House of Lords
Introduction: Baroness Donaghy
Introduction: Lord Hutton of Furness
Introduction: Lord Boateng
Human Rights: Journalists
(13 years, 11 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)
My Lords, the Government are committed to upholding human rights and democracy in our foreign policy. Freedom of expression is fundamental to a democratic, accountable society and to the protection of other human rights. The coalition will support effective international efforts to address impunity for attacks on journalists and practices which curtail the right to freedom of opinion and expression. We will also raise with Governments individual cases where freedom of expression is threatened.
Lord Judd
I thank the noble Lord for that reply. Does he agree that the situation is worrying enough with the accumulating evidence from Iraq, Philippines, Algeria, Rwanda, Laos and Cuba, but that, when one considers that in the two years between 2007 and 2009 12 journalists were assassinated in Russia and that there has been no convincing prosecution in any of those incidences, profound questions are raised about our colleague member country in the Council of Europe with all its principles? Will the Government make a rigorous stand to say that it is impossible to accept a trend of this kind in the context of a commitment to the growth of democracy and accountable government?
Lord Howell of Guildford
My Lords, I strongly agree. These are repulsive occurrences wherever they occur and I salute the campaigning zeal of the noble Lord in his feelings on this matter. He mentioned three countries where I agree that some very ugly things have occurred. I have a long list of the areas where we, the Government, are seeking to help and work with the relevant Governments to tackle the terrorising, murder and threatened assassination of journalists, including in Russia, Mexico and the Philippines, as the noble Lord said, as well as in Afghanistan and Iraq. If he would like, I will send him the list, but it is long. We are determined to use what influence we have, which is bound to be limited in some cases, in all these horrific instances.
Lord Alderdice
My Lords, do my noble friend and Her Majesty's Government accept that an attack on a journalist is not merely an attack on a profession and a professional? Because of the extremely important part that journalists play in democratic governance and in holding Governments and others to account, an attack on a journalist in the way described by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, is an attack on democracy. Therefore, countries which do not maintain the special place of journalists and protect them are countries which cannot properly be regarded as truly democratic, as our own can be.
Lord Howell of Guildford
My noble friend is absolutely right to put it in those terms. An attack on freedom of expression and responsible journalism anywhere is an attack on, as it were, the supply chain which leads directly to our own freedoms in this country.
Lord Corbett of Castle Vale
My Lords, will the Minister confirm that Iran in prison tortures and harasses more journalists than any other country in the world? What recent representations have the Government made to that vile regime about these continuing abuses of human rights?
Lord Howell of Guildford
I cannot confirm the precise figure, although I suspect that the noble Lord is right. Given the limitations of our contacts, we seek where we can to make the case—and to urge the lobbies and the countries which have got some influence to press all the time—that these kind of things are not acceptable in countries which seek to be part of the comity of nations and do not want to be branded as anti-democratic pariahs.
Lord Lea of Crondall
My Lords, is the correlation between freedom of association and free trade unions, and the inverse correlation with the number of assassinations, being noted by the Foreign Office? It is not surprising that this is so. Will the noble Lord take into consideration that support for the ILO principles of free trade unionism will be helpful in connection with my noble friend’s Question?
Lord Howell of Guildford
Again, the noble Lord is right. Our freedom is not the sort of thing that you can slice up in different areas. It is a bundle, a grouping of inalienable freedoms and core principles by which we have to stand. People say, “Why bother about the rest of the world?”, but it is in our interests at least to inspire others to follow our own principles and standards, even if we cannot guarantee that they will be accepted.
Lord Mawhinney
My Lords, my noble friend has said that he would make available the list of countries. When he puts that list in the Library, would he be kind enough to add beside each name on that list the last time Her Majesty's Government made a formal representation to a representative of the Government of those countries so that we can understand how actively this matter is being pursued, given its importance?
Lord Howell of Guildford
I will do my best to do that, but a number of the approaches are informal and some are continuous. Some have had an impact, as in Mexico, where we have had a lot of co-operation with the Mexican Government. Of course it is their concern, but they have welcomed our help in meeting the horrors of the assassination of journalists and other killings that have taken place.
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead
My noble friend Lord Judd is right to raise these important issues. Is the Minister aware of the murder of a well known and respected Rwandese journalist, Jean Rugambage? Many NGOs and others are claiming that he was a victim of the current clampdown on the independent press and media in Rwanda in the run-up to the presidential elections. Can the Minister assure the House that strong representations have been and will be made by the UK to the Rwandan Government on the need for freedom of expression and freedom of the press?
Lord Howell of Guildford
The noble Baroness is right to raise this. Our embassy engages regularly with the Media High Council of the Rwandan Government and a range of journalists in Rwanda. We are very concerned not only about the case she mentioned but also about the reduction in media freedoms over recent months, including the closure of two independent media outlets and the BBC Kinyarwanda service. We have raised these concerns with the Government and, I should add, we support training for journalists working on both sides of the Rwandan/Democratic Republic of Congo border. These matters assume an additional and critical importance for us because Rwanda is now a member of the Commonwealth.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno
My Lords, as we try to maintain the freedom of the press and the media throughout the world, what steps are the Government taking to make sure that the BBC World Service receives all the encouragement and support it needs?
Lord Howell of Guildford
My noble friend knows that the service most certainly does receive encouragement and, more than just fine words, it gets very substantial funds. I think that the current outlay for the year is £231 million, which is considerably more than some years ago and is a reflection of the priority we place on the service in the promotion of this country’s culture of diplomacy, reputation, interests and long-term aims.
Ports: Business Rates
Lord Bates
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what arrangements they are making to collect backdated non-domestic rates in respect of port-side operators.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)
My Lords, in June, the coalition Government implemented an immediate moratorium on port operators’ backdated payments, and in the emergency Budget we announced our intention to take primary legislation at the earliest opportunity to cancel the “ports tax”. The repayment scheme introduced by the previous Administration for businesses with backdated rates bills, such as those in ports, did not go far enough to address the problems facing these businesses, many of which are on the brink of insolvency.
Lord Bates
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply, which will be widely welcomed in the ports of the United Kingdom. They have been hit dramatically by the unfair imposition of this backdated tax. Is she aware that, while this will provide relief for many businesses already in place, it is too late for many hundreds of businesses and many hundreds of vital jobs that have already been lost? Will she consider introducing a thorough review of the chaotic handling of this entire revaluation process by the Valuation Office Agency and by the previous Government so that lessons can be learnt and mistakes not repeated?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that and I know that he has taken an interest in this matter over some time. The Valuation Office made its decisions and has been criticised by the Select Committee on the handling of the review of ports. I think that the Valuation Office itself recognised that its communications with businesses affected by the revaluation were deficient and, while it is not clear that a formal inquiry on the handling of this matter is necessary, the Government will be looking at the issues raised.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, on behalf of the Liberal Democrats I, too, welcome the change of policy which the Minister has revealed. Did she say that the revaluation has been cancelled and, if so, on what basis will the rates now be paid by port-side businesses? If the revaluation has been cancelled, will those businesses which have already paid their backdated demands in part or in full be refunded?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I said that the backdated rates will be cancelled—for the years between 2008 and 2010—and any that have already been paid will be refunded.
Political Parties: Funding
(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Tyler
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what proposals they have to reform party funding and to limit donations to political parties.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, my right honourable friend the Deputy Prime Minister indicated during the debate on the Address that the Government will pursue an agreement on limiting donations and reforming party funding to remove big money from politics. The approach to party funding is being worked up as part of the overall programme of reforms and an announcement will be made in due course.
Lord Tyler
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for repeating what the Deputy Prime Minister said. I wonder whether my noble friend recalls a question that was posed in this Chamber:
“Is it not time for all parties to return to Sir Hayden Phillips’s report on party funding and put in place a tight cap, some firm regulations and an Electoral Commission with teeth to enforce them?”—[Official Report, 5/12/07; col. 1700.]
The questioner was my noble friend. Can he now tell us what the timetable is? Is it not important that progress should be made as quickly as possible in the early part of this Parliament, rather than leaving it to the bitter end?
Lord McNally
My Lords, I sometimes think that all old copies of Hansard should be pulped on change of Government. Nevertheless, I stand by the thrust of that question. For the good of all parties and politics, we should move quickly to see whether we can get all-party agreement on this. It is good that the Deputy Prime Minister has taken responsibility and has indicated that he will make progress on this issue a high priority at a very early stage in this Parliament.
Lord Campbell-Savours
My Lords, why cannot tax relief be applied to small individual contributions to political parties, perhaps to a capped contribution sum of £50 per annum? Will the noble Lord refer the matter to Treasury Ministers, because the proposition has support on all sides of the House?
Lord McNally
My Lords, as on many other subjects, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. I have supported that idea for a long time. I can assure him that I shall report our exchange to the Deputy Prime Minister and suggest that he raises the matter with the Treasury.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom
My Lords, popular as the idea of tax relief is with the coalition Government, I do not think that it will solve the problem of funding political parties for the duration of a Parliament. I met no one at the last election who complained about the Conservative Opposition receiving £4.2 million of taxpayers’ money. Indeed, I think that very few taxpayers knew that they were contributing to the Conservative Opposition to that extent. It is critical that we get ahead with this. I am disappointed that it was not in the Queen’s Speech as part of our legislative programme for this Session. I suspect that at the next election no one will be talking about it.
Lord McNally
I take the point that my noble friend is making. That is why I said that we will be getting ahead with the issue early in this Parliament. We need to deal with this. As long as I have been in politics, one party or another has become embroiled in some scandal or another—and it will happen again unless we face up to the fact that politics costs money. If you want to keep big money and big influence out of politics, you have to do some radical things about party funding.
Lord Clark of Windermere
Does the Minister accept that the problem is not only the total amount of money spent on political parties but the disproportionate amounts spent in individual constituencies? It is now so expensive that in certain constituencies independents simply cannot afford to run. That cannot be good for democracy.
Lord McNally
That is absolutely true. We have seen in all political parties a nuclear arms race of political spending. I pay tribute to the last Government for putting a cap on it, for which I think even the Conservative Party was grateful in the end. If there was no cap, fundraising would go on and on. The problem with campaign expenditure is that it is like expenditure on advertising: we all know that half of it is wasted, but we do not know which half.
Lord Ryder of Wensum
My Lords, while I vividly recall the introduction of Short money 35 years ago and the help that it gave to the then Opposition, does my noble friend not agree that during these days of curbing public expenditure it would be wise for the Short money and the Cranborne money to be frozen at present levels for the duration of this Parliament?
Lord McNally
It would ill become a government Minister to start suggesting that. I was a special adviser to the Government who brought in Short money and I know the benefit that my party got in opposition from Cranborne money. I know that it is easy to play to the media on this, but political parties need proper funding to do their democratic duty. If you do not do it through legitimate, open, transparent public funding, big money will come in, which, in the end, corrupts the whole system.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, what is “proper funding”? Would it not be better if the political parties spent less on advertising, opinion polls and helicopters, raised more money voluntarily in accordance with the new localism and resisted the blandishments of the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, to pick the taxpayer’s pocket?
Lord McNally
Again, we have all heard “picking the taxpayer’s pocket”—it gets approval from the media, which have an interest in keeping politicians and politics weak and dependent on their approval—but it is time that politicians got off their knees. I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, that too many of the consultants and advisers who surround political parties think up ways of spending money to justify their own existence. Perhaps the answer lies in what the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, suggests: some tie-in between small donations and tax relief that would give a greater and broader base to funding.
Lord Goodlad
Is my noble friend aware that in Australia in the early 1920s, because the political parties were finding the cost of getting people to the polls in a huge, sparsely populated country very onerous, compulsory voting was introduced, with universal support? It has had universal support ever since. The noble Baroness the Leader of the Opposition said the other day that she supported compulsory voting. Will he give it his consideration?
Lord McNally
I will certainly give it my consideration and I will report it to the Deputy Prime Minister. I think that I had better stop there.
Lord Grocott
Is it not worth noting one of the lessons from the history of funding and politics? At the end of the 19th century, very strict limits were introduced on the amount that could be spent in individual constituencies, for very good reasons. Does it not strike the Minister that to concentrate on how much is being spent is more important than examining precisely where the money comes from? We need to look, at a national level, at the ludicrous amounts of money that are spent in general elections; we do not want to get anywhere near American levels. Any review should concentrate on putting much more severe, strictly applied limits on expenditure.
Lord McNally
I think that we are on common ground. I worked on the Bill that set up the Electoral Commission with the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, and a representative from the Conservative Party who had worked in Central Office. The three of us had worked in the political parties’ headquarters and thought that there was a ludicrous amount of detail in the Bill about the responsibility of party treasurers at local level. The debate was couched in terms that would lead one to think that being a treasurer for a local party was one of the pinnacles of political achievement, whereas, as everyone in this Chamber who has been active in party politics knows, you look for some poor dumb cluck—as the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, helpfully said, the person is usually absent from that meeting—to take on that responsibility.
We are awaiting the report of the Electoral Commission on this issue. We are some way from a general election. Perhaps one of the advantages of a fixed-term Parliament is that, at this early stage in a five-year Parliament, we can look at this issue without saying, “Well, what implication will it have for us in the impending general election?”. We can take a proper cross-party look at this. We can look at what Hayden Phillips recommended, which I still think is a good basis for negotiations, and move with it with some sense of urgency.
Lord Dykes
My Lords, my noble friend has given some sensible and wise answers on these questions today. Does he share my anxiety, bearing in mind that politicians are, quite rightly, individually and collectively severely criticised in a lively British press, that almost every British newspaper now has overseas-based owners who do not pay United Kingdom taxes?
Lord McNally
That is another matter that is beyond this Question. However, if politics really wants to be respected, it has to be less beholden to big money and less subservient to our press.
Lord Lea of Crondall
Does the Minister agree that a trade union is not the same as an individual when it comes to a cap?
Lord McNally
I thought that we might have a question on that. This is the first time I have had to look at my notes. We are keen to ensure that any future system for party funding is fair and, importantly, one that the public can trust. Sir Hayden Phillips noted in his review the specific issues around trade unions. We are looking at his work when considering how to deliver the coalition agreement commitment to take big money out of politics.
Education: Languages
(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Coussins
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their response to the Paris Declaration of 23 June on the global shortage of qualified linguists.
Baroness Coussins
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest as chair of the All-Party Group on Modern Languages.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)
My Lords, we note this declaration. We agree that language skills are important for the future of this country. We are currently considering our priorities for the national curriculum, including for languages. We will announce our plans in due course.
Baroness Coussins
I thank the noble Lord for that reply. However, in view of the urgency expressed by the 76 international organisations behind last week’s declaration, does he agree that we will never get more graduates who want careers as linguists until we first improve the take-up of languages in schools? Will the Minister say how this is to be done and agree at least to fast-track the decision to reconvene the forum set up after the Worton review to move things forward?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I know that my noble friend Lady Wilcox indicated on 3 June that the Government would take a decision in the summer on the future of the forum. In the light of this exchange, I shall ask my noble friend Lady Wilcox, who I believe is the lead on this matter, what her definition of “summer” is, because it feels like summer to me. I understand the noble Baroness’s desire to have clarity soon. I shall do my best to provide what clarity we can.
On the noble Baroness’s broader point about the linkage between higher education, secondary education and primary schools, she is absolutely right. Whereas it is important to see what we can do to improve the teaching of languages in universities, if children are not coming through with the basic skills to enable them to go to university, that will not tackle the problem. I accept the noble Baroness’s point.
Lord Harrison
My Lords, given the lack of linguists in this country and the years of dyspepsia shown by the Conservative Party towards Europe, how does the Minister expect to fulfil the ambition of the Foreign Secretary to place more British personnel in senior positions in Brussels? Will he also attend to increasing the number of young people who have the ambition, with the appropriate languages, to serve in Brussels and other parts of the world flying the British flag?
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I have said already that I agree very strongly about the need to ensure that we have all sorts of people who are properly trained and qualified in languages, whether to go into business, or to work as diplomats in Europe. As I said to the noble Baroness, a whole range of issues must be addressed to do that. I fully accept the noble Lord’s point; one will want to have that supply of well qualified graduates and one would certainly want them to engage in diplomacy or business in the way he says.
Baroness Hooper
My Lords, can my noble friend give more information about the scope and background to the Paris declaration and tell us if the United Kingdom is a party to it?
Lord Hill of Oareford
The background of the declaration is a report into the shortage of trained linguists and translators. I saw a figure somewhere in connection with this, which estimates that the value of translation services in the EU is €1 billion a year. It is a big market, which should provide lots of opportunities for trained linguists to benefit. I do not believe that the Government were involved in the process of the declaration.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, on the Paris declaration, what measures have the Government taken to ensure that there are sufficient qualified linguists and interpreters to meet the requirements for criminal proceedings for non-English speakers?
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, my understanding is that the Government have opted into the member state proposal on interpretation and translation and support the directive to which my noble friend referred. I gather that a first reading deal on the directive was reached by the European Parliament on 16 June, but there are still some formal processes to go through at the Justice and Home Affairs Council. An adoption of the directive is finally anticipated in the autumn; then there are a further 36 months to implement it. Clearly, the answer to how one can ensure that there are sufficient translators for Britain is linked to the broader points that we have already discussed.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
My Lords, to build on the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, are the Government seriously concerned about the relative lack of success of UK applicants in the concours examination for the European Commission? If so, what are we doing to improve the quality of languages spoken by our potential entrants?
Lord Hill of Oareford
We are concerned, but I need to look into the specific steps that we are taking and take advice from my friends at the Foreign Office. Then perhaps I can come back to the noble Lord and explain that at a later date.
Lord Ryder of Wensum
Does my noble friend have to hand the number of Mandarin graduates from British universities last year compared with, say, 10 years ago?
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, I warmly welcome the Paris declaration. In response to my noble friend Lord Harrison, the Minister agreed that we need more officials and civil servants who have the requisite language skills so that they can be employed by the EU institutions. I fully agree with that, but can the Minister assure me that the cuts in the Foreign Office budget announced on 29 June will not affect the teaching of languages for civil servants? Without those languages, our people cannot apply to do the concours.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I am reliably informed by sources close to the Foreign Office that there will not be any effect of the sort that the noble Baroness might fear.
Academies Bill [HL]
(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Hill of Oareford
That the amendments for the Report stage be marshalled and considered in the following order: Clauses 1 to 9, Schedule 1, Clause 10, Schedule 2, Clauses 11 to 16.
Business of the House
(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Strathclyde
That leave be given to advance the Report stage of the Academies Bill [HL] from 7 July to 6 July.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
My Lords, it may be helpful if I explain that, following constructive discussions among the usual channels, it has been agreed that it may be for the convenience of the House to make more time available for the Report stage of the Academies Bill on Tuesday 6 July, in addition to the time already set aside on Wednesday 7 July. I am also grateful to my noble friend Lord Goodlad and to the noble Baroness, Lady Cohen of Pimlico, for their co-operation.
Business of the House
(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Strathclyde
That the debate on the motion in the name of Baroness Perry of Southwark set down for today shall be limited to 2 hours and that in the name of Lord Howe of Aberavon to 3 hours.
Local Communities
Baroness Perry of Southwark
To call attention to Her Majesty’s Government’s proposals to devolve power to local communities; and to move for papers.
Baroness Perry of Southwark
My Lords, I am pleased and honoured to introduce this important topic for our debate today, and I look forward with great pleasure to the maiden speeches of no fewer than three noble Lords during this debate. This Government are attempting to turn around decades of an ever-increasing monster state encroaching on every area of our public and private life, and are beginning the slow but sure process of returning power to the people. It is an awesomely ambitious project, but it is, surely, what true democracy is about.
It is also what the people want. Almost any conversation with any group in society in recent years has turned to a frustration with the intrusion of the state in our everyday lives. “Get the Government off our backs”, has been the cry from doctors, teachers, nurses, judges and a host of other professionals. “We’re fed up with the nanny state”, cry others, whatever their job or position. Even Tony Blair remarked after the debacle of the Millennium Dome that perhaps it was not a good idea to run such a large project from Whitehall. Why then, I wonder, did he think it was appropriate to run the massive National Health Service, with over a million employees, as well as over 30,000 schools, from the centre?
I enjoyed very much the argument put forward soon after the election by the journalist Janet Daley writing in the Telegraph. She said:
“who are the progressives now? … Can we not finally agree … that state-driven, command-economy solutions that attempt to control a country’s economic and social outcomes are dead? … Today's real progressives are those who are trying to find ways of dismantling the monolithic structures left behind by the theology of state power”.
This coalition Government are indeed set upon that exciting but daunting progressive task.
Some critics—the old worshippers of state control—have tried to suggest that the devolution of power is just a way of covering for the cutback in central government which the economic recession has made inevitable. This is a criticism I find wholly unacceptable and out of touch with reality. It mistakes, perhaps deliberately, the motive behind the coalition’s policies, and it ignores entirely the public wish for smaller, less intrusive government. But even more, it ignores the tremendous energy and innovation of talent which is just waiting to be fully released.
This country has a proud tradition of voluntary activity. Thousands of small and large voluntary associations involve hundreds of thousands of citizens, good people, who give their time, their commitment and their money to care for the sick, the elderly and those who cannot help themselves. These good people also run voluntary youth clubs, football teams, out-of-school activities and a thousand things more. The report of my noble friend Lady Neuberger on volunteering described the amazing variety and vitality of the voluntary movement, and I commend that report to noble Lords as a handbook both for what is happening and what should be the way ahead if we are to tap into this huge resource.
A fortnight ago in this House, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester initiated a debate in which many noble Lords spoke of the examples known to them of community self-directed action for the public good. Many, many inspiring stories were told. I mention only one, as it raises an important principle. The most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke of Penrhys, a community situated on a council estate in the Rhondda. There, a unique partnership called the Penrhys New Perspectives established a community partnership programme to create 100 new small businesses, as well as an effective health centre. The most reverend Primate commented that this was,
“a community which hardly knew it was a community until someone … enabled people to see themselves afresh”.—[Official Report, 16/6/10; col. 1006.]
In so saying, he drew attention to the importance of a figure who will lead and inspire a local community and help them, in his words, “to see themselves afresh”.
This element is not always needed, of course. Many communities already have the will and experience for self-help, as neighbourhood watch schemes and street parties—to name but two local initiatives in which this country excels—have long demonstrated. Other communities, though, because of changing patterns of occupation and disparate traditions within their neighbourhood, will need leadership to inspire and help them. I pay warm tribute to the role of the churches and the universities in providing this leadership in many local communities already. I trust they will continue to do more in the coming years.
One inspiring example of this energy of local communities are the charities known as community land trusts. These community land trusts are a mechanism, created by those who live in the local community, for the democratic ownership of land by that local community. Their trust owns and manages the local assets for the benefit of the members of the community, involving local people and local small businesses in the development of the assets for those on low and moderate incomes. Residents cannot sell their properties for individual profit; if they wish to move they must sell back to the trust so that the housing can be offered to another locally employed person and remains in the control of the trust. I name this example not only because it is one that I greatly admire but because I believe that it captures the essence of localism. At a time when much concern has been expressed at the break-up of local, and especially rural, communities, the CLTs are a magnificent movement designed to keep the young, who have grown up in a village or the area of a town, in affordable housing where they can stay near their parents and grandparents and bring up their own children, so retaining a community’s cohesion.
