put in place more of that 
basic infrastructure that helps people to start to find their way out of 
poverty because it isn't only a good thing to do and the right thing to 
do in their interests, it's actually in all of our interests.  Few things 
lead to greater degradation of the environment than dire poverty and this 
is why it's very important to everybody to try and find a way out of this 
trap in which so many people in the developing world are caught at the 
present time.

HUMPHRYS:                    But, we're making that 
trap both wider and deeper. We're forcing people effectively into greater 
poverty by making them open up their markets in agriculture when they obviously 
cannot compete.

BECKETT:                         No I think that could 
be a misunderstanding, I mean certainly what we want to do is to pursue 
a sustainable approach to agriculture whether it's in the developed or 
the developing world.  But although this won't be a major feature won't 
be the centre piece of what's discussed at Johannesburg because there are 
the WTO talks themselves, the Doha development round heavily features agriculture. 
 But particularly in Africa people are starting to point out that although 
it would be excellent if we can increase levels of overseas aid, although 
it would be very good to do more to provide sustainable water, energy and 
so on, actually it would could do far more for Africa if we can open up 
our markets particularly to their agricultural produce.  The OECD has figures 
that we spend something like fifty billion dollars a year on direct overseas 
aid, we spend three hundred and fifty billion dollars a year on subsidising 
our own agriculture.  If we were opening up our markets more to the developing 
world and if they were able to address that challenge it could be worth 
three times as much as they now get in overseas aid.  So although that 
won't be the centre of what we talk about in Johannesburg it is a potentially 
huge opportunity for them.

HUMPHRYS:                    Well, you put your finger 
on it, don't you, because exactly the opposite is happening..  I mean if 
you take a poor and small country like Ghana. Now in Ghana they had a thriving 
little local tomato industry.  They were growing their own tomatoes, they 
were doing very well.  The local people were using tomatoes, they were 
selling very well abroad, and then what happened is that Italy which grows 
an awful lot of tomatoes, subsidised tomatoes that it doesn't want puts 
them in cans and dumps them on Ghana. And then the entire tomato industry 
in Ghana is destroyed.  Now that is precisely the sort of thing that should 
not be happening.

BECKETT:                       But the point of all 
of that is that it's subsidised production. If we can persuade the developed 
countries to reduce the subsidies we now spend on agriculture then everyone 
can benefit. Consumers and tax payers in the developed world benefit, we 
all benefit from a freer market a freer world price and this is why many 
of these things are not just - yes if they go wrong they can be damaging, 
but it isn't all damaging, it isn't all gloom, there are real opportunities 
here that we have to try and address.

HUMPHRYS:                    Well yes there are, but 
we're not addressing them, and that's because we do nothing about the grotesque 
subsidies that exist at the moment.  We have heard one Secretary of State 
after another, one Agriculture Minister after another in this country and 
indeed in other countries in Europe, saying, something must be done about 
the subsidies, something must be done about the CAP.  The reality is that 
nothing gets done.

BECKETT:                        Well that's not quite 
true. There have been changes, there have been improvements, we don't spend 
nearly as much now in some of these subsidies as we used to do, but I entirely 
agree with you that there is more that we need to do and I accept too that 
if we're talking about reform of the common agricultural policy set, people 
have been talking about this all my political life.  That doesn't mean 
you turn your back on the next opportunity when it comes along, it means 
you take that opportunity and you do the best you can with it to get the 
kind of outcome that everybody wants to see.

HUMPHRYS:                    The reality is though, 
that we're actually going in the opposite direction, aren't we?  We're 
seeing more rather than fewer subsidies.  If you look at the United States 
now, what's the figure there, a hundred-and-thirty-five billion pounds 
is going to American farmers, most of them big agri-business corporations 
over the next five or ten years.  Now, that is an increase of fifty billion 
over what it was to rich American farmers and farming companies..

BECKETT:                        Yes I, I don't accept 
that we're all going in the wrong direction because the European Union 
did agree a negotiating mandate for the Doha round that says we start to 
phase out agricultural subsidies.  I do agree that the American, recent 
American farm bill is certainly a step in the wrong direction but I think 
you're probably aware this is not what the administration wanted and the 
administration remain insistently of the view that they want to see the 
phasing out of subsidies.  Now we've seen a short term step in the wrong 
direction in America. What we have to do now is try to make sure that they 
continue to pursue what they say are their long term goals.

HUMPHRYS:                    But what we have to do 
whether we're talking about protecting the environment or helping poorer 
people, is we've got to have powerful international agreements, new international 
law, so if people break them, well we know they're breaking them. It's 
a difficult thing to do but it's the only thing ultimately to do, and we 
back away from taking those tough decisions.

BECKETT:                        No I think that's 
harsh John because if you look at the Kyoto Climate Change negotiations, 
and I accept that the American government is outside those at the present 
time, but actually it was EU member states that drove agreement there and 
they have signed up to some very challenging and demanding targets, and 
signed up for the first time ever in the history of the planet to a huge 
international agreement that has legal teeth.  So things aren't going fast 
enough, I accept that, there is a huge amount more to do, I accept that, 
but it isn't right to say that everything is negative and that we aren't 
going in the right direction. We are and we have to keep up that pressure 
which is why we need to have that presence there in Indonesia and then 
in South Africa to try and drive things in the right direction.

