Pre-Lobby meeting June 17th 2003
We met to discuss the upcoming Trade Justice event on Sat 28th June 2003.
Martin Salter
We have organised to Lobby Jane Griffiths (MP, Reading East) and there
is a lobby of John Redwood (MP, Wokingham) being organised by Richard Cocks.
However, as of yet there is no lobby organised for Martin Salter (MP, Reading West); although there have been a number of people who have contacted us expressing their interest in taking part. We decided to kick start the process by asking someone to organise it and then directing interested parties towards them.
Hamish said that there were two people he knew who might be interested in organising this.
Action for Hamish: Contact possible organisers of Martin Salter Lobby
Letter to Jane
We discussed the issues to raise at the lobby and were in general agreement that the main point to get across was that concerning the 'New Issues' - the fact that some are pushing for a new investment round to be put on the agenda at Cancun - when the real focus should be on the lack of progress made in the Doha development agenda.
It was suggested that we write a letter to Jane Griffiths that we can present to her during our meeting with her. The letter would explain to her our position on the dangers of allowing the 'New Issues' onto the agenda - in that they would distract from the Doha development agenda. And ask her to write to Patricia Hewitt at the DTI and ask her to actively oppose the introduction of the 'New Issues' to the agenda - as a way to underline the government's commitment to the Doha Development Agenda. Hamish kindly agreed to draft such a letter.
Action for Hamish: Draft letter to Jane asking her Patricia Hewitt
Questions for Jane
We discussed the exact questions we would like to ask Jane at the Lobby and
we came to the conclusion that we should draft a list of questions to present
to her - focusing on the main point about the 'New Issues', but also raising
points about:
- Evian: Tony Blair's actions at Evian
- Steve Byers: Does she agree (as she said in a recent email) with his
- position that Developing countries need trade barriers?
- Agriculture: CAP, agricultural subsidies
- MNC/TNC: Regulation of MultiNational Companies - international legislation
- Points arising from our meeting with Jane in Feb, including:
- Impact Assessments
- Liberalisation too quick
- Transparency
- WEO - etc to balance WTO?
- Her chat with Gordon Brown?
Dan agreed to draft a list of possible questions for Jane.
Action for Dan: Draft list of Questions for Jane Griffiths
We also discussed the idea of having one or more spokespeople to ask the
questions - We will probably decide this at the meeting next week.
Press Release
Mark has kindly written a draft press release - we plan to send this off
to the Reading Evening Post and the Reading Chronicle in the next few days.
Action for Mark: Send Press release to Papers