One splendid example of such a trust, which I have visited, is the Stonesfield Community Trust in Oxfordshire, which over the past 27 years has created 12 affordable homes and many small workspace units for the village. The trust has developed a building to house the local post office, so keeping it in the community, and has funded a local youth service. In so doing it has created a true community, all too rare in recent times, where several generations of families can stay living and working in the village, contributing to its health and wealth.
However, recent legislation is now threatening this superb movement. The Charity Commission, which for the past decade has seemed to operate with more zeal than compassion, has decided that the trust can only preserve its charitable status if the housing is given to people in severe need of a place to live, regardless of whether they belong to the local community. It is not allowed to keep those who work and prosper and who have grown up in the village. This seems to me to be a sad example of an ideology which assumes that charity consists only of handouts that keep people dependent, instead of one which also helps them to achieve personal viability within their own community. I hope that the Government will look at the recent changes in charity law which lead many to predict the destruction of socially constructive projects such as these.
I could weary your Lordships with many examples of other community provisions which have been lost to the state in recent years. We have lost many of our community hospitals which provided a focus for the elderly, for those with chronic illness and for the excellent services of physiotherapists, district nurses, occupational therapists and many more of the services which made local people’s lives better when help was needed. These have now almost all disappeared into a more centralised remote provision, although they provided a much-needed focus for a sense of community. I for one also very much regret the loss of friendly societies, some of which had already become building societies, and some of which have also now become banks with no tradition of a community which saves to help itself while making provision for those who needed loans to tide them over hard times. Perhaps the time has come to revive the idea of friendly societies on a wider basis.
I should not neglect to mention the splendid third sector which has flourished as a counterweight to the overweening state in recent years. Social enterprise companies such as Serco have taken over large sectors of public service, following ethical practice in employment and commercial activity and returning their profits for the good of the services they provide. I am confident that this sector will grow both because it is highly efficient and because it is free from the restrictions of the state-provided services with which it has successfully competed. It will be wholly to the advantage of our country if this happens.
In the area of policing we are promised community involvement through the election of local police chiefs. This Government will also encourage the growth of library services, leisure centres and many other facilities to be run by people from within their own community, meeting local interests and needs. I was recently enchanted by the suggestion of one of my honourable friends—a new Member of the other place—who suggested that local villages and town districts should be given control over the revenue from speed cameras in their area to use the income for community projects agreed by all in the local community. Her idea might even take some of the sting out of those wretched intrusions into our countryside and streets.
There is one area, however, where the Government have already moved swiftly to respond to local community energy, and it is, of course, in the field of education. Along with health provision, this is an area where the intrusion of the previous Government has been most resented, and least productive. I am delighted that my right honourable friend Michael Gove has moved swiftly to introduce the legislation which will allow more schools to move to independence as academies—and I pay tribute to the previous Government for introducing the academies programme.
I am also absolutely delighted that my right honourable friend has introduced the freedom for groups of parents and teachers to set up and run schools for their pupils and children, free from government control, though not of accountability to those who fund them through taxation. This has released the energy of thousands of schools and communities. More than 1,700 schools have expressed an interest in becoming independent academies, answering to parents and students, and more than 700 groups of parents and teachers have expressed a wish to set up and run their own schools. What more powerful demonstration could we have of the huge wave of public willingness—and, indeed, public wish—to manage their own affairs without state intervention? I know that many noble Lords from all sides of the House have already become involved in discussions with their local communities about these plans and, like me, have been moved by the enthusiasm and excitement that this proposal has aroused.
Critics say that only the middle classes will involve themselves in this kind of initiative. This astonishes me, both for its ignorance and its arrogance. Years of working in education with some of the most deprived in our society have demonstrated to me time and again that parents from the poorer communities care every bit as much as middle-class parents about their children's education and welfare. They have every bit as much energy and will to help, are as or more resourceful, and often enjoy a stronger sense of community within the boundaries of a council estate than those who live behind the closed front doors of their detached houses. This is a reform which reaches into the instincts and ambitions of all classes.
There are few areas of social life more central to us all than education, and the example of what has begun to happen in this area of the public services must serve as a template for what could be done in other areas such as health, social care and housing. I am so pleased that education is leading the way. I hope that we shall see in the coming years other public services such as the police, neighbourhood security, health and care provision gradually moving back into the control of the local community. It is in this way that the public services can be truly “owned” by those who understand local needs, and who use them and take a pride in what we can, together with our neighbours, accomplish in building the rich society we all so wish to see. I beg to move.
Baroness Whitaker
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, is to be congratulated on securing a debate on such a key topic so early in the Session, and I, too, look forward to the three maiden speeches, made by my two new noble friends and by the right reverend Prelate.
I would like to make some observations on the coalition’s programme for government. It has some very good opening remarks:
“It is our ambition to distribute power and opportunity to people … That way, we can build the free, fair and responsible society we want to see”.
I repeat, “free, fair and responsible”. And again:
“oversee a radical distribution of power away from Westminster and Whitehall to councils, communities and homes across the nation … communities coming together to make lives better”.
That is good stuff. Following through the idea of “free, fair and responsible”, the section on equalities also has fine words, though not many, about children held back because of their social background. Later on there is mention of tackling health inequalities; disadvantaged pupils; bullying, which the programme is against; and neighbourhood groups, which it is for. Local communities are right where all these things happen and perhaps the Government are arguing that only they, local communities, can make them really happen.
I shall focus on Gypsies and Travellers because they are particularly at risk from all the disadvantages that the programme refers to, primarily because of the lack of one basic attribute of living in a community—a secure home in which to bring up a family. They are also at risk because of the attitudes of other communities in their locality. Gypsy and Traveller children are not, by and large, free to fulfil their potential. I have been told that the Government have abolished the separate fund for the Gypsy and Traveller education unit, thus risking discriminating against people who are different from the settled community.
The last Parliament passed a law which granted equal security of tenure on caravan sites with other mobile-home dwellers, but that needed a statutory instrument to bring it into force and this was not finished before the Dissolution. So I asked during the debate on the gracious Speech when this legal obligation would be carried out. The noble Baroness replying wrote back to me very promptly, and I suspect that the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, might have had a hand in the reply, so I pass on the compliment to her for its speed. What it said was not so clear, though:
“Ministers are considering options to address the issues of equal security of tenure”.
This is a matter of a law, passed by Parliament. I hope that the Government are not flouting it. Surely it is a matter of when, not whether.
I was also surprised that the spending cuts for the Homes and Communities Agency seem to have ended the grants for new sites and refurbishment for Gypsies and Travellers. I am told that in our country there are only 3,729 caravans on unauthorised sites—one square mile if they are all put together. Yet from the disruption and concern caused by those unauthorised sites, you would think that it was a really intractable problem. I am afraid that some local communities need a bit of nudging to agree even to these few sites, and I believe that the noble Baroness’s Government are keen on the nudge approach. The Government appear in this case to have taken away the nudge mechanism. Years of work went into the Gypsy and Traveller accommodation needs assessment and the public inquiries that followed, and agreement was reached. No party said that it would reverse this when it got into power.
I understand that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has written to councils to say that they can disregard housing targets. If this is true, it has been done before Parliament has been asked to abolish the regional spatial strategies that it made legal; so Mr Pickles again seems to be flouting Parliament. Now it also seems that Mr Pickles wants to return trespass to being a criminal offence, rather than a civil one. It all seems to be going one way: departing from fairness, preventing one community from being free and giving incentives to all communities to behave irresponsibly. When he was the shadow Minister for Planning, Mr Bob Neill proposed central funding for councils to build authorised sites. What has happened to that fair policy?
Localism is admirable, but I am sure that the noble Baroness will agree that it needs to be fair. When the whole community shows outcomes in health, maternal mortality and educational attainment so dramatically worse, and their basic security of a place to live is so markedly less, than that of the settled population, we must recognise that something unfair is going on. The causes may be multiple, but that does not absolve society and the state of responsibility. It does not absolve local communities of responsibility, although they may need help in exercising it.
In the schools section of the coalition programme there is the striking phrase,
“remove the bias towards inclusion”.
I know that that is about enabling children with special needs to have access to special schools, but I hope that it is not what devolution is going to be about as well.
The Lord Bishop of Derby
My Lords, I begin by thanking your Lordships very warmly for the quality and depth of the welcome that I have received. People who read Hansard may think that this is a purely formal convention, but I have been overwhelmed by the graciousness of your Lordships. I have been accosted in the bar and in corridors by people who want to shake my hand and say “welcome”, and I am truly grateful for that—strangers who want to become friends. That is a very interesting notion of how we make a community in this place and what might lie behind some of this debate—strangers wanting to become friends. It is part of the gospel that I stand for as a priest—trying to encourage strangers to become friends with their maker and with each other—and I am very impressed with the evangelical fervour with which Members of this House have the desire to help strangers become friends. I thank noble Lords for their welcome.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark, whose place I take, had a long and distinguished service in this House, to which I pay tribute. I do not think that I will be able to emulate it, but one small point of continuity is that I have succeeded him as co-chair of the Inter Faith Network, which brings together people of all kinds of faith perspectives, from the great nine faiths, in local and regional groups to work together and listen to each other—strangers seeking to become friends. That work provides a context for this debate. In our diocese of Derby, I chair the Multi-Faith Centre at the University of Derby, which in a small, local way tries to continue that work. We have heard about the power of the English tradition of street parties. Last week, I had 40 faith leaders for an evening in my garden, where the devolution of strawberries and cream achieved great effect in helping strangers to become friends.
The diocese of Derby does not simply deal with interfaith matters. It is a very mixed diocese. There are great urban areas such as Derby and Chesterfield. There is the former coalmining district on our border with Nottinghamshire, where there is an urgent need for community regeneration; and there is the classic English scene of market towns and villages in the Peak District, one of the most visited areas of our country, where we face issues such as how communities survive in terms of affordable housing, and the future of farming.
It might be interesting for this debate to train a lens on one small part of our diocese and ask what it might mean to—as the noble Baroness said—return power to the people. What is community if it is not about helping strangers to become friends? What might that look like through the lens of one small part of our diocese? I refer noble Lords to a part of the diocese in the centre of Derby, in the inner city. This area covers 0.75 square miles and in it live 15,000 people of more than 100 nationalities. How do those strangers become friends? There are issues about housing, health and the environment. What will local enterprise partnerships and the devolution of planning and housing powers contribute to that scenario? If we ask the people in that 0.75 of a square mile what they desire to help strangers to become friends and grow community, they identify three things: they want community safety, because there is a high level of drug trading, drinking and prostitution; they want community cohesion, because the temptation of all these different national groups is to live in their own shell in a protective way; and they want an environment that is pleasant to live in and not dominated by graffiti, litter and poor housing.
So how can power be given to people in a small area such as that? There is, as the noble Baroness said, amazing energy and initiative there. There are 80 public buildings, and 66 organisations offering 212 types of activity and service. Sixty per cent of that local energy comes from the faith communities—half of it from the Christian churches. Despite all the challenges and problems in a small area such as that, the people have enormous energy and a desire to make community. It seems to me that the great challenge of this debate and the whole big society programme is how the devolution of power downwards, whether it is in planning, housing or local enterprise boards, can meet the energy, commitment and initiative coming upwards from people who desperately want the resourcing and capacity to help strangers to become friends and for community to grow.
I thank noble Lords for the warmth of their welcome and for making this stranger a friend in their presence.
Lord Taylor of Warwick
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, for securing this debate, which is extremely well timed. I also congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby on his superb maiden speech. I am relieved to hear that his experiences of being accosted in this House have nevertheless been pleasant ones. He had a distinguished academic career at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. He has written several books, including one intriguingly entitled A Challenge to the Churches. His personal calling into the church began as a curate in Wolverhampton in 1976, and he eventually became the Bishop of Derby in 2005. We welcome him to this House. Clearly, by the quality of his speech today, he has much of value to contribute.
I also look forward to hearing the maiden speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Knight and Lord McAvoy.
Local communities should be a voice, not an echo. They should have their own distinctive say in what happens to them locally and not be controlled by central government. There is simply no more life in the old dogma that Whitehall must control. Therefore, I am glad to see that the Government have already scrapped home information packs and intend to remove a layer of regional government which, frankly, was a barrier, not a boon, to local communities.
The relationship between local and central government turned into a sort of verbal volleyball until more power and control was sucked to the centre of Westminster. It is not that we are slow to learn; we are just too quick to forget. We forget that the small, the personal and the local work much more easily with the grain of human nature. The noble Baroness, Lady Perry, set out some superb examples of how local communities can work effectively.
I was born and raised in a place that many people call paradise—Birmingham, just off the M6 motorway, by the gasworks! But Birmingham is a prime example of a city where innovation thrived, through businessmen such as George Cadbury, and where political careers had their start, as in the cases of Joseph and Neville Chamberlain. We also produced Ozzy Osbourne, but that just goes to show what a diverse talent base the city has. In localities across Britain there is immense untapped human potential, but this is not fostered by target-driven, top-down government which is tied up with bureaucracy and wants to micromanage. It will be an encouragement to the new coalition Government to know that Birmingham, which is the largest council authority in Europe, has had a working Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition majority for more than six years.
A century ago, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, and Newcastle were the economic powerhouses of the world. Now they have only half the GDP per head of major European cities. After London, the next English city in the European league table of economic performance is Bristol at number 34. That simply is not good enough. The sad fact is that local councils today have lost the power to fight urban decay, crime and social breakdown. Less than a tenth of the money spent every year on regeneration has been spent by local government. The rest has come from regional development agencies, learning and skills councils, the homes and communities agencies and other regional agencies, bodies far removed from the local people.
Since 1997, nearly 300 pieces of legislation have been enacted with the words “local government” in the title. It is said that democracy is free, but it is not cheap. Since 1997, the cost of monitoring local government has ballooned to £2 billion. We can learn lessons from abroad. Countries like Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland and America have a high level of devolved power over a host of public services. It cannot be a coincidence that the voter turnout in UK local elections is about 35 per cent, compared with 80 per cent in Sweden, 70 per cent in Germany and 60 per cent in France. We are reaching the stage, in the UK, where local people will be neither for nor against apathy.
There are key issues to be considered. In our largest cities, I would support the policy of an elected mayor who can provide a city with strong leadership, but it should be for local people to decide in each case. Ideas either fly or die, but the office of an elected mayor has shown itself to be an effective model all over the world. It would be for local people to ensure that the chosen mayor is not a nightmare. Government need to give local communities a share in local growth. There should be financial incentives, such as reduced council tax, to local authorities which deliver the housing that local people need. Local councils should be able to retain the financial benefits arising from new business activities in their areas. They should also be given the power to levy business rate discounts. Local firms should have the power to challenge effectively any planned business rate increase.
In Germany, all council planning departments have incentives towards developing land for residential and commercial use. Last year, in this country, we completed just over 118,000 houses, the lowest level of house building since 1946. Germany seems to do it much better. So, not only did the Germans beat us in the World Cup, but they can also teach us a thing or two about local housing development.
The regional development agencies have spent more than £13 billion to date, but the Institute of Directors and other business bodies have complained that the RDAs lack both a prominent profile in their regions and have insufficient empathy with the needs of business. Some areas of the UK are clearly underperforming. That is bad for local people and for the national economy. I am encouraged to see that the Government intend to replace regional development agencies with local enterprise partnerships between local authorities and business.
I believe strongly that community and faith groups should be given the opportunity to bid to run local services, as they know what they want and are often better placed to do so than state bureaucracies. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby has given some superb examples of that. I know of a number of Christian groups who see it as part of their calling to be actively helping others in their locality. For them, it is more than a job or a career, but they often lack sufficient funding. This will help to set the foundations for the big society, about which I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Wei, will want to say more.
Devolving power to local communities is the only way forward in these difficult economic times. Yes, it will put more responsibility on local leaders to innovate and to use their increased powers wisely, but they will become stronger for it.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, it is a real privilege to speak in this House for the first time and to follow the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, and I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, on securing this important debate.
I note that other maiden speeches normally start with thanks, and I will come on to those. I also note that many have talked about their family associations with this place. I am afraid to tell your Lordships that, in the same way that I have not inherited Labour politics, I have no genetic links to your Lordships' House, but I am delighted to have the chance to take a title. There was much discussion on my Facebook page about what it should be. Someone congratulated me on gaining more titles this year than the England football team. Others suggested an association with my favourite football team, the Arsenal, but having closely studied the Code of Conduct I felt that “Knight of the Emirates” might give rise to the suspicion of sponsorship.
In keeping with a debate on localism, I am delighted to have a title from where I live, Weymouth—a town that I was so pleased to represent in the other place for nine years. I thank the electors of South Dorset not just for those wonderful years as their Labour voice in Parliament but for not renewing my contract in May, because otherwise I would not be here now. I also thank my staff, supporters, and most importantly my family. In the case of the latter, I do so more by way of apology for not being around to reciprocate the support they give me in my political career. Finally, let me thank the staff here as well as so many of your Lordships, such as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby. You have all made me most welcome.
I have wrestled with localism throughout my political career. As mayor of Frome in Somerset and as deputy leader of Mendip District Council, I developed a real appreciation of how much difference an active councillor can make, particularly working in harmony with like-minded comrades. Indeed in those days, especially in planning and economic development, I had more immediate power to influence people’s day-to-day lives than I probably did last year when I served in the Cabinet. Localism is close to people, and at its best engages and empowers them, but centralism also has its merits.
Last year, I was responsible for a massive centralised delivery machine in the form of Jobcentre Plus—an executive agency that employs around 80,000 staff who by and large do a great job, as evidenced by the fact that 90 per cent of customers get back into work within a year of unemployment. This machine had to respond to the worst global recession in 70-odd years and prevent the unemployment effects of a large sudden contraction in the economy. The predictions—the almost racing certainty of a year ago—of more than 3 million unemployed and a lost generation of young people were confounded, at least for now, because we in government had the levers and the central delivery system to respond fast and effectively.
Given how necessary and fashionable it is now to talk about doing more for less, it is also worth saying that I had departmental responsibility for procurement. In common with my successor in the new Government, I continued with larger and better value-for-money contracts despite the conflict with localism.
I therefore counsel a pragmatic approach to this subject. Localism is not an ideology; nor should it be yet more government spin. Instead, it should be about delivering power to people to influence change as locally as is reasonably possible: what Sir John Major called subsidiarity. One of the few things that I did in the Department for Work and Pensions that is not now being undone by my successors is the introduction of local flexibility in Jobcentre Plus. Yes, it is a central organisation, but it has room for local managers to respond to local circumstances and find new ways of delivering the agreed outcomes.
In that, I built on my experience as Schools Minister for three years. In England, we have one of the most delegated schools systems in the world. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking, who introduced the local management of schools. This has been extended and developed by successive Ministers, so that around 90 per cent of schools’ funding goes to schools’ budgets without touching the sides. This is unheard of elsewhere and with the consequence that 23,000 schools are all employers with the power to hire and fire. It is easier to hire than fire, but again this is very unusual internationally.
That system of localism works. My biggest regret, looking back, is that I was too timid on pushing further flexibility in the secondary curriculum. Perhaps I should have listened more to my supporting Peers, my noble friends Lord Adonis and Lord Puttnam. My noble friend Lord Adonis was a valued colleague as a Minister and has transformed education in London through London Challenge, which means that London schools now outperform the national average—although, come to think of it, that was a somewhat centralising programme. However, his academies programme has transformed the educational chances of whole communities by allowing local flexibility and innovation where local authorities were failing to maintain standards—true localism at its best.
My noble friend Lord Puttnam has in turn taught me much about education as the crucible of the future. Aside from the great film that he made with Sir Michael Barber, he also recently introduced me to Sir Ken Robinson. For those of your Lordships who are so minded, please go to YouTube to find Ken's TED lecture on creativity in education. If ever there was the perfect speech about what is wrong with the centralised curriculum that I was responsible for, it is that. I know from my subsequent year as employment Minister that although the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic are important, employers also want other skills. They want communication, team working, leadership and creativity.
Our centralised system reveres the past at the expense of the future. It is still basically a post-war system geared around training people to be academic professors, at its peak, and for the majority to go into unskilled work. That is not what the future needs; it is not what the majority needs; it is not what engages children; and it is not what local economies need. More local freedom to engage children and their parents, to do what it takes to unlock their enthusiasm and skills, to value other talents alongside academic ones and to feed the required skills into the local economy—that is good localism. However, that does not mean 23,000 independent schools. I still believe in accountability. Every school and academy means an obscene centralisation of accountability through the Secretary of State that I believe to be unsustainable, inflexible and doomed to failure.
My Chief Whip advised me to thank everyone, be a bit funny, not too controversial and not too long. I fear that I may have failed. Let me conclude on this. Localism works, but so does centralism. We need both. The current Government are doing and will do both. The former will be dressed up as enabling, as the big society; the latter as efficiency and value for money; and the wheel will come full circle. What is really exciting is how we can then use new technology to digitise public services and get the best of both worlds—but that is a speech for another day.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, it is always a privilege and a pleasure to welcome new colleagues on behalf of the whole House, and I do so very warmly in the case of the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth. Few of us now have genetic links with this House; most of us are the objects of quite recent patronage. I see from the noble Lord's biography that he has a background in performance arts—I am not talking about the cabaret along the Corridor—and he is a great campaigner. He was the House Magazine campaigner of the year four years ago, and I am sure that he will be able to use this House as a platform for continued campaigning. He will be known nationally for his distinguished ministerial career. I, for one, was at least as impressed by his career in local government, holding senior positions at local level—doing, as he said local, real things. We look forward to hearing much more from him; I, for one, agreed with a great deal of what he just said.
I welcome this debate, and its title: not decentralisation, which is local administration of central government, but devolution—in other words, local government as we would wish it to be. What a challenging time to try to make these changes. Expectations have been raised, and local communities are more likely to have come up with ideas for spending than for saving, and will share those ideas through the social media to which the noble Lord just referred. That is a speedy—indeed, instant—mechanism for sharing. Competition for funds will be enormous. Agreeing and setting priorities are such important parts of politics and are what representative democracy is about, as well as exercising responsibility to hear those who are hard to hear, such as Travellers.
I acknowledge and applaud the recognition that real people, not just politicians, should have a real role in providing as well as using services. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Perry—to whom I am very grateful for introducing a topic very dear to my heart—I think that we must not lose sight of the importance of and the strains on the third sector. Local authorities have long depended very much on it. I ask—rhetorically perhaps—how should we assist strangers to become friendly competitors in this slightly changed world? How should we ensure the accountability of groups that will receive public money? In other words, what is the interface between localism and accountability?
There are two changes that would be most democratic and would give most power to local people. The first is electoral reform. It could be that only English local government will have a voting system that is not reformed although, ironically, it has the basic infrastructure of multimember wards that makes it most appropriate for reform. The second is meaningful local tax-raising powers. Central government has announced that council tax will be frozen next year, a decision that I suspect many local authorities would have taken for themselves. I hope that the Minister will explain to the House the thinking behind the announcement and the necessity to pre-empt local decisions.
Indeed, there are a number of matters on which I hope the Minister will give the context and detail of how they forward the devolution agenda. The first is the choice of democratic structure. It seems only two minutes ago that we were changing democratic structures, but it was in 2000. I was asked at the time how I came to a view about the correct population number for authorities to be able to retain the committee system, as I was leading a number of colleagues in resisting changes that were proposed. I have to say that it was a matter of horse trading. There was nothing technical about it. I hope that in future local authorities will not just have a straight choice between current structures and the old committee structures but will be allowed to find their own ways of combining the best features for themselves. However, it seems that there will be no choice if you are one of the 12 largest cities that are to have mayors, subject to a confirmatory referendum. I understand that it will be a negative referendum—in other words, a referendum not to have a mayor—which will be quite interesting to explain to voters. It will be a different sort of campaign. As I understand it, the current leader will become the shadow mayor as of May next year.