HUMPHRYS:                    The Americans have walked 
away from Kyoto and they are the world's biggest polluter.

BECKETT:                        The Americans are 
major polluters but don't forget that this American government has said 
that they accept that there is a climate change problem, they accept that 
action needs to be taken to tackle it in America and have some proposals 
there, not enough, not going far enough but proposals, a beginning.  And 
they are putting substantial investment into technology, into scientific 
research that may help all of us in tackling some of these problems.  So 
that isn't a hopeless scenario either and I personally believe that as 
we go on with the Kyoto protocol and that is the only international agreement 
around, that there is every possibility that in the fullness of time the 
American business community, the interests in America that can see America 
losing out as a result of some of these things, will start to rethink and 
start to increase the pressure on America itself, so that's why it's so 
important.  If we weren't going on with Kyoto, if there wasn't something 
the rest of the world was trying to get agreed and brought into force, 
then there wouldn't be anything to drive America to a parallel process. 
 While there is then that pressure remains.

HUMPHRYS:                    The problem is that whenever 
there is a conflict between free trade and some social environmental issue, 
free trade always wins.  That is the Holy Grail; and we all bow down before 
it.
        
BECKETT:                       Free trade is important 
and free trade can bring real gains, but whether it's free trade or any 
other aspect of policy what we're trying to get people to do is to keep 
in balance those issues of economic prosperity, social justice and also 
tackling the problems of the environment, that's what the summit is about, 
that's what my department was set up to try and pursue and that's something 
that is still worth keeping on at even when sometimes we don't have all 
the success we might like.

HUMPHRYS:                    Perhaps what the world 
needs is a world environmental organisation to take on the World Trade 
Organisation.

BECKETT:                       I'm not opposed to 
that, I'm not rushing to say oh yes what a wonderful idea because there's 
obviously a danger that you'll set up another bureaucracy, you set up another 
agency and if there isn't underlying agreement it might not make a difference 
but I'm perfectly prepared to look positively at that idea,but I think 
there are things that we can do now without setting up a new world or environment 
organisation that we ought to be doing and maybe not putting our negotiating 
strength and all our pressure into that particular goal rather than more 
concrete things that are actually of direct relevance maybe next year to 
the people in the developing world.

HUMPHRYS:                    You've chided me a number 
of times during the course of this interview for sounding too gloomy and 
too pessimistic, but the fact is things if they are happening, they're 
either going in the wrong direction of they're happening very, very slowly 
indeed.   And there isn't that much time, the climate is getting worse, 
the world is hotting up, people are getting poorer and poorer, and there 
simply isn't that much time left to put it right.

BECKETT:                     No, I'm not saying there's 
loads of time and I accept the comments that you've made about the need 
for urgent action. I'm simply saying that if we say this is hopeless, and 
walk away from the process then nothing at all will happen.  What we have 
to do is to keep up the pressure for movement, and for movement as fast 
as we can get it.

HUMPHRYS:                    You've said that we have 
to strive for collective responsibility.  There's a great deal of talk 
about voluntary actions by big organisations, and indeed by government, 
but surely what is needed is to put real pressure on the big organisations, 
the big multinational corporations, and the way to do that is to have legally 
enforceable agreements, not the sorts of things that simply require companies 
to say, oh, yeah, alright we'll do that, and then they face no penalty 
if they don't?

BECKETT:                        It's an interesting 
idea, it's an idea that's been tossed around by organisations like Friends 
of the Earth, but frankly it has such huge implications and ramifications 
that the idea that we could get countries across the world to sign up to 
that at this stage when the meeting is taking place in September, well 
I would be very very surprised.  And what I am keen to get us to do is 
to put our efforts behind getting the right kind of political declaration 
at Johannesburg, getting the right kind of inter-governmental agreement 
and the right kind of approach to taking action to make globalisation work 
for the poor not least in Africa, and to get in some of these new kinds 
of  partnerships that involve organisations like Friends of the Earth and 
the business community and say, local authorities in South Africa, elsewhere 
in the world that can show concrete examples of how people can work together 
to make life better for particular communities in the developing world. 
So we can learn from that example and build on it. I'd rather see us concentrate 
on doing those things which have always been top of the agenda for the 
world summit than saying oh let's think of another legal process and say 
all these problems are due to big multinational companies and let's now 
try and get them involved in a particular kind of agreement.  I don't think 
with great respect to those who give a lot of time and thought and effort 
to these things that, that is the most fruitful thing that we should be 
pursuing in the run up to Johannesburg.

HUMPHRYS:                    But if ultimately all 
we're able to say is well, effectively we're going to have to move at the 
pace of the slowest, and that isn't very fast at all, then we're going 
to go to hell in hand-basket.
                    
BECKETT:                         Well I think that's 
a depressing approach I don't think it excuses us from doing as much as 
we can but is there any point in setting goals that are so dramatic that 
they can't be realised so people then despair and think there's nothing 
that can be done.  Surely it's better to fight to go as far as we can and 
actually to achieve that so that you can prove to people I can say to you 
today the Kyoto protocol was agreed.  There is this unprecedented, international 
legal agreement that a whole string of countries across the world have 
signed up to, that's something we can point to as a success and say why 
can't we do more like this.  If we'd been much more ambitious for the Kyoto 
protocol and failed all you'd have then is an excuse for people doing nothing.


HUMPHRYS:                    And that interview was recorded 
a couple of days ago.