To go from perhaps the sublime to the gorblimey, we have heard that local authorities are going to have to collect refuse every week. Mr Clarke of the coalition Government yesterday showed that he is not driven by the Daily Mail, which was terrific to hear. I hope that on refuse collection, about which the press frequently writes rather alarmingly, local decisions on how to handle the arrangements can be allowed to stay in place—for instance, decisions about how best to increase rates of recycling.
Yesterday, someone said to me that we are no longer allowed to use the term “total place”. I do not believe that the Government are in the business of throwing out the baby with the bath water. Whatever it is called, the substance is important, supported by area-based budgeting and the power of general competence, which we will welcome very much.
I turn to two areas which have already been mentioned. On planning, we need early clarity on how the reforms will work for local authorities and developers, which we know need certainty. On housing, I am delighted that community land trusts have already been mentioned. Citizen-led approaches fit perfectly with the local agenda. It seems that there is a willingness by some land owners to offer up land for CLTs, provided that they can be certain that affordability will be retained in perpetuity.
I am not sure whether the Government Office for London is sublime or gorblimey. It has long been argued that it is inappropriate to have a government office in London given that it has its elected city government. I hope that the Minister will tell us more about the dismantling of GOL. It seems that all civil servants are going back to their home departments. I hope that this is not a move upwards. I have heard that so far there will be savings of only about £15 million, which seems small. We look for bolder steps.
I should declare two interests which pull in slightly different directions. I am one of three co-presidents of London Councils and a past member and chair of the London Assembly. I welcome the dismantling, but it is not enough. I welcome more powers for the mayor, but they will not be enough. I do not have time to speak at length about the role of the London Assembly, but a new devolution settlement for London should be clear and rigorous about what should rest with the GLA and what should be devolved to the local level—to the boroughs, which are close to their communities. They have shown themselves to be capable of joint working where that is required. The London Assembly is a constituent part of the GLA, but it needs more powers. I suggest that the right to block mayoral policies and strategies by a two-thirds majority would be one of those.
Local government is where my heart is. This House is lucky to have a Minister whose heart I know is in the same place. We look forward to hearing from her and to her introduction of what I hope will be a devolution and not a decentralisation Bill in the autumn.
Lord Wei
My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lady Perry for obtaining this debate, which is extremely well timed. I also welcome the insightful and eloquent maiden contributions of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby and the noble Lord, Lord Knight, and I look forward very much to the forthcoming maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy.
A key principle of the big society as expressed in government policy across the board is to give people more power closer to where they live—in effect, to devolve power to local communities, to citizens and citizen groups. I want to take this opportunity to highlight some of the ways in which this can happen through the thread of action from the centre of government through to the level of a street or neighbourhood and in reverse. I will then bring out some of the specific challenges in implementing these policies and potential ways to address them. Finally, I will mention the roles that not only central government play, but also the roles that enabling bodies such as local authorities and social enterprises as well as citizens can play in helping to effect this multi-layered devolution of power smoothly.
As has been mentioned, we live in a relatively centralised democracy, with powers concentrated in the hands of the few. This places accountability mainly in the hands of Parliament to regulate and monitor both government and itself, and to the media to hold government to account through ad hoc public challenge and exposure—but only infrequently at some elections is there a feeling of real accountability to the voters. This state of affairs leaves many ordinary citizens disillusioned and disconnected from power. It can feed a sense of apathy and reliance on government for solutions, rather than a sense that citizens together can make improvements that fit their circumstances, resources and geographies with government and other institutions in more of a supportive or facilitative role.
For all the rhetoric of previous Governments, the model to date has in general been rooted in the notion of the controlling state rather than the enabling state. There is a sense that big government—the assumption that government has all the answers—while it achieved much in the 20th century, is no longer fit for purpose and that reforming it will require not just a piecemeal devolution—a referendum here or a right to be consulted there—but a radical approach to shifting power at every level, a control shift, which combines new ideas with a rediscovery of ancient values. This shift starts in Westminster in exploring how this House and the other place can best function and represent the nation, and how we can relate more equally with the devolved Administrations; in how data in Whitehall are more widely shared about costs and impact through a right to data policy; and even in the bringing back of true Cabinet government and greater trust in the Civil Service.
It continues with an emphasis on shifting powers to local authorities; namely, powers of competence to determine their own future financially and non-financially, powers to have elected mayors, and, in the abolition of regional spatial strategies, powers to return decision-making on housing, enterprise and planning to councils and localities. It is expressed in greater trust in front-line professionals, with a reduction in the amount of targets being collected across various departments and other bureaucracy so that professionals can focus on serving citizens and communities whether on the beat, in the community, or in the classroom. It continues in giving public sector workers the right to bid to form employee-owned co-operatives to take over the services that they deliver, and in allowing some of our highest performing schools to become academies and new ones to be established.
The shift continues in measures which allow the further opening up of hitherto central or local authority run or owned services and assets to third parties, such as social enterprises, and to citizen groups so that they can be co- or wholly citizen-designed, run, and/or bid for or taken over with payment by results. It continues as monopolies in state provision are opened up in education, healthcare and social care, and in central and local procurement, supported by the release of local data on costs and performance, such as through crime maps, and in the promotion of open-source processes to enhance and involve citizen participation in planning, budgeting, debating and myriad other activities.
In the long term, we have the opportunity to enshrine rights for, and to remove barriers to, neighbourhood groups at the most local level so that they can engage with, run and shape even more the services that affect them; to collaborate with each other and with enabling bodies such as local authorities, social enterprises and other local anchor institutions to achieve critical mass and scale where needed; to tackle critical and complex problems; and to exist without uncalled for interference and costs being imposed on them where they are clearly behaving responsibly. I hope that noble Lords will agree that this is indeed a radical shift.
There will of course be challenges in implementing this ambitious programme. The first is the ability of each protagonist in the chain to exercise its new powers responsibly and effectively. The second is the capacity for communities, particularly those in deprived and resource-constrained environments, to make use of these new powers and data to bring about improvement. That is a challenge which I and my colleagues in the Office for Civil Society in particular are wrestling with through policies such as community organisers, the community first grant programme, and the big society bank. The third is the willingness and ability of players along this tapestry—local authorities, newly elected mayors and social enterprises—to seize this opportunity to act and to take responsibility, and for us not always automatically to blame the centre when things go wrong.
The fourth challenge is when the shift of power is not accompanied by a shift in resources—for example, when councils cut grants to effective social enterprises because they represent external costs which are much easier to deal with than internal ones such as staff. Players, be they government departments, local authorities, social enterprises or citizens’ groups, that handle this shift well and responsibly deserve our praise and support, while those that abuse their new-found powers and do not pass them down deserve scrutiny and challenge, not just from us at the centre but from the people, through greater transparency and local media interest.
We must also accept that at times there will be failure from which we must learn and move on—that is the risk you take when you trust people and institutions—and recognise that often a local rather than a systemic response for failure works best, unless the failure is genuinely systemic. In essence, we want small failures, not large ones. We must also recognise that such challenges will mean that the pace of change will be different in different places, although that is not necessarily dissimilar to the situation in many places today.
This is fine as long as progress is still being made across the board and the state is always on hand to protect the vulnerable. New skills will be needed to help effect the culture change and transitions that will be required. Central government will need to become more risk-aware and less risk-averse. Councils may need to learn to facilitate more and deliver and even commission alone less or in less onerous ways. Front-line staff and commissioners of services will need to take into account more than just a pure short-term value-for-money argument in their decisions. They will need to understand what will drive long-term sustainability and savings in their locality and to build bridging social capital through greater citizen and non-governmental inclusion in service delivery, whether that be through restorative justice circles, patient expert groups and new mutual forms of social care such as demonstrated through Southwark Circle.
We will also need to make sure that transparent citizen feedback, harnessing technology where possible, is used to generate continued pressure for devolution and improvement, learning from businesses such as Amazon and eBay so as to avoid having to create regulations and bureaucracy in order to keep track of the myriad actors and players that will be involved in this new landscape. For this to work, it is clear that central government cannot act alone. Just the act of publishing data and passing new laws can achieve a great deal, but local authorities, social enterprises and other intermediary bodies that stand between the centre and the citizens where they live will have a huge role to play in making such laws and information usable, ensuring that local capacity and engagement exists, and ensuring that changes are fair.
Even then, it will require millions of citizens, a veritable “civic service”, to want to make use of their rights, to take responsibility to help deliver, hold to account or feed back on progress, and not once more just leave it to a few to carry the rest of us. Will such a civic service arise, building on the great multiplicity of action that already exists? Will local institutions step up to the mark? Can Government willingly give up so much power? Do we have any other choice? I do not believe we do, and so we must try. But more than hope for the best, the challenge for all of us is to work together to bring about this shift, and it will require our finest minds, our most enlightened officials and politicians, our most able social entrepreneurs and forward-looking public servants, and our most innovative and determined citizens up and down the land to make lasting and real progress.
It is my belief, however, that we can do it. One short true story illustrates my point and demonstrates to me that this programme, while ambitious, is possible. A certain engaged citizen I know, William Perrin, lived on a street in King’s Cross which eight years ago had severe social problems—exploding cars, endemic fly-tipping and severe anti-social behaviour, including a crack dealer living in a caravan right in front of his house. William and his neighbours got stuck in to volunteer community work, but after several years the burden of local paperwork and documents became more than he could bear. In desperation, he set up a community website to manage the information and share it with others, blogging about the situation, using photos taken on members’ mobiles to report acts of abandonment and vandalism, and the unresponsiveness of some local public bodies. Four years on, the website has 900 articles, many local campaigns have been successfully fought, and the local area is being transformed. William used the experience to raise money and set up a social enterprise that helps other people in hundreds of other deprived communities use the web to improve their neighbourhood up and down the country, in rural areas, towns, and post-industrial estates.
This story, replicated in myriad different ways across the country, can contribute over time to a stronger and more content society as our social ties grow; to a more balanced economy as we transition resources and people from the public into the community and private sectors, and could even allow us once more to help inspire other countries around the world as they too wrestle with how to build partnerships between government and civil society, and to design their civil administrations in a way that empowers people. Imagine what more could be done if we can achieve the shift that this Government wish to make happen and see it lived out in millions of stories such as the one I have just mentioned. We can do it if, together, we can overcome the obstacles that we will surely face, and if as many of us as possible are able to play a responsible and appropriate role, however large or small, whether online or offline.
Lord McAvoy
My Lords, it is with more than the usual trepidation that I rise to speak because after 13 years in the Government Whips’ Office, it is now around 14 years since I last made a speech in the Palace of Westminster. I join other colleagues in thanking all the staff and Members who have made me extremely welcome. I have never been in quite such a warm and friendly place. I have been in many a warm place along the corridor, but the welcome I have received and the friendship shown here augurs well.
I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, on choosing the subject of our debate today. I also thank her for that because it allows me to speak about something I feel quite comfortable with, which is localism. Most folk would describe me as being a great fan of parochialism, but I make no apology for that. The emphasis in the debate has been on localism and local connections. I have my own local connections to declare because the place I was born and brought up in, and represent, are quite extensive. My wife Eleanor and I were both born and brought up in the Burnhill area of the Royal Borough of Rutherglen. We were married there and we have always stayed there. Our four sons all reside no more than half a mile from our house, and that connection is very important to me. Connections to this House have been mentioned, but I can certainly vouch for the fact that my grandfather, who was an immigrant from the north of Ireland to the west coast of Scotland, definitely had no connections to this House because I still have his marriage certificate. It states, “Bernard McAvoy. His mark here”, and there is then a very large cross. I am proud that the traditions of this country have allowed the grandson of a person who could not read or write to become a Member here.
The west of Scotland has a reputation—undeserved—of being male dominated, but in reality it was and still is the women who are the strong characters. In my own family, the three most influential people were my grandmother, my mother and my late sister. I think about them and those connections every day. Before I became a Member of the Commons, I worked in the Hoover factory in Cambuslang as a forklift truck driver. I was heavily involved in the local community council and the tenants’ association and became the chair of those organisations. I also became a Strathclyde regional councillor. To me, that council was the epitome of decentralisation because at the time it was the largest local authority in Europe, covering 2.5 million people. But the decentralisation and devolution of power that took place were real. Effectively, the council was divided into six sub-divisions with power being devolved to local people. The combined experience of working with the community and in the then Strathclyde Regional Council has shaped all my attitudes since then to public life. You get the best out of communities and out of people if you work together—not in a deceptive way by pretending to agree with one another, but on real community issues it is so easy to get agreement and people working together.
My first constituency as a Member of Parliament included areas of Cambuslang and Halfway. Again, there is terrific continuity in these areas which continues to be reflected. I was lucky enough to be asked to serve in the then Opposition Whips’ Office and I served a terrific apprenticeship under my noble friends Lord Foster of Bishop Auckland and Lord Dixon. I am quite sure that that apprenticeship will continue in this place, as it did in the Government Whips’ Office under Nick Brown.
It is not just about systems of local government; I believe that local government is the main tool for delivering to local people. We do not want to return to what some critics said of the last Government and certainly of the previous Government, about the controls and restrictions put on local authorities established during the 1980s and 1990s. The local council can be the deliverer. The trick, if you like, is to inculcate local people with a sense of ownership and a sense of freedom, while also still inculcating the council with a sense of accountability and responsibility. They are the constant threads for delivering well to local people.
In my own life, this is the best example I can give of local people working together. In 1975, the towns of Rutherglen, Cambuslang and Halfway were incorporated into the great city of Glasgow. It is a wonderful city, but we were used to a more localised and accountable structure, and we did not take comfortably to being part of a great city. So, in 1995, in conjunction with the then Conservative Minister responsible for local government in Scotland, Allan Stewart, and the noble Lord, Lord Sanderson, we managed to set up a campaign that united the whole area. Every tenants’ association, every community council and every local organisation combined in a joint committee to join a more local council, and in 1996 we succeeded in getting into South Lanarkshire Council. The best committee I ever served on was that one—working to get a local council for Rutherglen, Cambuslang and Halfway—because all the political parties combined. We worked with Conservative Ministers who showed a lot of co-operation, and we achieved it. So returning power to local communities has certainly happened in our area.
South Lanarkshire Council has reflected that because it has established local area committees where people can participate. It has devolved matters to local co-operatives, which is important to me. It also works extremely well with the co-operative and mutual organisations. There are many ways in which it can improve efficiency and cut costs. It is also investigating the possibility of joint administration with a neighbouring council—for instance, in regard to the education payroll—thereby cutting costs, sharing administration and saving the public money.
There should be no return to conflict between local and national government; there should be a balance. I believe in a certain amount of centralised direction but, under that, there must be total control for local people. I hope the present Government continue with that policy.
Lord Rosser
My Lords, on behalf of your Lordships, I welcome my noble friend Lord McAvoy and congratulate him on his thoughtful and thought-provoking maiden speech. It is no surprise that he decided to make his maiden speech in today’s debate as it addresses an issue in which he has considerable expertise and experience. He chaired the Rutherglen Community Council from 1980 to 1982 and was a councillor on Strathclyde Regional Council from 1982 to 1987.
My noble friend has had a distinguished career in the Whips Office in the other place, to which he was elected in 1987. Having been an opposition Whip prior to the 1997 general election, he became a government Whip that year and was Deputy Chief Whip from 2008 to the recent general election. In his career in the other place, he also took a keen and long-standing interest in Northern Ireland affairs. On this side, we await with some trepidation to see whether we get a seal of approval from him on the way our Whips function, or whether we receive something more akin to a rollicking.
I again congratulate my noble friend on his maiden speech. I am sure that I speak for all noble Lords in expressing the hope, having heard his excellent maiden speech today, that, taking advantage of his new found freedom having been released from his oath of silence as a Whip in the other place, he will be a regular contributor to debates in this House.
As have other speakers, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Perry of Southwark, on initiating today’s debate. It covers an area of some concern about the coalition Government’s intentions
On 10 June, the Department for Communities and Local Government announced the services and the councils on which the £1.165 billion of cuts in local government funding will fall in this financial year. The areas with the greatest challenges and needs will bear the brunt of the cuts—or, as the Local Government Minister in the other place put it:
“Those in greatest need ultimately bear the burden of paying off the debt”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/6/10; col. 450.]
That shows clearly shared coalition Government values in action.
It is hardly the way, either, to say that you are serious about devolving powers if one of your first decisions as the Secretary of State is to let local services and local government bear the brunt of the reductions by accepting over-the-top cuts in funding amounting to some 20 per cent of the additional cuts this year of £6.2 billion. This can only reduce the flexibility and ability of local communities to take on more responsibility and determine their own priorities and courses of action.
The Chancellor has announced an average 25 per cent reduction in budgets across departments and it remains to be seen, when the spending review is announced in the autumn, whether the cut in the Department for Communities and Local Government budget will be 25 per cent, or more, or less. These further cuts, though, will have a big impact on local government and local communities and will be in addition to the £1.165 billion already announced.
This raises the issue of whether it is the coalition Government’s shared value to weaken, rather than support or strengthen, local government and locally elected representatives. The Secretary of State’s lack of action in fighting local government’s corner must be a cause for concern. The early decisions of the coalition Government would certainly suggest that, through the Secretary of State, they are tightening, not loosening, Whitehall’s grip on local government, as well as squeezing it hard financially.
The Secretary of State has ordered councils to put spending information on line, without consultation on cost or how this should be done, while, at the same time, not properly explaining where £500 million of cuts will fall. When asked in the other place what estimate he had made of the cost to, first, Durham County Council and, secondly, all local authorities of publishing the details of each item of expenditure of £500 or more, the Minister for Local Government said:
“No estimate has been made of either figure”.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/6/10; col. 34W.]
I am sure the Minister will today tell us if a figure is now available.
The coalition Government, without consultation, appear to have watered down powers given to councils to control the spread of houses in multiple occupation where difficulties are being caused, and has replaced it with a system where it is the Secretary of State who decides what is best for local people.
The coalition Government have also stepped in to determine how councils can and cannot communicate with those to whom they are accountable through free council newspapers. Whatever one may feel about council newspapers, that is not the action of a Government looking to devolve power but, rather, the actions of a Government determined to keep and increase their powers over local government.
The academies proposals of the coalition Government will further reduce the role of councils and their locally elected representatives in education without increasing parental involvement in governance. Direct elections for police commissioners and health bodies risk creating conflicting policies and objectives with local councils and within local communities, while proposals on GP commissioning could lead to further fragmentation of responsibility and decision-making in health and social care without enhancing accountability.
There will, of course, be different views about the merits of elected mayors, but they tend to weaken, not strengthen, the representative role of locally elected councillors. The coalition Government are clearly keen on bringing them in in 12 cities, and it is not clear whether the confirmatory referendum will be required before a mayor can be installed or whether it will take place some time after the mayor has taken over.
Proposals for referendums could well hinder joined-up policy and thinking. It is interesting that the Government appear to be thinking of a referendum on the level of council tax increases but not, apparently, of referendums geared to ensuring minimum or improved levels of service.
The danger is that the Government’s actions to date and proposals for the future will fragment the provision and accountability for local services when it is important to join them up as envisaged in the philosophy of Total Place, which looks at making the best use of local public service spending as a whole, whether it be, for example, police, school, health or council money. Often that money is being spent on the same particular specific groups or areas in the community, and the question is not whose money it is but how, when looked at in total, that money can most efficiently be spent to produce better services for the specific groups or areas concerned.
Local government, with its elected local representatives and direct accountability, has the vital role in co-ordinating activities in its communities, including those of the voluntary sector, to ensure that overall resources, both human and financial, can be deployed in the most effective manner to the maximum benefit of the communities served, achieving the priorities of those communities. That role has been made that much harder by the coalition Government’s decisions to date and there must be real concern that their declared future intentions will make the situation even worse.
With the reduction in local government funding already announced, and those even larger reductions still to come, grants to voluntary organisations that communities value and need to provide services over and above, and in addition to, those provided by local government and statutory agencies are also likely to be significantly reduced. Many charities are dependent on public money to carry out their valuable work, with just over one-third of charities’ income being funded from central and local government. More volunteering cannot fill the gaps because there is a cost to volunteering.
Devolving powers to communities, whether through local government, statutory agencies or the voluntary and third sectors, becomes a bit meaningless if it is being done against a background of a Secretary of State who so far has displayed greater interest in grabbing more control into his own hands than he has in protecting local government and local communities from over-the-top reductions in funding. One suspects that what the coalition Government may really be interested in is seeking to devolve responsibility for their own actions down the line but not their power or influence. Only time, of course, will tell, but the coalition Government’s actions to date have not matched their declared intentions.
Lord Rennard
My Lords, I wish to make a few general remarks about the philosophical approach that we are discussing today and then raise a few specific issues.
Devolving power to local communities has always been at the heart of the Liberal approach to government, but it has generally been the opposite approach to that adopted by successive Westminster Governments. I hope therefore that there will now be a real and long-lasting change in approach with the recent change in Government.
The coalition agreement says that it is,
“time for a fundamental shift of power from Westminster to people”.
The agreement commits the new Government to promoting decentralisation and democratic engagement, ending, it says,
“the era of top-down government by giving new powers to local councils, communities, neighbourhoods and individuals”.
The question is how to turn this rhetoric into reality.
In a recent speech entitled “The Big Society: moving from romanticism to reality”, the chief executive of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Associations, Stephen Bubb, argued that there are two planks underpinning the approach to what is now called the “big society”. The first, he said, is,
“the drive to ensure a bigger role for civil society and to encourage more citizen involvement and community action”.
The second is,
“the drive to diversify public service delivery, promote consumerism and to ramp up third sector provision of more citizen focused services”.
Speaking on behalf of many voluntary organisations, I believe that he was right to say that the “smart, strategic state” of which the Prime Minister has spoken will need a Government who work in genuine partnership with that sector and with local government in order to address the challenges ahead, not a Government who simply retrench and leave others to pick up the pieces.
Our debate today concerns fundamental issues about the role of the state. That issue has been at the heart of the divide between the major parties’ philosophies for as long as they have existed. In describing my own view and, I believe, generally the Liberal Democrat view of the role of the state, I sometimes quote a great liberal politician, Mario Cuomo, a former Governor of New York. He said that we demand only the government that we need—but we also demand all the government that we need. He was speaking at a time when the values espoused by leaders like Ronald Reagan and the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, were considered hostile to almost any action by the state, and when it was once famously claimed that there was no such thing as society. The coalition agreement is a complete rejection of that view. We have moved on a great deal if the commitment to what is being called the big society is genuine, and there may now be more consensus in the major parties about achieving the culture change that I hope really underpins it.
I turn to some specific issues—first, money. If you want to look at where power lies, you have to look at where there is control over revenue-raising and spending decisions. When you look at our system of local government today, you see that currently just a quarter of the money spent locally is raised locally. Without control over the major tax-raising and spending decisions there is little local power, so I hope that national controls over council tax levels will be only very temporary and that the review of local government finance contained in the coalition agreement will address the issue of devolving financial responsibility, as well as creating a system for paying for local services based more on ability to pay than the present council tax system is.
I know that the Local Government Association is keen to work now with central government on improving local delivery and getting better value for money by looking at area-based budgeting that could reduce the cost of unnecessary bureaucracy, saving money and freeing up resources for what we all now call “front-line services”.
Secondly, there is the issue of making councils more accountable and representative, which will be even more important if they are more financially autonomous. It seems to me that the real governance issue for many councils is that they have simply become one-party states for long periods of time. This will no longer generally be the case in Scottish local authorities, where a system of proportional representation has been introduced. If we want local democracy, we must make local councils more representative of the people they serve, and that means giving them a voting system that is fit for purpose in the 21st century.
The third issue is the devolution of power from local councils to neighbourhoods. It seems to me that the logical conclusion of moves to allow community organisations to bid to run local services may also be to allow local communities to do so through electing neighbourhood councils, particularly in many urban areas where the council may seem remote and unresponsive.
Fourthly, giving councils a general power of competence is an essential aspect of delivering the localism agenda. Councils need to be able to offer innovative services tailored to local needs, doing what they consider would benefit their area and the people who live there.
Lastly, education is of course one of the most important locally delivered services. While accepting that there can be benefits in reducing some of the barriers to people who want to establish new schools and reducing the level of government-imposed regulation on all schools, we must also ensure that the proper role of the state in safeguarding children’s health and welfare is maintained. We should recognise that the free-school model is unlikely to be a form of education for many children, that principles of equality of opportunity must always be preserved and therefore that the state, at an appropriate level, must still be able to play its part in ensuring that lessons of best practice learned in schools over many years continue to be learned in the decades ahead.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, on securing this debate and giving us an early opportunity to discuss this aspect of the coalition Government’s proposals. It also gives us the opportunity to take stock of progress made in recent years and of where we are today, and to set out an optimistic vision for the future. I add my congratulations to my noble friends Lord Knight and Lord McAvoy and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby on their impressive maiden speeches.
The proposition that the noble Baroness advanced is effectively that we have an overcentralised government that is stifling local activity. But, listening to the debate, what has struck me is that pretty much every contributor has given us an example of what is happening locally in their patch and their environment in their town. The noble Baroness herself made reference to the third sector flourishing, and I agree, as well as to the work of the churches and the community land trusts.
The right reverend Prelate talked about his work with the Inter Faith Network. I pay tribute to that, but I ask him what that network would have looked like 13 years ago; I bet it was much less developed than it is now. Community safety partnerships were created under the previous Government, as were local strategic partnerships.
My noble friend Lord Knight reminded us that even if, as we should, we support devolution and power going to individuals and communities, we would be quite wrong to brush aside the importance of central government and the role that it can play. To my noble friend Lord McAvoy I can say in all honesty that as I am now no longer responsible for getting Bills through this place, I hope that he does not wait another 14 years before he makes his next speech.
When Labour took power in 1997, many public services were on their knees. In the preceding four years local government had received a 7 per cent reduction in real-terms funding. Contrast that with a 45 per cent increase in real-terms funding under Labour which, together with a drive for efficiencies and tough capping powers, has led to the lowest council tax rises on record.
It is undoubtedly the case that local services are now more effective and that the existence of rigorous targets and inspection regimes helped to bring this about. But things should not stand still. In July 2008 we published Communities in control: real people, real power, focused on passing power to local communities and giving real control over local decisions and services to a wider pool of active citizens. We published a progress report on it last year.
We should have high expectations of local public services, where residents and communities have the right and ability to shape the area in which they live and the services that they receive and provide. We believe that local services can be higher quality, more personalised and lower cost. Notwithstanding progress over recent years, we accept that there is much still to do. We want greater local flexibility and responsiveness, so that services are shaped around the personal needs of citizens and their entitlements, not the silos of government departments. For us, it is not about cutting services; we believe that there is the opportunity to achieve more and save money. We support the role of elected local authorities in driving change, and we support giving local public services more freedom, fewer targets, less ring-fenced finance and slimmer, more effective inspections—a process which is under way.
We have the chance through the Total Place approach—I did not realise that we had to expunge this phrase from our vocabulary; I ask noble Lords to forgive me if I do not—to look at all local spending across all local agencies, giving local services the opportunity to bring together bodies such as the police, councils and the NHS to save money, but also radically to improve services. As the LGA put it:
“To achieve real reform and devolution, there must be a transformation of the way the public sector works. Area-based budgeting would deliver real savings by giving power to the people who know their areas best”.
There is no mention of Total Place in the coalition agreement. On the basis of what the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has said, I perhaps now understand why that is. The Minister might take this opportunity to say whether the coalition Government plan to continue to develop this approach, with all its advantages.
The signs do not look altogether promising, as actions proposed in the coalition document look effectively to be reinforcing rather than breaking down silos. Total Place is not just about local government policy. It makes sense only as local public services policy; it needs all the partners coming together. The coalition Government’s proposals threaten to bypass local councils rather than put them at the centre of a dynamic and holistic approach to delivering local services. Academies and free-school proposals marginalise the role of councils. Direct elections for police commissioners and health bodies will create competing mandates with local authorities. The Conservatives have repeatedly attacked independent inspections of local public services, and the coalition is to scrap the CCA, stripping away inspections and scrutiny and making it easier to hide cuts
As my noble friend Lord Rosser said, the Secretary of State for Local Government, Eric Pickles, has not made a good start. He has acquiesced in £1.2 billion of the early cuts falling to his department and has then imposed them on councils unfairly, hitting the hardest-pressed communities most. Included is the funding for Connecting Communities and the Working Neighbourhoods Fund, focused on community-led approaches and capacity-building. In his passion for localism, the Secretary of State has by diktat stopped councils choosing whether to trial different ways of managing waste recycling by stopping “pay as you throw” pilots. These actions do not sit well with a Government who seek to devolve greater powers to councils and neighbourhoods.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, touched on council tax freezes. Implementing a council tax freeze in 2011-12 is all very well, but we shall have to see the detail of how it will work in practice. Does the Minister accept that council tax is effectively being set from a desk in Whitehall? If so, it is hardly a spur to localism. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, spoke about local government finance, an intractable issue. We shall have to see what comes from the review of local government finance. The first one that I can remember was the Layfield commission in 1976, which I read avidly. I do not think that I have read avidly everything that has followed that, but I shall try to do so this time.
The Secretary of State is obviously warming to his theme of controlling from the centre in his latest announcement of a crackdown on newspapers produced by local councils. This is notwithstanding the fact that, as the LGA has made clear, most council publications are distributed only a handful of times a year and are not significant competitors for advertising revenue. They are an effective means of keeping residents informed about the services on offer where they live and how they might get involved.
The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, among others, referred to issues around directly elected mayors. As we have heard, there are proposals for the creation of directly elected mayors in the 12 largest cities in England, subject to confirmatory referendums. Opportunities already exist of course for bringing forward proposals for a referendum on a mayor, and presumably these will be retained. The Minister may wish to confirm this. It would seem that implementation of the proposal for directly elected mayors will test how localist the agenda truly is. Perhaps the Minister will tell us how the Government have defined the “12 largest cities”, what powers the elected mayor will have, whether there will be a standard model, whether the provisions will apply automatically to the designated cities or whether the onus will be on them to come forward if they wish to avail themselves of the opportunity.
Residents are to be given the power to instigate local referendums on any issue and the power to veto excessive tax increases. What safeguards are proposed in respect of the former to prevent the rich and powerful pursuing their prejudices? And I speak as someone who was living and working in San Francisco when Proposition 13 was on the ballot paper. Why are there no rights for people to veto excessive cutting of services to keep council tax low? Will a power of general competence in practice add much to the well-being power?
The coalition Government’s proposals to scale back RDAs—referred to by the noble Lords, Lord Wei and Lord Taylor—at a time when economic recovery is still fragile, do not seem to be well placed. Instead, as we have heard, they plan to replace them with local enterprise partnerships, bringing together business and local authorities to establish local accountability. RDAs have acted as key drivers for regional economies since 1999. Free from short-term political considerations, they have taken strategic economic decisions that have not only supported businesses, enabled skills training and created thousands of jobs but also helped co-ordinate and fund regeneration projects to build stronger communities. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Wei, that they have helped to attract inward investment and channelled it where it is needed to boost jobs. They have shown their importance in times of regional economic crises; for example, the collapse of MG Rover in the West Midlands in 2005. Local enterprise partnerships would risk short-term political considerations determining key investment, infrastructure and planning decisions, leaving regional economies fragmented. Business leaders, including the CBI and the British Chambers of Commerce, have voiced their opposition to changing RDAs.
We have heard again today about plans to scrap regional spatial strategies and to devolve powers to local authorities. We have also heard from the Chancellor about incentives being offered to encourage households to give the go-ahead for controversial building projects. The LGA has made an urgent plea for clarity about how all this is to work in practice. It is not easy to see how the sum total of decisions, particularly on housing at local, even sub-regional, level, will be consistent with our national housing needs, let alone how it will work for particularly disadvantaged communities such as the Traveller community to which my noble friend Lady Whitaker referred. This has the smack of pandering to nimbyism, but next week’s debate will give us an opportunity to probe this in more depth.
This has been a useful canter around a subject which will no doubt occupy much of our time in the upcoming months. We believe that the next great challenge for the reform of public services is the way in which local public services are delivered. This transformation is already under way and we want it to succeed.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)
My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, for introducing a fantastically interesting debate. It has not always been confined to one particular subject. Most speeches have been pretty wide-ranging and quite a lot have been quite philosophical on the subject, but that is what makes this House so good—that we manage to get a touch of everything, as well as a few acerbic asides, quite properly, from shadow Ministers opposite. The noble Baroness has done us very well, and her introduction of the subject was quite masterly. It was wide-ranging and measured and brought out most of the things that people have wanted to concentrate on since. So I thank her very much for that. We have also had three very inspired maiden speeches and we will clearly have a great deal to hear and learn from those who have just joined us. We look forward to hearing further contributions from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby, and the noble Lords, Lord Knight and Lord McAvoy.
A great deal of knowledge has been shown today by noble Lords in their contributions. In introducing my side to this, I should like to say that devolving power to local communities lies at the heart of the coalition Government’s programme. It very much reflects the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, on the public wish for smaller government. Local communities and local government at local level and lower than that will have a much greater say in how they operate and how their lives are affected—and, one hopes, not so affected without their being able to respond, as happens at the moment. That is the point about whether central government and centralisation of power can work with local power. I think that it can, and that is what we are all heading towards.
The Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister have made it clear that the days of big Government are over and that the previous Government’s centralised, top-down approach, which has not proved to be totally successful, is going to be reversed. We believe that the state has intruded too far into people’s lives over recent years and that the time has come to give them more control over their own lives. It is time for a fundamental shift of power away from Westminster. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby has raised the enormously important point as to what devolution will do to enhance communities. Our answer would be to say that it will bring more involvement. As I think we would all recognise, an enormous number of small organisations and individual people work at local level. The right reverend Prelate described clearly, as did other noble Lords, the importance of what happens in small communities. It was very relevant when he said that there were 100 nationalities in the small area of 15,000 people and, I guess, 100 organisations all working with them to try to make things work for them. All those should have an even greater role and a greater say in how people’s lives are helped.
Comments have been made about policies that have already been put forward or implemented. The department and the Secretary of State have already taken a number of pretty bold steps, with the scrapping of the home information packs and the CCA, along with the proposed bins tax. That may not be the most important thing, but it is certainly something that will have a local effect. We have given councils and communities the power to prevent garden-grabbing, which was becoming a serious issue in a lot of places.
Localism is the watchword, and the commitment to devolving power is real—not just a mantra but a practical demonstration by central government in areas such as housing policy, which we may not have discussed very much today or heard very much about, because we will have a debate on it next week, when I hope some noble Lords who are here today will take part. There will be a choice of local governance. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, that I shall touch on local mayors again in a few moments. This brings back in one of the elements for which both she and I fought very hard when it was taken out—that is, the committee system, which will become part of the governance again, if local councils want it. It is not being forced on them, but it is there if it is considered a suitable way in which a council should operate. Perhaps we did not fight quite hard enough—I understand that we lost it—but it has now come back.
There will be a role for social enterprises, charities and voluntary groups to play in delivering public services. I declare a former interest as the immediate past president of Volunteering England. I recognise clearly how much voluntary work is done and how many people give time, effort and commitment to volunteering. They do it for nothing and are prepared to give that time, which gives an enormous strength to our communities. However, they also have within those volunteering organisations powers to deliver services and the ability to be sensitive. Quite often, such organisations are the ones that can provide a service much better than a local authority does, as they are much more sensitive to people’s requirements. The fact that they will now have the opportunity to have an even greater role is extremely important.
We touched briefly on the election of a representative as a police commissioner, although we have not discussed it much, and a planning system responsive to local needs. There will be a wider involvement of local people in developing policies at local level and their implementation. We have supported this by a new approach to transparency and accountability and by publishing information on the internet so that people can see what local government is doing, where its contracts are going and what it is spending its money on.
The right reverend Prelate and the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, in particular talked about the untapped energy of communities. I feel that very strongly and, from the speeches we have heard today, I think that everybody here feels that there is a surge of energy that can be harnessed at local level and which is often just something that has been provided by local people themselves. They have not been asked to do it, but they do it because they recognise that it is required. If we can get that energy focused even more into local areas, nothing but good will come from that. The netting or welding together of local communities is really important. We live in towns and the country with a diversity of community, and it is very important that we all live in harmony. The more say people have in how they live, the better.
I almost decided that I was not going to say anything at all after I heard the speech of my noble friend Lord Wei, who described the big society far better than I shall ever be able to. Mind you, perhaps he ought to be able to, as he is working at it every day of the week. He gave a wide-ranging view of what the big society—if we have to have a term for it—is all about, highlighting the relationship between government and the enabling bodies that will help people take greater control of their own lives. Again, our vision of the big society is no mantra but a real and radical new approach to redefining the relationship between the citizen and the state. My noble friend will no doubt develop that even further, and I hope that we hear more from him in future. To echo a sentiment expressed by my noble friend to this House in his maiden speech, which was widely regarded at the time, I am under no illusion that our new approach does not present some great challenges.
A number of questions were raised. I am sure that I will not adequately answer all of them, but I will try to pick up some of the points that were put forward. Perhaps I may start with the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, who spoke about Gypsies and Travellers. We are anxious to see that there is a proper relationship with the Gypsies and we will ensure that the planning laws, in particular, ensure fairness between the settled community and Travellers. We are going to encourage local authorities to provide appropriate sites for Travellers, in consultation with local communities, so that instead of having what has been a sort of antagonistic arrangement all the time, when Travellers arrive onto sites and people want them kicked off, we hope that in fact a local agreement can be reached in local areas about where those sites can be, with incentives being offered to do so. We will take to heart what the noble Baroness said about the inequalities in the health and education attainments of the children and families. So there is no question of having thrown Gypsies and Travellers to the winds; rather the contrary, as the Secretary of State made it clear quite recently. I hope that she will be reassured that that is not something that will be forced away.
Now, I appear to have lost all the bits of paper that I had. I said yesterday that I was never going to have another piece of paper in my hand again, because I could never find what I wanted to talk about subsequently, but I did not live up to my own assertion. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, made some pretty astounding comments, if I may say so—it may be that he was getting back at me for yesterday—about the reduction in costs and the grant to local government which has come about this year. I shall exchange the slight acerbity, if I may, by reminding the House that we have been left to deal with one of the biggest deficits ever known in this country and that local government had to take its cut within that. However, unlike other settlements, each local authority has, this time, had to make or will have to make reductions across the board of 1.5 per cent to 2 per cent. That has not been true in other settlements, where there has been a wide variety in the percentages and where cities have done better than the country, with much feeling of unfairness. Here, at least, everybody knows the amount that they will have and knows that that is what every other local council in the country is having to deal with. I hope that the noble Lord will accept that.
Because my time will run out, I shall just touch on Total Place. Whatever noble Lords call it, Total Place is the coming together of many bodies and elements, not only within a local area but with the advantage of being able to spill across boundaries. I have not heard that anybody wanted to throw out the name, but I do not think that there is any disagreement about the value of Total Place and what it can do. It is an experiment which has been worth having and I am sure that it will be built on. Local enterprise partnerships are not too far away from it; they have the same intention, which is to bring together business, the health service, local authorities and the voluntary sector, to be able to spend money and provide services by working together in a way that is very relevant to the local area. It is not uncommon for local authorities to work with businesses and the health service, but it has not always been very easy. There have been barriers and I hope that Total Place has begun to demonstrate that those can be put aside. I have no doubt that that programme will be there in one way or another.
The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, asked some specific questions. I may already have answered her starting question about governance. A question was also raised about elected mayors, who are not a new thing; they have been in for some time now. What is being put forward at present, with the suggestion that in each major city there should now be a mayor, is a new experiment in government—except that we have had it in London now for some time. It is worth seeing that put out on a wider basis and, as has already been said, that will ultimately have to be confirmed by a referendum on whether the local people want it. This is not something for everybody to be worrying about too much, but it is there.
The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, also raised a question about the review of local government finance. Yes, that will happen in the autumn; we are looking to do that then, and the general power of competence is there. But there have already been announcements about the de-ring-fencing of grants, so local government will have a greater control already over its finances.
On education, briefly, the academies are also not new but are being expanded and extended in their numbers. However, they will not push aside the local education authorities’ interest in other schools that are left with them. Standards will, we hope, be raised by both, with the academies having the freedoms to ensure that their children have a high standard of education.
The council tax freeze is indeed being implemented this year to help people because of the general financial situation. Local authorities can make their own decisions about the amount of council tax but if they go above a certain level, they will have to pay for it themselves.
I hope that I have covered most of the points that were raised. If I have not, I will have Hansard scoured tomorrow and make sure that letters go to where there have been specific questions. I am grateful to everybody who has taken part in this debate today.
Baroness Perry of Southwark
My Lords, it remains only for me to thank all noble Lords who have taken part in what has been a very useful debate. It has allowed us to air a lot of important issues that will no doubt occupy us in the months ahead. I add my congratulations to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby and the noble Lords, Lord McAvoy and Lord Knight, who in different ways gave a foreshadowing of how important their future contributions will be to the House. It was also a particular pleasure to hear that we have so many stout advocates of local government among our number. The debate certainly brought them out, like the first birds of spring, to warn that they will be defending and advocating the role of local government, which is also very dear to my heart. I thank again all noble Lords who have taken part and beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion withdrawn.
Foreign Policy
(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Howe of Aberavon
To call attention to the objectives of the United Kingdom’s foreign policy in the face of changing hazards and opportunities; and to move for papers.
Lord Howe of Aberavon
My Lords, I have to confess that when I decided to draw attention in the Motion to changing hazards and opportunities, I owed a good deal to some extremely useful work undertaken by Chatham House in recent months under the twin titles of Playing to its Strengths: Rethinking the UK’s Role in a Changing World and Organizing for Influence: United Kingdom Foreign Policy in an Age of Uncertainty. They are two shrewd and perceptive documents, which prompted me to think about what changes exactly there have been in the more than 30 years since I first had to venture on to the world stage—for the first four years, rather to my surprise, as Chancellor of the Exchequer and subsequently as Foreign Secretary. It is now, astonishingly, no less than 20 years since I attended the last of 11 world economic summits. After such a lapse, I wonder whether I have any right to talk here at all.
There have been some powerful and substantial changes in the agenda, starting with the economic changes. It is remarkable, looking back to 1979, to reflect that the overwhelming problem then was inflation worldwide, our own running at the modest rate of 23 per cent, compared to the central problem today of worldwide indebtedness and the continuing risk of recession. There is just one economic problem that has remained constant, which is the struggle against protectionism, as the Prime Minister pointed out in his statement at the G8 and G20 summits. He emphasised that success in concluding the Doha trade negotiations, which have now been running for some eight years, could add no less than $170 billion to the world economy. It really is time that, somehow, the leaders of the world were able to tie to the mast the protectionists who continue to dominate the outcome of these important summit meetings.
There has, of course, been one big change—the structural shift in the global economy and, in particular, the shift of the centres of gravity in more than one way. Those shifts in economic importance have led to shifts in political importance as well. We have had two debates about them in the past couple of weeks—one about Latin America and one about China—so they have been discussed to some extent already.
What about the foreign policy agenda? In my first term in office, the topics on our agenda were clearly identifiable. There was one group of items left over from our imperial history: Zimbabwe, Hong Kong, Gibraltar and the Falklands. One must even count the Northern Irish problem in that category. Meanwhile, the big picture was dominated on the one hand by the seemingly endless problems of the Cold War and on the other by apartheid and the eternal Middle East problem. I remember being rather dismayed when I was first instructed to go to the Middle East for some days. I took off from Gatwick Airport on a Sunday afternoon, having by chance that morning read the lesson in Chevening parish church about the exodus and other events of that time. I thought that if Jehovah himself could not do much about it 4,000 years ago, I would not have much part to play.
Today, much less is predictable. The inevitable stock of surprise in foreign policy is extended almost everywhere by the resurgence of the risk of terrorism in almost every part of the world. The Middle East conflict is to be echoed on one level by the relationship between Israel and Iran and on a closer level within Palestine itself. I do not intend to devote great detail to that now. Similar problems could arise between the two Koreas. They have never taken advantage of Deng Xiaoping’s wise advice of “one country, two systems”. Another potential hazard lurks in Taiwan, where a democratically delivered change of Government could lead to a fundamental change in attitudes. There is, in several unpredictable settings, a range of nuclear risks.
How can we best tackle this unpredictable agenda? Certainly, we are far too small to act on our own in almost every case that I have mentioned and we must not be led to think otherwise by that glorious picture display in the Royal Gallery, which reminds us of Britain’s successful past. We can be effective only if we are successful in persuading others to work with us in the pursuit of shared goals. However, we must not underestimate our own standing because of such changes. We are still—and can remain—one of the 10 largest economies in the world. However, to borrow a compact phrase from Chatham House, if we are to influence events sufficiently,
“we must strive to excel in the role of thought leaders”.
Thinking about and perusing opportunities and alternatives is of the essence in arriving at the right direction for advance. On that topic alone, does the Foreign and Commonwealth Office have anything like the necessary resources with which to lead such a well informed thought process? That single question could lead to an entire debate in itself. Indeed, it led me to open a debate on that subject not many years ago. The situation is, if anything, much worse today than it was then, but it is for others to discuss today. A substantial enhancement of the resources of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is fundamental to the successful conduct of foreign policy in the world in which we live.
I am glad to be able to say that the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and my noble friend Lord Howell, who has been a watchdog on this frontier for more years than I can remember, are, with others, playing the part of leading the thought-leading task and striving to do so from the same hymn sheet. I am afraid that I have been unable to read the Foreign Secretary’s speech this morning. It did not reach me in time and it struck me as more confusing than constructive to start comparing the two texts before I addressed the House. In the Queen’s Speech debate of 26 May, the Foreign Secretary made the important announcement that,
“for the first time, the Government will make public the maximum number of nuclear warheads that the United Kingdom will hold ... our overall stockpile will not exceed 225 warheads”.—[Official Report, Commons, 26/5/10; col. 181.]
As we look at the worldwide nuclear problem, we can welcome this as a declared first step in the implementation of the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, following the most recent conference on that subject. It is good to know that the United Kingdom is adding its support to the tasks already undertaken on one side of the Atlantic by the Nuclear Threat Initiative and on the other by the European Leadership Network.
We must all be glad about the impact of the Prime Minister’s performance at no fewer than three summits—the European Council, the G8 and the G20—in almost as many weeks. He has described himself, rightly enough, as the new kid on the block. He is not the first new kid on the block whose performance I have witnessed. I was closer to the performance of a new and—if I may say so—rather more mature kid on the block when I accompanied Margaret Thatcher and my noble friend Lord Carrington to the Tokyo summit in 1979. I am therefore in a position to compare the Prime Minister’s performance with that of my noble friend Lady Thatcher in her first star-like appearance—and it truly was a star-like appearance—on that occasion. I am glad to be able to say that the impact of our present Prime Minister is to a large extent comparable, which pleases me enormously. It is something about which we should all be pleased and from which we can draw comfort for the future.
An aspect which my right honourable friend has also addressed with wisdom and speed, and which needs to be considered carefully, is the so-called special relationship with our friends in the United States. It is, of course, important, but one must not be misled by the comfort of the word “special”. The relationship is close, candid and cordial but by no means always concerted. It is important for my right honourable friend to address that relationship closely but to appreciate that it is one on which he has to work almost continuously. We can act misguidedly, as, alas, Prime Minister Blair did when he allowed himself from the outset to support the special relationship at the cost of an importantly wrong judgment about the consequence of the events that we have come to know as 9/11. The sad thing is that at that time he ignored the advice that he was given not only in this House in the debate that took place three days later but by most of our European partners. For my part, I would have been happier had he perceived Britain’s role as concerting the advice available from Europe. That might have saved our friends in the United States from an unnecessary disaster.
Clearly, our new Prime Minister has made an encouraging start in his early dealings with the European Union. By all accounts, his visit to the European Council in Brussels went extremely well. He has made it clear that he wants a positive, engaged relationship with our European partners. He has encouraged leaders to adopt more ambitious targets on climate change and argued for Europe to speak together on difficult issues in the G8 and G20 summits. His performance has been received with great relief on the continent. The contrast with the decision last year to withdraw Conservative representatives from the European People’s Party has been widely noticed and well received. Equally encouraging is the policy commitment to put on one side the decision to leave the European Defence Agency, which we discussed yesterday in this House. On the contrary, it is encouraging that quite a different note was struck by the Prime Minister when he was asked on 21 June by the former Lib Dem leader, Ming Campbell, about the possibility of closer defence co-operation with France. He replied:
“The right hon. and learned Gentleman is absolutely right in raising this issue … I discussed it over lunch with President Sarkozy … There are some real opportunities”.—[Official Report, Commons, 21/6/10; col. 41.]
Unfortunately, the coalition agreement includes two propositions that have slipped through what one might call the Lib Dem net. They retain the potential not only to distract energies but to sow mischief in our future relations with the rest of the European Union. The first is the promise to hold a referendum on any treaty that transfers powers from member states to the Union. Setting aside the principal argument for and against referenda, I believe that it is important that this so-called referendum lock does not become a straitjacket that prevents us from agreeing in future with things with which we might fare well. If such a provision had existed at the time of the Single European Act, would we ever have agreed to that proposition? Is it sensible to inhibit our behaviour in that way?
The second provision that bodes ill is the parallel promise to introduce a sovereignty Bill so that in future any clash between an Act of Parliament and European Union law will automatically be resolved in favour of the former. However, progress in that direction would not in fact make much sense; it would tear the roots out of the European Communities Act 1972, the preparation of which I played some part in, and would do no good in itself.
If we set those two propositions on one side, the welcome fact is that our right honourable friend David Cameron now has the chance to break free from the ghetto mentality of some—certainly too many—within our own party. Our new Prime Minister needs to escape the damaging psychological constraints of more than two decades of Tory Euroscepticism, inaugurated to some extent, alas, by my noble friend Lady Thatcher in her 1988 Bruges speech. The Prime Minister should allow his natural instincts free rein and choose to act as what I would regard as a normal European leader, able to approach European questions without living in constant fear of what my noble friend Lord Hurd once memorably described, borrowing Plato’s phrase, as “shadows on the wall”. If he can manage to do this, the opportunities for David Cameron are huge. If he has the courage and vision to make the most of Europe, he could emerge as a great leader serving our national interest. To do this, he must assert a strong and confident Britain at the heart of an enlarged Union, which we have already done so much to shape and which is crying out for leadership. The advent of his new Government gives us hope that Britain can finally find its rightful place in the vanguard—not the slipstream—of the developments that will define the future of our continent.
Lord Desai
My Lords, we are all very grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, for initiating this debate. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Maples, as I may not be in my place when he gives his maiden speech. However, I shall read it tomorrow with great interest.
Given the short time that I have at my disposal, I shall have to be quick and somewhat brutal. The first hazard is, as the noble and learned Lord mentioned, the changing economic balance between what I shall call the OECD countries and Asia. Although we talk about it, I do not think we quite believe that it is about to happen. Next year the so-called emerging economies will have a larger share of world GDP than OECD countries. Given the current difficulties of the eurozone and the indebtedness that most OECD countries face, I predict that in terms of economic growth the European Union will be a stagnant pool for the next 10 years. It will also have the problem of sorting out the consequence of the Lisbon treaty, or whatever else it is called nowadays. The governance problems will be severe. I also expect that the Anglo-Saxon economies, mainly the US and the UK, will struggle to achieve a moderate growth rate of between 2 to 2.5 per cent. I would rather be cautious on that side than exaggerate our opportunities.
One of the major things we will have to do is to change our mentality about where power is now going. There is still an arrogance—if I may call it that—in our approach to Asian countries and a sense that somehow they must listen to us because we know best. The whole attitude to China’s foreign exchange rate policy—its renminbi policy—shows the utter futility of going on like this because China knows what it is doing. It will act in its own interest. We certainly would not appreciate it if the Chinese came to our doorstep and told us to join the euro or something like that. We have genuinely to learn that power has shifted. We will have to be prepared to be much more humble in the years to come because that is the major given of foreign policy for the next decade or decade and a half.
However, great opportunities are available to us. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, mentioned—this ought to be mentioned—people talk a lot about soft power. One of the things that allows us to punch above our weight is our Armed Forces. We have been willing to risk them in conflicts around the world in a responsible way. However, if you look at other NATO countries and other European Union countries, you will note that we have been willing to go out and fight all these battles. Even if these battles have been somewhat vague in their purpose, such as in Afghanistan, Sierra Leone or Kosovo, we have been true to ourselves, and I pay tribute to the Armed Forces for the vital part they play in our foreign policy. They are our strength.
Given those two points, our ability to deploy our forces in such situations for such good causes should impress Asia that we are in Afghanistan not just for our home-security interests but because India has as much interest as we have in our being there. We are able to use this ability in another way. I am sure that the noble Lord who will reply from the government Benches will recognise that we have the Commonwealth—it is a cause close to his heart. Although it used to be a cliché, given the changing balance of power, Commonwealth countries are located in the emerging areas of strength in the world economy. The Commonwealth has presence in Asia, South America and Africa. It is our connection with the Commonwealth which will allow us to have a greater and more crucial role than any comparable country.
Finally, although I appreciate that the Foreign Office likes our ambassadors and high commissioners everywhere to be professionals, we are missing a trick by not using our country’s large multiethnic strength. We have many people with good connections abroad and we should use them more as our ambassadors and high commissioners. The Americans do it all the time. We somehow miss a trick and I urge the new Government perhaps to think about it.
Lord Butler of Brockwell
My Lords, I do not often venture into the field of foreign affairs, and when I put my name down to speak in this debate I was not aware that it would coincide with a speech by the Foreign Secretary which, like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, I have not had the opportunity to read, but which I heard reported on the radio this morning and found very encouraging. Anyway, the debate does coincide with that speech. I do not suppose that the noble and learned Lord knew that it was going to happen but I congratulate him on his timing and on providing the opportunity for this debate.
I want to make two suggestions which, in the light of the reports of Mr Hague’s speech, I do with more confidence than I would otherwise have done. It has been a great sadness to me as I have travelled in recent years to see the hollowing out of our Diplomatic Service and the cultural activities which have been such an important source of British influence overseas for so long.
When I was Cabinet Secretary, there was a proposal—it may well be that the noble Lords, Lord Wright and Lord Kerr, were among its architects—to produce a merged programme to embrace all the Government’s public expenditure that supported our overseas interests—defence, aid, diplomacy, cultural relations and intelligence. Its purpose would have been to enable a trade-off between these various types of expenditure to be made more easily—between weapons systems and the other means of promoting Britain’s overseas interests. The cancellation of a single fighter aircraft could have saved an embassy but, for obvious reasons, the Ministry of Defence did not support a proposal of this sort, and neither did the Treasury. Because the proposal was seen to be so self-interested on the part of the Foreign Office, the suggestion foundered. I was not in the Treasury at the time and I do not have to apologise for my part in its foundering.
Now, when I see in how many countries our diplomatic representation has been reduced or eliminated, and see visa activities in friendly countries having to be handled by posts in other countries—with all the inconvenience and alienation which that produces—I think that our methods of making trade-offs between the different forms in which Britain’s overseas interests are promoted need to be looked at again. We need a more rational system for making those trade-offs. I am not saying that that ought to be achieved through a merged public expenditure programme, but the mechanisms of public expenditure control and decision should not be put in the silos in which they have been put in the past.
That is particularly important at this time, because the House is very well aware that difficult choices will have to be made in the period ahead. Defence and foreign relations are not protected programmes, although overseas aid is. The strategic defence review will involve decisions which are difficult enough, but if the consequence of our public expenditure structure is that the review is carried out within the confines solely of the defence budget, and if the Foreign Office vote has to find a further 25 per cent in savings on top of what has already been taken from it—small change in relation to defence expenditure—I fear now that we will do irreparable harm to one of Britain’s greatest sources of overseas influence, which is the respect that is still felt for our diplomatic functions and cultural activities overseas.
The other area in which there is scope for better mechanisms for considering trade-offs is our policy in the European Union. The activity, speed and quick-footedness with which Britain was able to reach decisions and policy positions in European Union councils was widely admired throughout the world and did great credit to the Cabinet Office system and the work of UK representatives overseas. Two distinguished previous holders of those posts are in close proximity to me now. Where I always felt that we fell short compared with some of our partners was making the trade-offs at the most strategic levels. I take, for example, the French, and the House will know what I have in mind. Our policy positions were conducted too much on the basis of silos—of particular areas. We were not as good as particularly the French when considering Britain’s interests in the European Union in a synoptic way—by looking at what our most important objectives were, what we could concede and where we could use leverage to achieve the ends which were most important to us.
When I was Cabinet Secretary, we produced a committee of Permanent Secretaries who for a time looked at this issue and tried to give the Government some sense of priorities. That was during the time of the previous Conservative Government when there was insufficient unity at Cabinet level for colleagues to be particularly disposed to make trade-offs between each other. However, our system has lacked an ability to make trade-offs at a strategic level. Now that we have a national security adviser, I hope that we might have a national European adviser and that official machinery can be put in place, including a ministerial machinery, to make those trade-offs better.
As I have said, when I thought of making these suggestions I did not have very much hope that they would be very well or easily received by the Government. In the light of the reports on the Foreign Secretary’s speech today, I am more optimistic.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
My Lords, from time to time it is necessary to stand back from the rush of international developments, get away from a purely reactive response to events that are often outside our control, and try to take an overall look at this country’s foreign policy objectives and at the methods and resources at our disposal to articulate them.
Having had the benefit of reading the Foreign Secretary’s speech this morning, I welcome the fact that he seemed to take the point that we should get away from a purely reactive diplomacy. It is surely the time for this, with the new coalition Government conducting a wide-ranging review of national security issues. I agree with my noble friend Lord Butler: we cannot afford a narrow, defence-oriented approach to that review, as has often been the case in the past. Nor, with the Cold War far behind us and a multipolar world gradually emerging, does it make any sense to allow defence issues to be decoupled from the wider foreign policy framework. The two must be matched, as they have often not been hitherto. If this debate can make a parliamentary contribution to that review, it will surely be of real value—and there is no one better to lead it than the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, whose opening remarks reminded us why he remains one of the most admired and respected Foreign Secretaries of modern times, and whom I had the honour to serve throughout his tenure in office.
Any foreign policy worthy of the name must be anchored firmly in the national interest. As a great statesman of the 19th century observed, “interest never lies”. However, defining our national interest in any particular matter is no simple question: it requires intellectual rigour and the avoidance of jingoistic hype. There are two sharply contrasting approaches. The first defines the national interest very narrowly and in a reductive manner—the sacro egoismo of an Italian Minister in the First World War. That was the approach that led us to the protectionism and appeasement policies of the 1930s, and the abandonment of the first attempt at collective security, the League of Nations. It is a template to be avoided now, as it should have been then. The other approach is to define the national interest in broader terms, recognising that many threats and challenges that we now face come from outside our immediate neighbourhood, and that all of them require some kind of co-ordinated, collective global action if they are to be effectively mastered. The broader approach surely is the one that Britain should take.
We are currently deeply preoccupied by our own fiscal and economic predicament. Foreign policy practitioners cannot simply dismiss that as if it did not exist and had no implications for our foreign policy, but we need to retain a sense of proportion. Even in our financially weakened state, we remain in single figures in any global league table of capacity, whether we are talking about trade, investment or the ability to project power and influence. We must not go into a pre-emptive cringe. That is why I greatly welcome the Government standing by their commitment to 0.7 per cent of our gross national income going to our aid programme by 2013. We could improve the way in which the money is spent, particularly by better fitting together the foreign policy and developmental objectives to which it is devoted, and by strengthening collective international efforts to deal with failing states and to stop states failing in the first place.
One key conclusion that we must draw is that to achieve our foreign policy objectives in the future, we will need to act even more in concert with other countries than we have done up to now, and that we are now even less able than we have been in the past to defend our interests around the world by acting alone. That implies an active diplomacy and the strengthening of rules-based international organisations. When we look at the instruments for collective action, two stand out: the European Union and the United Nations. The new Government seem to have got off on the right foot in responding to developments in the EU—far better, dare one say, than was predicted only a few weeks ago. However, there is still too much unnecessarily negative language in the Government's presentation of EU discussions—long lists of things that we are not going to allow to happen—and so far an almost complete absence of any overall positive picture of what the Government want the EU to achieve.
There is, after all, no lack of material for painting that picture: free trade, energy policy and security, further enlargement, climate change and the rollback of state subsidies. There are real opportunities to be seized, given the considerable tension between France and Germany over economic policy, a political vacuum in the leadership of European institutions and the new phase in the development of a common foreign and security policy that is being shaped. This is no time to settle for a purely reactive and defensive EU policy just because some parts of one of the coalition partners do not want anything more constructive and positive.
At the UN, too, and in other universal or near-universal organisations such as the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO, there are opportunities to be taken, and risks if we fail to take them. I refer to the climate change negotiations in the run-up to the Cancun meeting at the end of the year; to the complex of multilateral nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation talks, where the relative success of last month’s NPT review conference set a new direction of travel, but where there remains a long way to go that is strewn with many obstacles; and to the Doha round of trade negotiations, successful completion of which should be an integral part of any exit strategy from the recent financial and economic crisis. All these policy areas are crying out for determined, well focused action—and all are ones where Britain could make a real contribution.
I conclude with a quick word on resources. One cannot have an active diplomacy, which we need, without a world-class, well resourced Diplomatic Service. If we subject our overseas efforts to the double whammy of a 25 per cent loss of funds following the drop in the sterling exchange rate last year, and then to the same top-slicing that other non-ring-fenced domestic departments face, one will not have that—it is as simple as that.
Lord Maples
My Lords, it is a very short walk from the green Benches at that end of the building to the red leather Benches here, but in my case it has been a very long journey, both chronologically and spiritually—27 years it has taken. I have been made to feel incredibly welcome here by people I had never met before, by friends on all sides of the House and by the staff and Doorkeepers. I detect a slightly less partisan attitude and tone of voice than I found at the other end, but maybe the malice and daggers are better hidden and more subtly used—I wait to find out. I hope that your Lordships will forgive me if, from time to time, I lapse into the old terminology and attempt to address the “chair” or refer to a noble Lord as “my honourable friend”. I will learn as quickly as I can.
It is 27 years, almost to the week, since I made my last maiden speech. I do not remember very much about it and I do not suggest that anybody should read it, but I do remember that it was on a Friday morning—the House sat on Friday mornings, as your Lordships’ House does—and after it I ran into the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, then Alastair Goodlad, an old friend, who said, “Come on, let’s celebrate and have lunch in the Members’ Dining Room”. When you were a new boy in the House of Commons, like me, you sought out the most low-profile, sub-zero part of the Members’ Dining Room to eat in—but not with Alastair. I found myself at a table with two of the party’s grandees: the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Lord Hailsham, who was then Lord Chancellor. To say that I was overawed would be an understatement.
I do not think that I said anything, but I remember one thing about the lunch. Lord Hailsham told a wonderful story which was characteristic of him. Waiting for a gap in the conversation, and a propos of absolutely nothing, he said—noble Lords who knew him will have to imagine the voice, because I cannot imitate it—“When my father was at Oxford, there was a don who had met Napoleon”. This was a bit of a showstopper: you start to calculate if the arithmetic adds up and decide that perhaps it could. “My father asked the don what he was like, to which the don said: ‘Well, you could tell he wasn’t a university man’”. That was a wonderful illustration of Oxford’s attitude to the man who dominated Europe for 25 years, and also a wonderful and typical Lord Hailsham story.
Another friend who is now here and was there said to me: “You will find that the difference here, John, is that in the House of Commons the Back-Benchers do not know what they are talking about and here they do”. We have just had an illustration of that from three noble Lords in a row, and I can see several more on the list, so I hope that I do not disprove the assertion.
There are many things that I would like to say about foreign policy in the course of the next few months. I am conscious of the fact that I am in the presence of people who have spent their lives practising diplomacy at the highest level. Much of what I will say is perhaps too controversial for today. However, I will leave the House with a couple of thoughts. The first is that foreign policy must be pursued more clearly in our national interests, and rebalanced in that direction by the new Government. Secondly, I hope that the conflict in Afghanistan can be brought to an early conclusion. It is becoming too costly in terms of both blood and treasure, and I hope that in future we will be more circumspect about military intervention.
I want to make one more substantive point. Your Lordships will find no greater friend of the United States than me. I lived there; I went to business school there; I visit it frequently; and I love and admire the place enormously. I think that we in Europe owe it a huge debt of gratitude. However, I do not think that anyone can follow United States politics or maintain contact with successive Administrations without coming to the conclusion that the special relationship is an awful lot more special to us than it is to them. That is very understandable. Since 1989, the focus of United States interest and policy has shifted away from Europe and towards the Middle East and Asia. The US expects us in Europe to sort out Europe’s problems and to pull our weight in a way that we pretty spectacularly failed to do, for example, in the Balkans. There is still in the United States a propensity to unilateralism, with which we feel a little uncomfortable. The US needs diplomatic allies but it does not really need military ones. We have always had our feet three-quarters in the transatlantic camp and one-quarter in the European camp, and I think that we need to rebalance that.
I should like to pick up on a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay—that is, the use of the European Union’s common foreign and security policy, or at least the intergovernmental part of it. I used to be, and still am, a Eurosceptic, but I used to be incredibly favourably inclined towards the European Union’s economic policies and rather disinclined towards its intergovernmental efforts. However, I now find myself standing on my head over that. I think that its interventions on the economic front are on the whole unproductive but that there is perhaps an opportunity in the various mechanisms and institutions of Europe, at their widest, for us to conduct part of our foreign policy in a more effective way than we have been able to do in the past. I do not think that I or my Eurosceptic friends have to fear this, because the European Union will not have a foreign policy initiative that Germany, France and the United Kingdom do not all agree with, so effectively we would have a veto on it. However, I think we agree that the weight, authority and various diplomatic weapons that the European Union could bring to bear would be valuable and could be used much more effectively.
Foreign policy is about the long-term protection and enhancement of the United Kingdom’s interests. Sometimes that will involve the promotion of values and democracy, but more often I believe that it will and should be about achieving stability.
Baroness Morris of Bolton
My Lords, it is an easy task to congratulate my noble friend on his excellent maiden speech. He comes to your Lordships’ House after many years of service in another place. In his role as deputy chairman of the party with responsibility for candidates, he shared with me a passion to broaden the diversity of Conservative MPs. Anyone looking at the Conservative Benches today will see a much changed political party. However, it is as a former shadow Foreign Secretary that today my noble friend displayed an acute grasp of the world in which we live. His speech was a powerful and humorous contribution to the debate and we welcome him to this House.
As the world picks itself up from the aftermath of the financial crisis and continues to grapple with the threat of global terrorism, war, hunger, drought and natural disasters, it is all too easy to look gloomily upon the future. However, as my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon illustrated, there are countless opportunities for us to seize, and I add my congratulations to him on securing such an important and timely debate.
One of the strengths of our country and its great institutions is that, following a change in government, there remains a degree of continuity and stability in dealing with our international partners. We are assisted greatly in that continuity by the professionalism and expertise of our diplomatic service and dedicated officials in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and elsewhere, of which the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, spoke with passion.
However, the new Government represent a change in emphasis and some exciting and important changes in approach. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary wishes to carve out a distinctive new global identity. He believes that successful economic policy is the foundation of successful foreign policy, and he wants to focus on emerging nations and gives particular mention to the Gulf states. As someone said to me the other day, the Middle East is right in the middle of world business. We do more trade with the region than we do with China, and we have historic and deep-rooted friendships. I declare my interest and friendship as chairman of the Conservative Middle East Council.
One area where Great Britain has a long-established but growing relationship with the Gulf and the wider Middle East region is education. Just as education nurtures the talent of the next generation here at home, it is also a powerful tool in supporting development abroad. Education links between the West and the developing world—in particular, the Middle East—have the potential to yield benefits far beyond the confines of academic achievement in those countries. In this respect, we are extremely fortunate that our higher education system is world-class and international in outlook. It is an asset on which we should be able to capitalise, and indeed many of our universities are developing links with new parts of the world—arrangements that benefit students at home and abroad.
I have just become the first chancellor of the University of Bolton. From its days as an institute of higher education, Bolton has forged alliances across the world and three years ago established a campus in the Emirates in Ras al Khaimah. In fact, we are now on our third campus because we keep outgrowing our premises. We are currently educating up to masters level hundreds of students, male and female, from 35 different nations in construction, civil engineering, IT and business.
I am also a member of the International Advisory Committee of the Amman Arab University. The founders of the university, who number leading academics and former government Ministers, want their students, many of whom are older and working and unable to study abroad, to have a flavour of the western education which they themselves received when they did their masters and doctorates in the UK or America and which was instrumental in shaping and broadening their outlook. Properly implemented, these links can generate greater understanding between different cultures and traditions, and make conflict and tension less likely. Education is a ladder of opportunity, and a bridge between nations and peoples. We need those bridges, because engagement is the only effective way of promoting better international relationships.
Finally, I could not possibly speak in this debate without mention of Palestine. I declare interests as a trustee of UNICEF UK and of the Disability Partnership, both of which run programmes in Palestine; as the vice-chairman of the Britain-Palestine All-Party Parliamentary Group; and as the first chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Arab League. The remarkable and enchanting Middle East region will never reach its full potential while the question of Palestine is unresolved. To this end, the Arab world must continue to push its peace initiative to normalise relations between Israel and her neighbours, and I hope that we support them in this endeavour. Israel has a right to exist but so does Palestine, and there will be peace and security only when Palestinian children can live without blockades and settlements and with real hope of a prosperous future.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine
My Lords, I, too, thank my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon for initiating this debate. It is particularly timely given the need for the coalition to set out more fully its vision of the UK’s foreign policy and security. I also welcome my noble friend Lord Maples and look forward to his joining us in the foreign affairs community of this House, which is numerous, as he will discover.
We talk about this period as an age of austerity. It is also an age of insecurity and uncertainty. The Chatham House paper, Organising for Influence, has described this period as the “long crisis” facing globalisation. Ergo, we face an extended period of volatility as the world attempts to reconcile its demographic, economic and security challenges within the constraints of scarce natural resources. Reports therefore of the Foreign Secretary’s speech today as a first move to define his strategic vision are most welcome.
This debate takes place a few months after the general election, when the global financial crisis and, closer to home, the EU’s sovereign debt crisis was almost not discussed at all, yet it affects all public policy in the domestic context. The economy, employment, energy, welfare and well-being are all impacted by their reach. Although voters were not presented with a vision of the different parties’ positions on our foreign policy, the time has come for this discussion. There needs to be a concerted effort to define how effectively the UK can project its influence in the world and what ground its strategic reach must cover.
The formation of the National Security Council is an important first step in this direction and we await, with interest, the publication of a new national security strategy. There is now little doubt that national security is ultimately and intimately bound up with the international—as with financial markets, so too with international terrorism: globalisation has rendered borders more permeable. But the challenge for our NSC will be for us to improve interdepartmental co-ordination with better input and analysis from the intelligence community, while retaining a limited view of national security. One of the frequent criticisms of the US National Security Council is that its remit is too wide, with extensive duplication of analysis. We should seek to redefine national security to deal mainly with risks to the UK and its citizens.
To explain, we should not aim to see longer-term, transboundary threats, such as economic issues or climate change or indeed state failure elsewhere, as a direct risk to the security of UK citizens. The previous national security strategy set out its approach as providing security for the nation, safeguarding our citizens and our way of life. Safeguarding our way of life is far too broad a vision. A more focused view of national security should concentrate on direct threats to UK citizens, which have severe and longer-term consequences for their welfare. Thus terrorist attacks, organised or cyber crime on infrastructure, as well as hard threats such as military action would come under this remit, but climate change, resource scarcity or economic imbalances would not. That is not to say that these longer-term sources of instability would not be on our horizon—they certainly would—but they should be undertaken on a whole-of-government basis and given priority in the Cabinet Office or in a separate Cabinet committee.
I turn to the role of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s renewed emphasis on its role and his intention to expand its reach anew. But at a time when its budget is being constricted, it should take the opportunities offered by the EU’s External Action Service to reduce its bilateral diplomatic focus outside its strategic interest areas. It should engage actively through leading within the EAS, not from outside. The question arises of course, of what we mean by its bilateral strategic choices.
There is much excitement about the BRICs. The Prime Minster has indicated his interest in a special relationship with India, and today the Foreign Secretary has spoken about Latin America. Instead of chasing new special relationships with those with whom we are not equally matched, as a mid-sized European power, we would be better rewarded by placing our trust in the myriad multilateral forums where we have real clout. The task of building a more stable global economy through reregulating financial institutions or protecting the open global trading system is one to which we are well suited to work through the Bretton Woods institutions and emerging forums, such as the G20 and G8. Tackling climate change and managing resource scarcity are serious challenges, but our diplomatic reach there is best served through the EU and appropriate UN forums. So our focus should be to do a limited number of things extremely well, rather than do everything with varying degrees of success.
In conclusion, we need to focus on limited objectives, on an improved policy coherence, and on prioritising our influence in relation to our capabilities and our power. If a new strategy can achieve that, we will have moved in the right direction.
Lord Hylton
My Lords, I intend to confine myself to our objectives within the Middle East. Our national interest lies in trade. On Tuesday, I took part in a live video link between this Parliament and some Palestinian MPs, all of whom, as it happens, were threatened with deportation from east Jerusalem. Did we, I wonder, supply the equipment that made that link possible?
Trade also requires peace. Peace processes that never provide conflict resolution are not enough. Conflict management, which leaves the poor in their poverty, is also not enough. We have to try much harder than in the past to achieve peace with justice. Anything less leaves western powers paying for UNWRA, for rebuilding Iraq and for mine clearance and reconstruction in Lebanon. Doing this kind of guilt payment relieves the main actors from responsibility for their actions.
I believe that justice involves respect for international law and the creation of just systems within each country. Our long evolution of law can sometimes help. The rule of law is probably more important than instant democracy in countries that have no tradition of it. We should study the concept of transition, by which I mean that countries may peacefully move from authoritarian and sometimes corrupt regimes to a better future which will empower all their citizens. Civil society in each country has a huge role to play. Trades unions, co-operatives, credit unions and community groups can all contribute wherever they can work within the local culture.
This country should use its soft power to help local civil societies, especially the free media. I understand soft power to include the English language, the BBC, the British Council and our welcome to foreign students. The over-professional sport of football can be helpful. In Isfahan, in Iran, I recently found that many of the locals support British teams. More practically, a few visiting matches in Gaza, Baghdad or Mosul could do a great deal of good. It just needs some imagination and some courage.
To achieve our objectives, we should improve our understanding of the religious contexts of the Middle East. This can be quite difficult for diplomats and policy-makers who have grown up in a wholly secular and scientific culture. They must discover that religion has given sometimes illiterate people the courage and endurance to resist enemies occupying their land. Religion is closely linked with personal honour—izzat, in Arabic. This is all too often humiliated by foreign interventions. Islam, as the majority faith, feels under attack and occupation. In the past, this arose from Russia, and now comes from Israel and the United States. This perception legitimises the idea of defensive jihad. Local grievances combine with the wider sense of persecution. Together they generate anger and hate, which in turn inspire individual terrorists, whether in the Middle East, Britain or the United States. A first step towards our objectives would be to end indefinite detention, torture and totally inhuman treatment of suspects.
I come now to three specific middle eastern situations. Unresolved conflict, as has been mentioned already, between Israel, Palestine and their neighbours has worldwide repercussions. It blackens the name of the West and affects the behaviour of some small minorities in Britain. Can we, therefore, persuade our friends in the United States and the European Union to pursue more enlightened policies? Can we help them to use the full leverage of their differing kinds of power? In both Jerusalem and Baghdad the religious dimension is hugely important. This means listening to the Muslim Brotherhood and to Hamas. The regional context is equally crucial. The Baker-Hamilton commission wisely made this point for Iraq, but it is equally valid for Israel and Palestine. Someone said that peace in Jerusalem must pass through Damascus, so please do not disregard the Arab League. In Iraq, the religious leaders are hard at work, most recently in efforts to reduce corruption.
We should pay closer attention to Turkey, especially since the tragic killings on one of its ships bound for Gaza. Turkey has combined strong Islamic faith with education and economic progress, and it began détente with Armenia and with its own large Kurdish minority. Both moves, alas, seem to have faded away. It is much in our interests to help détente to succeed both in Turkey and for the Kurds in Iran, Iraq and Syria. I have been to Arbil, which shows what Kurds can do given reasonable autonomy. Perhaps Scotland and Wales can show the way in devolution. We should enshrine trade, peace and justice as our objectives in middle eastern foreign policy.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard
My Lords, we owe a great debt to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, for the way in which he introduced the debate. He regularly reminds the House that I used to write speeches for him. I think he does that only so you notice that they have got so much better.
I read the Foreign Secretary’s speech, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, and I would not dream of giving a considered reply to such a serious speech off the cuff; it needs careful thought. I did, however, enjoy hearing him on the “Today” programme this morning, when he cheerfully agreed with Evan Davis that Britain must “bat above its weight”. If I were to risk a response, I suspect that I would be “punching on a sticky wicket”. He has all the qualities to be a great Foreign Secretary, and in due course he will master the Foreign Office’s cricketing metaphors, or better still abolish them.
I hope that the Foreign Secretary will also follow the wise advice of the noble Lord, Lord Maples, in his brilliant maiden speech, and steer his party away from its infantile atlanticism. It is time that the Back-Benchers understood that there is no question of a choice between being close to the United States and being active in Europe. One’s importance in Washington now is a function of one’s perceived importance in Brussels. There is no conflict; they are mutually reinforcing.
The Motion in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, is about the objectives of foreign policy. My plea is to keep them simple. The objective of our foreign policy is advancing our interests and protecting our citizens. Everything else is secondary. Diplomacy is not primarily about preaching; it is not about preaching on ethics, light-touch regulation or even action against global warming. The foreigners tend to look at what we do rather than what we say. Nor is it about praising our own systems, our society or our culture.
The Foreign Secretary spoke eloquently this morning about the importance of cultural diplomacy, and I too pay tribute to the British Council and the World Service, but cultural diplomacy works both ways, and great global institutions such as the British Museum remind us of the importance for effective diplomacy of studying others’ cultures. Effective diplomacy is listening diplomacy, and knowledge-based diplomacy. It understands why others say what they say. It is steeped in their societies and so can predict when they may say something different, and what they will say tomorrow. It spots synergies with our interests, defines possible deals and trade-offs, and optimally focuses our efforts and supports our exporters. It requires long memories and linguistic skills. The Afghan war that we won this century—the autumn 2001 war—was won not by the cruise missiles on the al-Qaeda camps but by the brave men in the mountains who spoke the languages, had been there before, and turned the tribal chieftains against the Taliban.
The FCO vote has been under pressure now for eight years. Real-terms decline in the overall vote has been exacerbated by a preference for maintaining programmes rather than people or posts. I suspect the reason has been that programme spending is more susceptible to output measurement and quantified objectives. Spending on understanding foreign societies is harder to justify to management consultants or the Treasury. I know that the Foreign Secretary has a McKinsey past, but I hope that he will avoid this heresy, for heresy it is.
If the FCO vote were to be cut again, a small service would get still smaller and become less effective, which would defeat the Foreign Secretary’s declared aim, which was so eloquently expressed this morning, of expanding our global reach and influence. He spoke of developing and deepening our relations with the United Arab Emirates. I warmly agree, but that means having experienced Arabists in post in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Doha, Kuwait, Muscat and Bahrain. We have never had an ambassador in Beijing who does not speak Mandarin, and we must never; we have never had an ambassador in Tokyo who does not speak Japanese, and we must never; but keeping these cadres of qualified people healthy means investing in a manpower margin. These languages are hard to acquire and these societies deserve sustained study, which needs to be incentivised. Understanding Russia means understanding Russian. A new emphasis on Brazil and India is excellent, but if it is to mean anything it must mean not fewer resources but more.
So I urge the Foreign Secretary to prioritise knowledge. We must go for qualified people, not quantified objectives. We want Neil MacGregor diplomacy, and knowledge of a hundred subjects, not McKinsey diplomacy and a world view in a hundred objectives. Good, trained people are the bones, muscles and sinews of diplomacy. The fat of the Diplomatic Service has long gone, and you cannot wield the knife again without losing “global reach and influence”.
I have one more point. The Foreign Secretary this morning did not mention Korea. Korea is a key member of the G20 and one of the world’s top 10 economies. Its stimulus package was the greenest in the G20, and its growth rate beats all in Europe. It should be a key UK export market, particularly as the Koreans happen to like us. The last Foreign Secretary to visit Seoul was the noble Lord, Lord Hurd of Westwell, in 1993—17 years and six Foreign Secretaries ago. My point is not that that is insulting, although it is, but that it is counterproductive. Of course there have been meetings in the margins of multilateral meetings and in London, but would we honestly claim that we understood the French if we met them only in Brussels, New York and London?
The fact that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, went out of his way when Chancellor to get to know his French colleague 30 years ago produced major dividends when Monsieur Delors went to Brussels and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, went to the Foreign Office. The fact that the noble Lord, Lord Hurd, went out of his way 20 years ago to visit Rome for private meetings with his then Italian colleague paid major dividends straightaway for me as the UK negotiator in Brussels. I watched my Italian colleague’s instructions change overnight, to his chagrin. The Foreign Secretary should not take it amiss when the Foreign Office says to him, “Please, please go away”. The advice is good, and he should act on it. I hope he will make it a personal objective to visit all his colleagues in all 19 of the other G20 capitals in his first year in office.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
That was a well-judged appeal of a departed mandarin.
It is my pleasure to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Maples, on his maiden speech. We have worked together in another place, and I learnt then from his wisdom and maturity. It is also a pleasure to congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe. As always, he has impeccable timing, given the Foreign Secretary’s speech this morning, such that I wonder whether there was a degree of collusion. However, having had a very quick look at that speech, I just wonder whether I should move a postponement Motion, because it would help all of us if we had a moment to sit back and reflect on what he said. It was a very good speech and we should look very carefully at what was said. We all agree that a starting point is the interests of this country as broadly defined, and promoting them as best we can using the assets that we have accumulated over the years, a point which the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, made very well.
Our interests do not change from one Government to another. Although any new Government will seek, as new boys on the block, to show what they are doing newly, the fact of continuity from one Administration to another is too often neglected, because so many of the problems are unchanged. New problems always intervene—the contingent and the unforeseen.
Let us consider some of the key areas. In Afghanistan, although there is now the suggestion of withdrawal by 2015, the speech of the Defence Secretary yesterday suggests that there is broad agreement between both Governments and our allies. Similarly, on key issues such as the Middle East, about which the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, spoke, and Iran, we work on the same lines. The problems are the same, and I suspect that our response will be the same. The previous Government fully agreed with the statement of the European Council on 8 December, and I suspect that there will be continuity on the flotilla issue, too. Significantly, in respect both of the Middle East problem, the Palestine problem, and Iran, much of the Government’s theme thus far has been unilateralist, as if what is important is what only we do. It is in working with our allies where we can make a serious impact. Our key alliance in that respect is the European Union.
We had one glorious unilateralist intervention in 1982, but could we now repeat that Falklands intervention? Where are the ships? The intelligence help that we had at the time from the US may well not be replicated, if we consider what Hillary Clinton is now saying about the Falklands. Let us beware of a unilateralist approach, or even a bilateral approach. Rightly, in respect of the European Union, the Government are stressing our relationship with France, but that should not be done as if we want to sideline our relationship with the European Union as a whole.
How well has the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government responded to the concept of knowing ourselves, our history, our assets and the changing external world? The starting point is perhaps not the speech made today but the speech made by the Foreign Secretary last July to the IISS. That was a very good speech. The analysis was very clear. The only marring element, in my judgment, was that it was extremely negative about the European Union—that line of policy which dare not speak its name. The fact is that there is day-to-day consultation with our European partners at all levels, which is a major moulding factor on our policy formulation, and in key areas, such as the Balkans, the common security and defence policy, post-Lisbon, is so important. That is very much encouraged by the United States. Whether one thinks of what we are doing as Europeans in Africa, in Operation ATALANTA or in the western Balkans, the US is very happy that we Europeans take the lead. We should not fail to recognise that.
Turning to this morning's speech, we are to have a more energetic and agile policy. The emphasis was certainly on the BRICs, but I felt rather like Monsieur Jourdain—that we have been doing this all the time. Everyone agrees that we need to get closer to Russia, but sometimes perhaps we have to hold our nose a little. We have had to put some of their excesses, such as Litvinenko, behind us. India? Yes. However, there was a wise article by Jo Johnson MP in the Financial Times earlier this week on India. We should recognise that our US relationship is very important, but perhaps not so “special”.
Finally, one of our most important assets is the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Yesterday, we had an announcement of several programme cuts. I fear that there will be further major cutbacks in the autumn Statement, including the closure of embassies. DfID is ring-fenced, and the Government should look carefully at its budget and the extent to which some of the activities of the FCO, such as in the field of governance and human rights, might properly be moved to the DfID budget, because of the enormous pressures on the FCO budget.
On the vision thing, we must recognise the temptation for all new Governments to add “a new dimension” to foreign policy. I recall Robin Cook in 1997 talking about “a moral dimension” and economic ambassadors drawn from the business sector. Again, the brand new Foreign Secretary is talking about new approaches, a new vision, and new agility. Time, and practice, will tell.
Baroness Williams of Crosby
My Lords, I too, congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, on securing this debate, but even more on the wise words with which he introduced it. I would like to mention two themes from his speech. The first, which was music to my ears, was the outbreak which he perceived—he is quite right—of a greater degree of realism about our relationship with the European Union and how it can be immensely helpful in pursuing our national interests in a wider sense. The other theme on which he touched, which is also crucial, was picked up by the noble Lords, Lord Butler, Lord Hannay, Lord Kerr, and others. That was the danger of further reduction of the position and resources of the Foreign Office.
I have had my criticisms of the Foreign Office. Sometimes, it has been rather out of touch and tending to look backwards, but it is by any possible standards a class act, and we would be very foolish to reduce it to the point of ineffectiveness, because we perceive it as being part of a past world. It is not; it is very much part of the modern world.
I turn to the speech of the Foreign Secretary, which is welcome. To be honest, I was rather surprised to welcome it as much as I did. In his extension to a new perception of the way in which the world is moving, he reflects what has often been said to us in this House by the noble Lord, Lord Howell. Let me pick quickly on what I mean. The noble Lord, Lord Desai, pointed out that the procedures under which the economic resources of the West are steadily losing relative strength in comparison to those of Asia and, to a lesser extent, to those of Latin America, and so on, are borne out by the rather frightening figures projected by the G20. They are a probable rate of growth of, at best, 2 per cent in the western world over the next three years; of 12 per cent in China; of 10 per cent in Latin America; and of 9 per cent in India.
Let us be honest, that reflects a steady shift of power and influence in the world with which, as the Foreign Secretary said, we have to come to terms. The first way in which we have to come to terms with it is something that we have been very slow to address. That is that almost all the structures of international governance in the world reflect 1945, not 2010. One example is the failure of the six countries that have attempted to become permanent members of the United Nations Security Council to get anywhere in 2004, when they made a collective appeal. They included Germany, Japan, India and other great countries. It was extraordinary that they got nowhere.
The voting powers of the International Monetary Fund are based on the financial commitment made by the countries concerned. That means that Britain has greater voting power on the IMF than India. It means that Italy has greater power on the IMF than Indonesia. It is absurd how our governance of the world reflects a time so long ago. One implication of the Foreign Secretary's speech—in fairness to him, he said that he would now strongly support an extension of the Security Council of the United Nations—was to recognise the world in which we live and to create systems of law and order that reflect that world.
Let me come very quickly to three examples of the implications of that speech by the Foreign Secretary. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, that one cannot reflect everything he said, but one can reflect, in immediate terms, on some of the implications. The first was the decision by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference only a month ago to compel the whole of the NPT to recognise the importance of an international conference on the Middle East under the chairmanship of the United Nations Secretary-General. That resolution passed virtually unanimously, with strong support from non-nuclear-armed countries—the NAM.
What does that mean for us? We heard an excellent speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, about the growing links between this country and its Arab friends and neighbours, in particular, for example, the new relationship with the United Arab Emirates and the strengthening of some of our links with the Arab world. The implications of that are tremendously serious because they say that when that Middle East conference comes to be, the United Kingdom will need to understand and reflect the genuine concerns and interests of the Arab powers with regard to, for example, the state of Palestine, the future relationship of the Palestinian peoples and even such matters as Israel’s silence on nuclear ownership and nuclear control.
My second example was brought to our attention only recently, and it was a bad example. It is the western dismissal of the attempt by Turkey and Brazil—two of the leading non-nuclear countries—to try to do something about Iranian proposals for refining nuclear materials. Instead of taking it seriously and suggesting that a further negotiation might bring about a real move by Iran towards putting most of her low-enriched uranium into safe situations, the West simply dismissed it, as if it were somehow an inappropriate intervention by those two great countries. That was deeply unwise and, to reflect where we are with the Foreign Secretary’s remarks, not least about Turkey, we must start taking those countries seriously and show that we doing so. That does not mean accepting everything they say, but it means looking with great attention and care at what they propose.
My final example of this sort of situation is common to us all. It is the situation in Kashmir, Afghanistan and so on. I am not an authority, and I will not pretend to be one, but I think that increasingly the implications of the Foreign Secretary’s speech are that we have to bring the neighbours into some of the most difficult conflict situations in the world. I have already talked about the Middle East and about Palestine, and the same implications go for Afghanistan and for other central objects of conflict that are unresolved. We cannot any longer keep interested and concerned neighbours out. We have to start bringing them in, and for that purpose, we need a highly informed Foreign Office.
Lord Bew
My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, for securing this debate. There is now no doubt that the coincidence of the debate with the Foreign Secretary’s speech has enlivened our discussions and given them a greater and sharper focus, so I also congratulate him on his good luck in his timing.
We have already heard from noble Lords, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Desai, about the economic transformations that the world is witnessing. It is quite clear to me that the Foreign Secretary’s speech, which I broadly welcome, is actually a cold and fairly realistic response to those transformations in part. Because we have talked so much about economic changes, I hope I can say one word about politics. The noble Lord, Lord Maples, in his maiden speech, talked about the special relationship. It may, or may not, be the case that it is a sentimental illusion to which we have been prone—I make no comment. However, it is the case at this moment that the policy of the United States Government is a new type of foreign policy defined by a rejection of the concept of American exceptionalism and its role in the world. It may be that that will not be acceptable to mainstream American opinion over the next two years but, at the moment, that is the policy, and we have to take account of it because it has crucial implications for our foreign policy. One of the things about the Foreign Secretary’s speech is that there is a tone of realism running through it. If there ever was a sentimental allusion, I do not see much sign of it in today’s speech.
We must bear in mind that in the 1990s it was not absurd to talk about the 21st century as the American century. At this point, it may have been wrong, but one can see why at that moment serious people might have seen it in that way. At the end of the first decade of this century, it is very hard to see it in that way. The underlying principle of the Foreign Secretary’s speech is a recognition of the new world in which we now live with its various transitions and changes.
I shall focus on an important theme that was not mentioned in the Foreign Secretary’s speech this morning: our relations with Libya. On 12 October 2009, the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock of Holyhead, repeated a Statement in your Lordships' House entitled “Libya”. The Statement came in the aftermath of the controversial release by the Scottish Justice Minister of Mr Megrahi, who had been convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. Mr Megrahi returned to a hero’s welcome in Tripoli, much to the dismay of the United Kingdom Government. In the course of a wide-ranging assessment and analysis of our relations with Libya, the noble Baroness stated,
“in respect of the campaign … to secure compensation from Libya in respect of its past support for the Provisional IRA, we have created a dedicated unit in the FCO to facilitate the families' renewed campaign”.—[Official Report, 12/10/09; col. 39.]
The noble Baroness mentioned the possibility of a parliamentary visit to Libya and at the beginning of November, I took part in such a parliamentary delegation to Tripoli. I have to say that I am most grateful to our officials and Ambassador in Libya. I make the point that has already been made by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay: it is vital that our Foreign Office is able to continue to provide its professionalism in such important cities as Tripoli. It would be an astonishing act of national absurdity for us to do anything to weaken the way in which our Foreign Office works in such important places. We had a series of discussions over two days with Libyan Ministers and officials. They were very interesting, engaging, urbane, sophisticated, useful and helpful. On our return, the Foreign Office issued a statement. However, at this point, it is worth asking the new Government where they stand on the pursuit of this aspect of our relationship with Libya. Will there still be a dedicated unit in the Foreign Office dealing with this question? More generally, where do we now stand in our relations with Libya? This is an enormously complicated question in terms of the transitions within Libyan politics, our relationship with the United States and United States policy in the region. None the less, returning to the original remarks by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, when we think of Libya, are we in the world where we think of hazards or in the world of opportunities?
Lord Garel-Jones
My Lords, one inevitably follows the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, with a certain amount of trepidation. Noble Lords who listened to his magisterial speech today will understand exactly what I mean. That feeling of trepidation has been further compounded in my case by a number of very distinguished interventions from noble Lords. I begin by congratulating my noble friend Lord Maples on his maiden speech. He and I share what I think I might call a criminal past in another place and I know that the House will anxiously look forward to many distinguished contributions from him.
Today’s debate poses a fundamental, underlying question: what are the objectives of British foreign policy as we face the challenges and hazards of the 21st century? I believe that we stand at a crossroads where we have to ask ourselves a basic question. Do we believe that Britain’s interests and the values that she seeks to uphold warrant a global diplomacy? My answer is yes.
However, I fear that over recent years we have failed to give our foreign service the tools for the job. Punching above our weight, to quote my noble friend Lord Hurd of Westwell, who certainly did just that, is fine, but you need, at the very least, some boxing gloves to do it and not a cricket bat, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr.
The cost of the Diplomatic Service in 2010-11 will be £865 million, which is 0.1 per cent of the national budget. In today’s straitened times one hesitates to describe that or any other sum as paltry but, just to put it in context—I intend no criticism of the programmes concerned with these comparisons—that figure is less than one-third of what the Department for Work and Pensions spends in a week, it is almost identical to the £823 million spent by the Government on the National Lottery and it is well below, almost half, the £1.6 billion that is estimated to be spent by devolved Administrations to underpin the Marine and Coastal Access Act. I sometimes ask myself whether it is worth the Treasury’s time spending even a morning negotiating with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Can Britain or should Britain have a global diplomacy? There are three possible answers to that question. The first is no. Let us face the fact that we are a second- division power. Let us stop dancing around the world kidding ourselves that Britannia rules the waves. Let us try to manage our decline into the second division with as much propriety as we can. We may even gain a few brownie points as we go: we could offer up our seat on the Security Council to the European Union.
The second answer, and perhaps the most cynical, is what I suppose one might call the middle way. We could say nothing and keep trimming. The man on the Clapham omnibus will not notice. It has been going on for the past few years. I focus on Latin America, but this scenario is replicated in other parts of the world. Between 2003 and 2005, we closed our embassies in Paraguay, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua. I have a horrible nightmare that somewhere down the road, in 50 years’ time, we will end up with two embassies in the whole of Latin America—in Mexico and Brazil—and, in any other country, British citizens and companies with problems or interests will be invited to go to the EU representative, who by then, no doubt, will be described as an “ambassador plenipotentiary”.
I bow to no one in my support for the European Union. I am an unashamed Europhile. I strongly support the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, and the new European Foreign Policy Unit. However—I am confident that this view is widely shared in your Lordships’ House—I do not see the European Union as a substitute for the nation state. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, who will reply to this debate, may, along with the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, share my view that we need a global diplomacy and that Britain’s interests and values warrant such a foreign service.
An increase of 2.5 per cent in the diplomatic budget year on year for the life of this Parliament would cost £21,625,000 this first year. Again, just to put that figure in context, the Department for Work and Pensions spends more than 20 times that every day and it is less than we spend on combating infectious diseases of livestock for international development.
My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary is as ingenious as he is clever. He will not, I am confident, want to announce that he is leading Britain down into the second division, nor will he wish to opt for a continuation of the surreptitious decline that we have witnessed over recent years. I am afraid that it is Hobson’s choice for the coalition Government, the Foreign Secretary and the Chancellor. It is: find the money, William, and pay up, George. In the previous century, Britain moved, I think with a certain dignity, from “Rule Britannia” to “Cool Britannia”. Failure to act now in strengthening our Diplomatic Service could well mean that the 21st century will earn us the noble title of “Fool Britannia”.
Lord Wright of Richmond
My Lords, I am sure it will not surprise my former boss, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, if I decide today to talk about the Middle East. We have had many recent discussions in this House on the situation in Gaza. I would like to return to the long-standing problem of Israeli colonisation of the West Bank and the eviction of Palestinians from east Jerusalem. There are still some 500,000 illegal Jewish settlers on the West Bank, and Peace Now claims that this number is still growing. Palestinians are still facing daily frustration at more than 500 checkpoints and the dreaded wall is still expanding, particularly in the west Bethlehem area, blocking many Palestinian farmers from their own land. The resulting level of unemployment, although not quite as appalling as in Gaza, is nevertheless very serious.
Even worse is the continued eviction of Palestinian residents from east Jerusalem, now including four members of the Palestinian legislature—the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, referred to them—who have been ordered to leave on the grounds that the interior ministry has revoked their permits as “residents of Israel”. According to the ministry's own information, in 2008 alone, 4,577 Arab residents of east Jerusalem had their permits revoked. The Israeli authorities have ordered the recent demolition of 65 Palestinian-owned structures and the displacement of 125 people, including 47 children.
What we are seeing on the West Bank is a human tragedy and a violation of human rights of major proportions. Senior members of Mr Netanyahu's Government have made no secret of their hope that all Palestinians can be removed from Jerusalem and, ultimately, from the West Bank. If, as I hope, Her Majesty’s Government are serious in hoping for the creation of a Palestinian state with its capital in east Jerusalem, something must be done urgently to stop this appalling and shameful tragedy. I hope the Minister can confirm that his right honourable friend is taking up these cases with the Israeli authorities both bilaterally and in co-operation with our European and American partners—in spite of, or is it because of, Mr Netanyahu’s humiliating rejection of President Obama’s repeated calls for restraint. Without determined and effective American action, there is no hope of reversing this ethnic cleansing. Sadly, the quartet office in Jerusalem seems to be adopting a totally supine attitude towards these human rights violations by the occupying power.
All of us speaking in this debate face a dilemma. Having heard Mr Hague’s interview on the BBC this morning, but not yet having studied his important speech in detail, I warmly welcome his intention to strengthen our diplomatic, commercial and economic contacts with the emerging powers, including Brazil and Turkey. In that context I wonder, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, whether it was wise for the UN Security Council to have rejected both Brazil and Turkey’s ingenious attempts to find a solution to Iran’s nuclear ambitions and instead to strengthen sanctions that show no signs of having any practical effect. Unless we change our mentality, as the noble Lord, Lord Desai, put it, and adjust to the new emerging relationships such as those between Iran, Syria, Turkey, Qatar and Brazil, we shall find ourselves left behind in the struggle for political and economic influence in parts of the world that are of massive significance to this country and for the future of a peaceful world.
I share the hope that Iran can be dissuaded from its apparent ambition, although publicly denied by the Iranians at a very high level, to acquire nuclear weapons. But I was struck by the reply of the noble Lord, Lord Howell, to the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, two days ago when he commented that the possession of nuclear weapons by India and Pakistan,
“could be a good example of the theory of mutual deterrence working”.—[Official Report, 28/6/10; col. 1510.]
Should we be surprised if Iran, neighbour as it is to a nuclear Pakistan, threatened by attacks on its nuclear facilities by a nuclear Israel, and neighbour to Iraq from whose aggression in the Iran-Iraq war it suffered more than a million dead, might draw the same lessons of deterrence as India and Pakistan? Whether it has or not, I believe that the arguments for working towards a nuclear-free Middle East are now as strong as they have ever been.
I still have a minute left and I would like to add two footnotes. The first is that some reference has been made today to the Falklands War. I put it on record that one reason why we managed to acquire and gain international support for our recovery of the Falkland Islands was precisely because we had resident posts in a number of embassies which have been or are being closed. Lastly, and on a lighter note, my noble friend Lord Hylton referred to the support of the Isfahanis for British football. I am astonished. Do they not know that British polo originated on the main square of Isfahan?
Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne
I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, for giving us a wonderful opportunity to discuss Britain’s foreign policy in, as he stated, a time when our world is much less predictable than before. As the noble Lord, Lord Desai, declared, we must therefore change our mentality to see where the power is going, which, as he commented, is most obviously reflected in changes of economic status. As all other noble Lords have commented in the debate, the speech by our Foreign Secretary today in the Locarno Room sets the stage most powerfully. He declared,
“for the first time in years in my view Britain will have a foreign policy that is clear, focused and effective”.
I am sure that we will support his aims of extending our global reach and influence, that we should use diplomacy to secure our prosperity, that we should promote our values using the appeal of our culture and heritage, and set out to make the most of the abundant opportunities of the 21st century systematically and for the long term. Particularly, his focus on the broadest possible definition of our foreign affairs and foreign policy, incorporating the UK’s strengths such as education and connecting ministries and departments so that there is one foreign policy and not a multiplicity of policies, is more than welcome and extraordinarily promising.
I shall focus for a moment or two on the huge strand of economics, trade and prosperity in foreign affairs throughout the Foreign Secretary’s speech. Again, this is enormously welcome, most especially the strong stress on networks and contacts on the ground through our ambassadors in our embassies and high commissions, which seem to be being given the stronger role that they should always have maintained in order to give the UK the certainty and single focus that our interests on the ground have been lacking. As the Foreign Secretary commented:
“There is now a mass of connections between individuals, civil society, businesses, pressure groups and charitable organisations which are also part of the relations between nations and which are being rapidly accelerated by the internet”.
That is a most important declaration which we should all promote in incorporating our interests in a way that has not been the case in recent years on the ground, and possibly not even in the UK.
Since completing my second term as a Member of the European Parliament— where for seven and a half years I had the honour of serving as vice-president of the Foreign Affairs Committee—and returning here to resume full-time work in your Lordships’ House, I now chair the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Business Development in Iraq and the Regions. Our aim as an APPG—we have strong membership from all parties in both this House and the other place—is to encourage and foster the economic development of Iraq and her neighbours with the UK in particular, with special stress on the significance of culture and education, both vocational and tertiary.
This follows an earlier initiative—designed also to strengthen Iraq’s free market in the private sector—that I co-founded last year, the Iraq-Britain Business Council, IBBC, which I also chair in an honorary capacity. This has become the leading membership organisation for business development in Iraq and the region. This, too, is a not-for-profit organisation which enjoys high-level support from both the UK and the Iraqi Governments. It brings together key business leaders to provide a joint platform for identifying mutual interests and common goals. In this first year, in support of the Foreign Secretary’s comments on cultural and educational exchange, we have already begun to found a private university within the Iraqi state sector, which we hope in the fullness of time will include all relevant technical and business departments and an all-important school of humanity.
I believe powerfully in the stress laid in the Foreign Secretary’s speech on bilateral relationships and on elevating relationships across every sector. This is of vital importance for the United Kingdom in terms of economics and politics, which have not been as close here as in other key member states of the European Union and beyond. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as the key focal point for the promotion of all UK interests, should have that strength and power. It should also have, wherever possible, significant financial and personal support to make that happen.
Foreign policy is not only a reaction to what is happening but should lay the foundations for good decisions for many years to come. That is where the stress that the Foreign Secretary and other Members of this House have already placed upon research, study and exploration over a wide range of ministries in the United Kingdom is vital. Foreign policy is about the standing in the world of the United Kingdom. This can be created and maintained only over the long term, as well as by reactions in crises. All of this must rest on common values. Therefore, we should not be afraid to promote as hard as possible, in every possible way, democracy, the fundamental freedoms and the rule of law.
The noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, raised the question of the important values that are implemented in strategic thinking in the EU Council of Ministers. The UK should be in front and pre-eminent, both there and on the ground. With a new External Action Service, a strong Foreign and Commonwealth Office and a clear, directed foreign policy we will go much further than we imagine we have the capacity to go today.
The Earl of Sandwich
My Lords, I, too, congratulate our former Foreign Secretary on his timing today and our present Foreign Secretary on his new approach and wider outlook.
My concern today, again, is Afghanistan. Apart from the timetable of withdrawal, I read or heard nothing this morning to confirm that we still support the United States’ strategy following the dismissal of General McChrystal in somewhat discouraging circumstances. It may well be that the US strategy is in disarray and it could be the moment for us to exert influence in Washington. I hope the Minister will give some more clues on this today because the situation for the Afghan people seems more desperate than ever.
The British public are losing interest in the Afghan project and I offer one possible explanation: they were deceived. They broadly supported the initial campaign to send troops, not because they were defending this country—which was never a realistic proposition—but because they wanted to protect the Afghan people from tyranny. Events in 2001 provided the trigger but at the time, as in Iraq, it seemed that the Afghans wanted to be liberated and would naturally accept the temporary presence of foreign forces and aid workers.
One mistake was to attempt to reconstruct the country according to a model that was too rigidly western, but I do not blame only the Americans for that. Far too much inappropriate aid was wasted in the first few years and much of it went to satisfy the appetites of warlords as well as foreign consultants and companies bringing money back home. When President Karzai criticises foreign Governments for encouraging corruption through large aid transfers, he is absolutely right. That is what happens with large contracts. Stories of large transfers of funds to the Gulf have now even led Congress to suspend the US aid programme.
There was an even more important mistake, which was to identify foreign aid too closely with the military campaign. Today not just USAID but DfID has a vast aid programme in Helmand, not primarily because of the extent of poverty there but because it has been seduced into a hearts and minds campaign that runs in tandem with a war against insurgents. In Marjah, US marines with back pockets full of dollars are offering to build mosques, clinics and schools in the hope that the insurgents will somehow be persuaded to come down from the mountains and rejoin a peaceful community, but that is not going to happen.
The principal UK aid agencies have warned against this “reconciliation” policy for some time. Indeed, the British Overseas Aid Group called on the Ministry of Defence in January, as the Minister may know, to complain about the confusion caused principally by the provincial reconstruction teams. The PRTs were intended to protect and work alongside civilians, but in effect they are military operations rooted in military discipline. I have regularly mentioned this in debates here. If the Foreign Secretary and his colleagues genuinely want to involve civil society more in forward planning in foreign policy, I suggest that he contacts our own aid agencies at the earliest opportunity.
Soldiers can be very efficient in short-term reconstruction, and indeed have successfully built refugee camps, bridges and buildings such as schools and health centres elsewhere. However, when it comes to earning trust among the local population, the involvement of local people in decision-making and the longer-term planning of health and education policy, aid is better left to the specialised aid agencies. There are a lot of NGOs working in Afghanistan with many years’ experience but, instead of building up their resources, the war and investment in security firms has made their work more vulnerable. Private security firms are the very antithesis of peaceful reconstruction and have caused a lot of resentment.
Some of the best development work going on is far from the battle front. I was involved in a project secretly training women teachers during the time of the Taliban, and similar clandestine projects continue today in many parts of Afghanistan, run or funded by UK aid agencies. But surprisingly, Afghanistan, although nearly bottom on the list of poorest countries, is not getting the same support per head from the UK as other countries. Much of our aid is concentrated in so-called “secure areas” covered in troops and barbed wire. One may well ask the Minister, “What is our real objective in remaining in Afghanistan? Do the Afghan people have any evidence that we are there for international development, or is aid becoming an arm of our security strategy?”.
Now that the aid budget is ring-fenced, there is a temptation for other departments to give it different names and label their own work as international development. The noble Lords, Lord Hannay and Lord Anderson, have both mentioned the obvious overlaps between aid and diplomacy. I congratulate DfID on the innovative work that it does in countries such as Kenya, Sudan and Nepal. I admit that the arrival of the coalition has given departments the opportunity to review their programmes after many years, and this must be welcomed. A good example is Sudan, where the FCO and DfID are developing a common programme. This is what should happen.
I am not part of a “troops out of Afghanistan” campaign. We have a commitment to NATO for another four or five years. But while our casualties have increased, the priorities have surely changed. It is my sincere belief that the public are expecting us to remain as channels of development assistance, not as a fighting force. The Army may well have successes but it cannot guarantee that the local population will receive our assistance or proper protection.
Lord Wilson of Tillyorn
My Lords, in thanking the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, for launching this debate, I should like to concentrate on just one part of that very large canvas that has been sketched out. That one part—quite a large part—is China.
A great deal is said about the enormous development of China over the past few years. Statistics flow out and they are all fantastically impressive. For example, it is responsible for 7 per cent of the world’s GDP; China will very shortly overtake Japan as the second largest economy in the world; huge numbers of PhD students and engineers are turned out every year. All those statistics are significant. Our own relationship with China is significant. Among many other things, as noble Lords will know, China supplies the largest amount of investment in the European Union to the United Kingdom.
All this raises the question of how one copes with this rapid development of China. Our dialogue with China is very encouraging. The sort of things that can be talked about, and the way in which it can be done, would have been impossible 10 or 20 years ago. I think that it is common ground that we should try to encourage China to participate in all the international organisations.
However, one of the issues is the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams. It is that those organisations were set up a long time ago, before China re-emerged on to the world scene. Therefore, if we want China to play a real part, we must accept that those organisations will have to change. You cannot expect a large country such as China, coming from a different background, simply to be absorbed without any effect on the organisations. Perhaps the IMF is a good example. There has been an increase in China’s contribution to it and therefore in its voting power, but it has been only very slight.
Another aspect is our understanding of China. It was encouraging that the Foreign Secretary spoke today about the need to re-emphasise geographical expertise within the foreign service, which has perhaps been downgraded over the past few years. As my noble friend Lord Kerr of Kinlochard said, that expertise, which can be produced in the Foreign Office, is vital to what we are doing.
More broadly, we should have enough people in this country—not just in the foreign service—who have an understanding and experience of China. The same applies in the other direction: there should be enough people from China who have an understanding of us. There are something like 85,000 Chinese students in this country, 60,000 of them at tertiary level. There is a tiny number, it seems, of British students in China—3,000. However, the percentages—that is, the number of Chinese students as a percentage of the Chinese population and the number of our students in China as a percentage of ours—are almost identical. But 3,000 is not enough. We need at a much lower level an understanding and experience of China. I believe that around 500 schools in the UK offer Mandarin. Some make a great effort to do so, because they will just offer it and there will be two or three students. Perhaps I may take an example from Scotland and declare a sort of interest as the honorary president of an organisation called SCEN, the Scotland-China Education Network. I visited the other day Perth High School, a school of about 1,400 pupils. Something like half of those pupils were studying Chinese. They will not get to a high level; they will not go straight into the Foreign Office; they will not immediately become ambassadors—maybe later on they will; but they will have a feel for China and an interest in it, and some will go on to be specialists. I suggest to the Minister that he might encourage his ministerial colleagues to see how much this sort of experience could be transferred elsewhere in the UK, so we have more people studying China and Chinese. In the long term, that will be very much in our interests in terms of the whole way in which we react to China developing as it has been.
Perhaps I may make one last comment—on Hong Kong. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, in the negotiations in which he played such an enormous and significant role about the future of Hong Kong, used to refer to the Ming vase that we were passing on to China. The Ming vase has not been dropped; it is still there. Hong Kong is a success story. Hong Kong in China, but as a very special part of China, is not just a success story, and therefore a cause for great encouragement, but a place of enormous opportunity, of which I hope that people in the UK will continue to take advantage.
Lord Sheikh
My Lords, this is a most timely and important debate. The world is transforming before our eyes and Britain must be capable of setting its foreign policy in the context of these changes. Over the past 12 months, I have visited East Africa, Russia, Syria, Turkey, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, India and Egypt. I went to these countries to speak at international conferences, for humanitarian reasons or to attend important events—and also for commercial purposes. These visits have enabled me to acquire a better understanding of the situation in the various countries, and I have built up some excellent connections with politicians and people of the countries. I have also fostered good relationships with high commissioners and ambassadors of various countries, as well as their diaspora in the UK. We all need to be involved in networking at all stages; we must foster country-to-country as well as people-to- people contacts.
In view of the time constraints, I shall comment only briefly on some salient issues. Last weekend, while the Prime Minister was showing a strong lead in Canada, the Foreign Secretary was spelling out a new approach to foreign policy in an interview for the Sunday Telegraph. He has expanded on that vision today and I commend his analysis. His vision, based not on the historic blocs but on taking a fresh look at the new global dynamics, is most welcome.
I am sure we all feel that we should not only maintain but strengthen our relationship with the United States. I am encouraged by the conciliatory attitudes of the Obama Administration, particularly towards the Muslim world. I commend the importance that the Government attach to India and look forward to an enhanced partnership with India. The importance ascribed to this was demonstrated by the reference in the gracious Speech. We need also to accommodate the development of greater links with other countries with emerging economies. We have seen the rise in economic power of the Gulf states and we welcome the involvement in various companies and organisations in our country, which will strengthen not only economic but political ties with the Arab states. I have previously spoken in your Lordships' House on the important role that the Commonwealth can play in building strong relationships in various ways, particularly in strengthening political ties and resolving conflicts. I was pleased that the coalition programme included a statement on strengthening the Commonwealth.
I have already stated that I have visited countries including Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. I fully support the entry of Turkey into the European Union. We need also to resolve problems in Cyprus. I also feel that we should engage with Turkey and its involvement in resolution of conflicts in surrounding areas, including Iran and Palestine. We cannot afford to ignore the challenges presented to us by the ongoing conflict in Palestine. Recent events can serve only to stiffen our resolve that the only long-term and sustainable solution involves two states, with the achievement of a viable and sovereign Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel. That will be the most acceptable solution.
Last week, I visited Russia to make a keynote speech at an international conference on Islamic finance. Our relations with Russia have deteriorated in recent months and some serious issues remain outstanding. Engaging with Russia is complex. The Government have announced that they will seek to establish a new relationship. I feel that we should give that serious consideration.
About three weeks ago, I attended and spoke at a conference in Uganda relating to peace, democracy, the rule of law and the maintenance of human rights. We should continue to ensure good governance and seek to bring to book persons who have committed crimes against humanity.
I have watched with alarm the way that relations with Iran have deteriorated, particularly following last year’s presidential elections. We must not forget the important opportunity that the UN presents and Iran needs to engage with the international community. We should wish to have a constructive relationship with Iran, which is a key power in the region. I hope that the Iranian Government will not switch off to the possibilities being held out to them.
I strongly support the coalition pledge to ring-fence the development budget. Not only is it the right decision from a humanitarian perspective, but it shows the world that we are serious as a nation about supporting developing and emerging economies. This will undoubtedly contribute towards reinforcing British influence and prestige in global affairs.
China has witnessed an impressive growth over the past 30 years. Before long, we can probably expect it to be the largest economy in the world. It is a self-confident country with expanding influence, not least in Africa. I welcome the positive engagement that we appear to enjoy with the Chinese Government. Furthermore, we need to harness Chinese influence in confronting and overcoming the challenges of Iran and North Korea.
The new world presents us with a great opportunity and I am delighted that this Government are taking a bold and impressive approach in regard to their foreign policies.
Baroness Taylor of Bolton
My Lords, I must join in congratulating the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, on his debate today, particularly, as has been mentioned, for its significant timing. I am sure that he was mightily relieved by the tone of the Foreign Secretary’s speech, which was somewhat different from the tone that we heard just a few weeks ago. I hope that that new realism will be maintained, but we will need to see other signs of it—including, perhaps, a movement away from some of the so-called allies that the Conservative Party has found in the EU.
On the EU, there was one thing about that speech this morning; I thought that there was an implicit criticism of some of the UK representatives there. Having worked with them quite closely for the past year or two, I did not take that well. We should be talking about how we increase engagement, not suggesting that we need new big hitters in Brussels in order to extend our influence. I have one other word about Europe, which is to welcome what has just been said about Turkish membership of the EU. I noticed that the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, also mentioned Turkey, which has a pivotal role and is a secular state. It is not a perfect society but then, what is? We would be foolish to turn our backs on Turkey and I seek reassurances in that respect.
I appreciate that many people in this House have a lifetime of experience in foreign affairs. I think that most of us come to these debates with a certain degree of hesitancy. For the past few years, I have worked closely in the Ministry of Defence with the Foreign Office and, previous to that, when I was chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, I got some overview of foreign affairs.
I start by reminding the House of the Green Paper that was published by the Ministry of Defence earlier this year—Adaptability and Partnership. That sets out the global trends that are being talked about and which my noble friend Lord Desai began with earlier, such as the rise of Asia Pacific, the challenges of globalisation, climate change and the inequalities in the world. It goes on to discuss threats to our national interests as well as to this country. That document is as good a backdrop for debates about foreign affairs as it is for debates on defence. There are a few points that I would like to raise in response to the challenges that we face.
First, I echo what the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, said about international institutions. Many of us grew up—perhaps slightly naively, thinking back to the 1960s—with great hopes for institutions such as the United Nations, which we thought would make a significant difference. Those international institutions have, as has been said, been very slow to respond to a rapidly changing world. We need to continue to press for reform in that area, as the previous Labour Government did.
Secondly, we need to re-evaluate and impress on people the scope and importance of what has been called soft power. My noble friend Lord Desai said that we need hard power as well, but the two go together. If you get soft power right, you will need to exercise less hard power. Foreign Office and defence diplomacy have not been appreciated enough in recent years—perhaps over a long time. When such issues as the Five Power Defence Arrangements—which involve the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore—come up, many people think that such agreements no longer matter because they hark back to the past. In fact, they give us an entrée to an area which will be pivotal in the future, as we have heard today.
Much of the MoD’s work through training and advisory groups makes sure that people who do not normally talk to each other work in the same area. In the military training on peacekeeping that we do in the Czech Republic, we have had people from Azerbaijan sitting next to Armenians. We are breaking new ground there. In the long term, this can put us in a very strong position, not least because all that teaching and work is conducted in English.
Something has been said today about resources and about DfID. I would like to bring the two together. It seems that we all now support the aim of spending 0.7 per cent of GDP on aid. That is good and something that we should support. It is an achievement of the Labour Government, the spending of the past few years and DfID itself that I am very proud of. However, it is right to question—as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, did—some of the ways and projects on which that money has been spent. Some has been spent on consultants and the like. This may seem like heresy to some but I wonder if the concentration on DfID has taken too much away from the Foreign Office and other areas. The noble Lord, Lord Butler, suggested that there should be a merging of some of these budgets. One small step has been taken with the Stabilisation Unit, but we need to do more to make sure that spending on influence now does not neglect long-term investment at this critical time. The noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones, mentioned some of the very interesting figures. I said in this House a few weeks ago that when I was in the MoD, I thought that if there were sufficient noughts at the end of a project it was much safer than if it had a tiny budget, which could somehow slip through and disappear.
I welcome the debate. We need more talk about how we exercise influence. The noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones, asked if we should have global diplomacy. My answer to that would be yes, but we have to invest enough in soft power. That is the key to avoiding the need for the use of hard power in the future.
Lord Alderdice
My Lords, one of the great strengths of your Lordships’ House is its capacity to look strategically at issues as well as point up particular matters. Today’s debate provides an opportunity to do that. As noble Lords have said, it is particularly timely in view of the development—perhaps even change of strategy—announced by the Foreign Secretary earlier today. I welcome a degree of change of strategy because there have been some very serious mistakes in our approach to foreign policy over the past 10 and more years.
The noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, gave a very thoughtful description of what foreign policy should really be about. I suggest, more mischievously, that foreign affairs are about special relationships abroad. The special relationship with the United States has been mentioned. There is no reason why it should be the—I emphasise “the”—special relationship, but that does not mean it cannot be a special relationship. We have many important and special relationships that we need to work at and continue to cultivate. Our special relationship does not mean that we will always agree with the United States’s approach to foreign policy; some of our other special relationships can be helpful in that regard. My view was always that if we needed to engage in Afghanistan militarily we should go straight in, do something substantial, then get out and not try to create a democracy in a country which was never a democracy in the first place and will not be after we leave it. What we did not do was use the special relationship with India to inform the engagement with Afghanistan. There was no serious consultation with India on the part of ourselves or the United States before the invasion of Afghanistan. That was a very foolish mistake. We should now be using our special relationship with India to enable Britain and the United States to move towards getting ourselves out of a problem because it is not a question of victory in Afghanistan but of finding a way of withdrawing without it appearing to be a humiliating defeat. That is the reality of the position that we are in.
Our special relationship with the United States does not depend solely on our relationships within the European Union. Our history and experience in those areas and our other special relationships are important as well as our relationships within the European Union. However, we must also recognise that we may differ from our European colleagues. I give an example. It seems to me that the position we have taken vis-à-vis our relationship with Turkey is right and that Turkey should be able to move to be part of the European Union and should be a much more valued member of the international community. However, not all our colleagues in the European Union see it that way. I think that they are making a very serious strategic mistake from the point of view of Europe and, indeed, of the West.
I also emphasise the point that my noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby made about the Turkish and Brazilian initiative on enrichment of nuclear material by Iran. It seems to me that this was a constructive approach and that it was extremely foolish of us to dismiss and disregard it, not just in terms of what that means for dealing with Iran but for our relationship with Turkey. We do not have to agree all the time with those with whom we have a special relationship, nor do we need to regard all our relationships within the European Union as being the same. Our special relationship with France goes back long before our special relationship with the United States, and so it should. We should continue to develop it, perhaps sometimes following the example of the French. They saw no reason to withdraw their interest in the Francophonie simply because they were involved in the European Union. I believe that it was a serious strategic mistake for the previous Government to downgrade their interest in the Commonwealth simply because they wanted to emphasise the importance of the relationship with the European Union. I hope that we will review the way we engage with India, Canada, Australia and, indeed, some African countries and Caribbean states—I take some encouragement in that regard from the Foreign Secretary’s statement—because those relationships are extremely important.
The relationship with France has been mentioned. We have important bilateral relationships on military and other matters that simply will not be possible with some other states in the European Union. As we approach this whole range of special relations I am conscious not just of the strength of your Lordships’ House in its consideration of these matters—the breadth of its purview, the length of its memory, the depth of its understanding—but of some of its weaknesses. One weakness is that many of your Lordships are looking back at their experience of how things were in a world that has to some extent changed. It has changed in terms of the reasons for the European Union and the history of our relationship with the United States. It is important that the term “agility” used by the Foreign Secretary is understood to mean fleet-footedness as the situation changes.
It has been said from time to time that much of our foreign policy in recent years has been about the management of decline. That is fine if you are of a generation that remembers when things were up for the United Kingdom; but for my generation that was ancient history by the time I came into this world. I want the possibility of this generation and the next being proud of a country which can actually achieve important and serious things. I should like to take as the slogan for our foreign policy not the management of decline, understandable as that would be for a previous generation, but the slogan that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, has given for the next generation, which is to be in the vanguard rather than the slipstream in our approach to foreign policy.
Lord King of Bridgwater
My Lords, I congratulate my noble and learned friend Lord Howe on introducing this most timely debate, given that we have a new Government. We live in a rapidly changing world, parts of which are very dangerous indeed, and in a time of limited resources. I welcome the speech of William Hague, which I have had a chance to read. I hope that the distinguished representatives from the Foreign Office recognise the advantage of having a powerful and senior member of the new Government as the new Foreign Secretary. His speech carries all the more impact for that.
However, foreign affairs are far too important to be left to the Foreign Office. I hope that that will be understood. Of course Foreign Office officials are a class act and I have had the privilege of working with them in many ways. However, I hope that the Prime Minister will give the message of the Foreign Secretary’s speech to every Minister in this Government, and more widely. As the noble Lord, Lord Desai, said, we are not an enormous country in terms of the scope that we used to have, but we have a lot of assets and a lot of people involved in all sorts of ways. All of them now have to get involved in ensuring Britain’s future place in the world.
Perhaps I may give three brief illustrations of my involvement. By accident, in 1982 in the Commons dining room, I was talking to the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, who was our Minister of Trade. He was rushing all around the world trying to sell our goods. I was Minister for Local Government. I said, “I have responsibility for the water authorities. Can I help?”. As a result, I went to Riyadh, Oman, Abu Dhabi and Baghdad. No one has seen the picture showing me shaking hands with Saddam Hussein, because I have kept it strictly hidden. The reality was that, although I was a Minister who might not have been thought to have had direct involvement in the trade field, there were many opportunities within government where people could play their part.
In 1997—I am sure that this will cheer up the noble Lord, Lord Kerr—I went to Seoul to firm up an investment in Northern Ireland for Daewoo. Last week, we had the pleasure—I declare an interest—of receiving a most distinguished delegation from Abu Dhabi and the UAE for the opening of a major new investment by Abu Dhabi in the new international convention centre in the Royal Docks. I welcome the priority that the Foreign Secretary gave in his speech to the special relationship with the UAE.
We need teamwork and support, with leadership from the Foreign Office, backed up of course by defence, a field in which I was particularly involved. I recognise, and tribute has been paid to, the amazing work of our Armed Forces in very difficult circumstances. They are a great asset but they are under great pressure. They do not have limitless capacity.
As I said, we are in a rapidly changing world and I wish to make a point about the changes that may be proposed, such as the closure of posts. I do not think that I am disclosing any secrets as a previous chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee by saying that, when the new threats involving al-Qaeda emerged, we had to turn to a number of posts in countries that we had not previously thought to be significant in our intelligence relationships. They became extremely useful at that time. If we had closed those posts, our problems would have been very much greater. It is because we face major challenges that we must work as a team.
One quotation that I found today gives me great concern. Many of us know Prince Turki al-Faisal, who was the head of Saudi intelligence and then the ambassador here and in Washington. He was quoted recently as saying that the United States had forfeited the high moral ground in the Middle East through “negligence, ignorance and arrogance”. That statement and the fact that we are in many ways associated with the United States in many actions that have led to that conclusion are very serious matters indeed.
There is an interesting comment in the Foreign Secretary’s speech. He points out that there are 100 million Pakistanis who have mobile telephones and who get news and information about the situations in Palestine, Gaza, Iraq and Afghanistan. They are not necessarily people who incline to our point of view or are sympathetic to it. This country faces major challenges and the only way in which we will face them is collectively, as a team, with everybody involved in the effort.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, for introducing the debate today and for speaking with his customary thoughtfulness about a wide range of countries and topics. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Maples, on a clever and amusing speech that was at times quite trenchant. We look forward to hearing from him again, when he will not have to compromise at all in what he says.
I have read the Foreign Secretary's speech in full and I heard him on the radio this morning. I will address some of what he said, because it speaks to this debate. He talked about changing hazards and opportunities, and about the objectives of the coalition in dealing with them. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, I agreed with much of what he said today, and I am bound to say that it is not surprising. It bore a strong resemblance to the speech made by my late former boss, Robin Cook, when he became Foreign Secretary in 1997. Robin Cook said then that the first goal of British foreign policy should be the security of this country and the prosperity of its people. He stressed the importance of trade, and said that he wanted to work more with British business abroad to further the trade links that Mr Hague stressed this morning.
What the Foreign Secretary said today on the radio—namely, that a successful foreign policy and a successful economic policy were inextricably linked—is common ground. I nearly cheered—that is, until I remembered that this Government have yet to appoint a Minister dedicated to the trade effort, as most of the recent Trade Ministers on the Labour side were, and as they must be if they are to deliver on Mr Hague's commitments on trade, and on Mr Cameron's G20 Statement that was repeated in the House earlier this week.
Mr Hague made a strong point about the joint responsibilities that he has with the Secretary of State at DBIS, Mr Cable, to use our global diplomatic network to support UK business around the world in an interventionist and active manner. At this point I declare an interest as chairman-elect of the Arab-British Chamber of Commerce. The Foreign Secretary cited a joint task force launched today, which was mentioned by the noble Baronesses, Lady Williams and Lady Morris. It is a joint task force with the UAE. This, too, bore a strong resemblance to the past—in this case, the more recent past—because an initiative was launched only last autumn involving UKTI, the Foreign Office and Somerset House. There was a week of meetings with our friends from the UAE under the leadership of my noble friend Lord Mandelson. We set up workstreams on education, health, IT and financial services, which led to the launch only last month of the City GCC, a terrific initiative to make financial services between the City of London and the GCC more accessible. I applaud the Government’s position, but not their attempts to rewrite recent history. The noble Lord may also like to know that a similar initiative is going on at the moment, with similar workstreams, in conjunction with Saudi Arabia, where I also have an interest as chair of the business council.
I was very glad to hear and read what the Foreign Secretary said about our relationship with the US, France and Germany, and I was very, very glad to hear what he said, in a tone very different from his former speeches, about the EU. He has, like all Foreign Secretaries before him since 1997, rightly prioritised these relationships. I was also pleased to hear what he said about developing relationships with Russia, China, India, Brazil and Turkey. He also stressed the crucial importance of finding a lasting peace settlement in the Middle East, and that was echoed by the noble Lords, Lord Hylton and Lord Wright of Richmond. These policies are sensible and, if we are honest, not so very different from those of the Labour Government.
My noble friends Lord Desai and Lady Taylor spoke about the relationship of the MoD to foreign policy. The Prime Minister has said that our troops will be out of Afghanistan by May 2015, but this morning on the radio the Foreign Secretary seemed oddly reluctant to confirm that date. Therefore, can the Minister say whether May 2015 is a deadline? Personally, I hope that it is not. May 2015 will simply become a target date for the Taliban and al-Qaeda to outsit the withdrawal—to regroup, rearm and re-emerge after that date. Surely in our goal to deal with terrorism at home, we should make sure that this incubator of terrorism is properly dealt with once and for all. The answer to the question “How long?” has to be “When we know that the job is done”.
I turn now to what Mr Hague did not mention quite so fulsomely this morning—the document that he published on Tuesday this week about FCO cuts. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, spoke knowledgeably and passionately about education in the Middle East. Although Mr Hague has said that he wants to enhance educational links with the developing world—the networks across the world, as he called them this morning—he has in fact decided to cut this year’s programme of scholarships in the FCO by £10 million and has declared that there will be a smaller programme in the future. Can the noble Lord tell us what will happen to the Chevening scholarships and what will happen to those who have already given up jobs to take up those scholarships this year?
The Secretary of State told the Foreign Office audience that he wanted ties with the Commonwealth to be stronger, and I know that that is a very strong point for the Minister himself. However, how can it be right to say that in public and then publish elsewhere a projected 10 per cent cut for the countries for which we have real responsibility—our overseas territories? The Secretary of State accused the former Government of neglecting responsibilities to the Commonwealth. Many will be watching how he now discharges his responsibilities to the small and very vulnerable territories for which we are wholly responsible.
The Foreign Secretary spoke about ingraining foreign policy in domestic departments. That was a very strong point and one that I think we should take very seriously. However, presumably that includes the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office, so why has Mr Hague decided to cut the FCO’s interdiction efforts on drugs by £1 million this year? How will that affect our joint action in the Caribbean with the countries of the Caribbean and our co-operation with the United States, or indeed with Afghanistan, where the trade flourishes and adversely affects young people in this country?
The coalition says in its document that climate change is one of the greatest threats that we face and that it wants to increase EU emission reductions by 30 per cent by 2020. However, we now hear that the Foreign Office wants to cut its climate change budget by £3 million this year. We are told that diplomats will stay fully engaged but, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, that department and our diplomats are already at full stretch—they cannot do more, or even the same, with fewer resources. Therefore, can the noble Lord say what part will be cut?
This morning, the Foreign Secretary was very persuasive about networking. We heard all about his twittering and about modern communications. What he did not say was that two days ago he cut the public diplomacy programme in the Foreign Office by £1.6 billion for this year. Can the noble Lord tell us precisely which programmes will be cut?
Again, on human rights and democracy, the Secretary of State said this morning that the coalition was “raising its sights”. He said that it was looking to the longer term, looking at the promotion of British interests, and living up to its responsibilities. Can the Minister explain why those fine words have been met with a 10 per cent cut in the FCO’s programme on human rights of some £560,000 this year and—this is a really sad cut—a cut of almost £400,000 this year to the budget of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, which is a terrific organisation. I thought that human rights and democracy were keystones for all of us in regard to foreign policy and I was very disappointed to hear those cuts announced.
The Minister may say that all departments must take a little pain. That really is not so, as we all know. The cuts in the FCO at the moment amount to some £18 million. For example, there is no cut to the DfID budget of more than £178 million for China. I share that concern with the noble Baroness, Lady Morris. We were told explicitly that it was not possible to cut the budget for this year and yet budgets have been cut in the FCO for this year and potentially in a very damaging way. It is uncomfortable to hear one set of priorities announced so enthusiastically on camera and to hear another set of cuts quietly announced elsewhere.
We are promised more speeches and more cuts. I hope that the Foreign Secretary will read the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, as it was an excellent speech which I warmly support. He may want to spend a little more time in advance of making his cuts and his speeches on getting some real consistency between the two.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)
My Lords, I join noble Lords in thanking my noble and learned friend Lord Howe, one of our wisest Foreign Secretaries and someone whom I greatly respect, for initiating this debate and on seizing the moment. I shall turn to some of the things that he said in a moment.
I greatly enjoyed the maiden speech of my old colleague, my noble friend Lord Maples, who speaks with great expertise. He rightly focused on the need to identify and promote our national interests in this complicated world, a matter that is sometimes forgotten. I am also grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, who has just summed up from her side. I think that her broad strategic stance was supportive, although she asked many detailed questions, which I shall try to answer, although in less than 20 minutes I cannot possibly do justice to all the points that have been made in the debate.
At least one central message emerges vividly and insistently from the debate: the global landscape has changed and is changing significantly. That point was made with eloquence by my noble and learned friend Lord Howe, by the noble Lord, Lord Desai, by my noble friend Lady Williams, by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, and by many others. International events and trends that may seem far removed from our day-to-day domestic concerns are proving decisive in shaping everyone’s lives in this country. We are entering a less western age and in some ways a more dangerous and unpredictable age. Against that background, there is an ever more urgent need for clear direction, objectives and purposes in our nation’s foreign policy, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, rightly insisted. That is what my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary have been regularly spelling out over the past few weeks. As many noble Lords have observed, only this morning my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary set out these matters again in a major scene-setting and strategic survey.
Of course we want to maintain a close and frank relationship with the United States and a positive and fully constructive role with our fellow European Union states. As the Foreign Secretary has said, we shall be highly active within the European Union and we shall urge our fellow members to overcome the severe current challenges that they face and to adapt to the needs and demands of the new global landscape. Mr Hague has also said that we shall reach out to work with Europe’s smallest states, as we did in the more distant past, a view that I greatly welcome.
Aside from those almost obvious positioning statements, we will also have our own agenda, which, as the Foreign Secretary has also explained, will require new forms of engagement. The key underlying themes in this new approach will be: first, bringing strategic decisions about our foreign policy, our security policy and our development programmes together in a National Security Council—that is already done; secondly, building up vigorous British bilateral engagements beyond Europe and North America, including new partnerships in the Gulf and with the rising Asian, Latin American and other powers; thirdly, working to reform international institutions to maximise their effectiveness and to develop new platforms; and, fourthly, upholding the highest values of our society while we pursue our legitimate interests and contribute to an increasingly interwoven world.
We need to use every ounce of our united brainpower, national talents, intelligence and experience to handle and influence this new world and to reconstruct and preserve our own national strength and prosperity. Obviously the threat of financial turmoil these past two years has been extremely difficult and great, but that does not mean that this is the time for the UK to retreat from the international stage. On the contrary, it is the coalition’s view that we should move forward with renewed purpose and carve out a distinct foreign policy that truly promotes our interests in the wider sense.
It may be said—and I want to reflect what has already been said in this debate—that our obviously constrained national resources cannot possibly support such a newly ambitious approach to foreign policy or to the work of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Indeed, the resource issue has been raised by many of your Lordships, including my noble and learned friend, Lord Howe, the noble Lords, Lord Butler and Lord Hannay, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and many, many others. We may be criticised, but we have inherited an appalling situation and savings have to be found.
In answer to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, we want to sustain the scholarship programme. I will write to her about the details as they arise from the recently announced list of cuts made by my right honourable friend, but we are fully aware of the significance of the scholarship element in our relationships. However, we strongly believe generally that more can be done with less—indeed, it must be—and with a more skilful balance of resources on the overseas side, and that economic recovery will strengthen our diplomacy and our international capacities as they must be strengthened. If that sounds like wishful thinking, I urge your Lordships, as did my noble and learned friend Lord Howe, to glance at the most recent Chatham House pamphlet, Rethinking the UK’s Role in a Changing World, which shows how a realistic path forward for our country can be shaped. Indeed, it echoes much of the thinking that informs our new policy.
Our new approach requires that much stronger bilateral bonds must be forged with such key centres of influence as Japan, South Korea—incidentally, the G20 summit, which the Prime Minister will attend, will be held there next November—India, Malaysia, South Africa, Brazil, Turkey, the central Asian republics and the Gulf states. In particular, as the Foreign Secretary made clear this morning and many times before, it means elevating significantly our links with India and China, to which Hong Kong continues to provide a brilliant gateway, as the noble Lord, Lord Wilson, who knows more about this than most people, reminded us a moment ago. These are the new nations of universities, technology, advanced skills and capital investment right across the globe—Chinese investment is everywhere—and of massive new consumer markets with which we have both to relate and to compete and which we must address with respect, understanding and language skills, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, rightly reminded us.
Our approach means that, rather than just resting on our already extensive membership of international institutions, we have to connect to new global platforms such as the so-called BASIC platform—Brazil, South Africa, India and China—and to a reinvigorated Commonwealth network, to which my noble friend Lord Sheikh rightly referred. We want a Commonwealth which develops a flourishing soft power network of similar values and offers a direct source of benefit to our international purposes and interests—a role which I believe it can fulfil, and which I am personally determined to ensure that it does.
Our more intense contacts will not be confined to government channels. We will encourage a structure of linkages—many already in existence—through trade, educational exchange and services, culture, sport, science and active informal networks. Parliament, its committees, and the universities, with their growing outreach, about which the wonderful lady behind me—my noble friend Lady Morris—referred, will play a key and expanding role in the widened interface between our nation and others. All those points will reinforce our strategy.
One of this Government's first actions was to create a National Security Council. The council will provide a coherent government response to face the challenges and potential threats to our national security, including the situation in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, the Middle East, and the threat of nuclear proliferation, about which the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, spoke so eloquently and with such expertise.
I realise that time is against us in these debates and does not allow me to explore with your Lordships all those subjects in greater detail. I hope that your Lordships will forgive a brief, broad-brush approach. In the remaining few minutes, I should like to outline the Government’s foreign policy intentions toward the areas that I listed.
The top national security and foreign policy priority at the moment is, of course, Afghanistan, about which your Lordships have spoken. Our objective is to help the Afghans reach the point at which they can look after their own security without presenting a danger to the rest of the world. The sooner that the Afghan state and the Afghan security forces can withstand the range of security threats that are currently in the country, the sooner our troops, who have made such sacrifices, will be able to come home. Of course, our aspiration is that they should come home in due course, by a certain time—but that is an aspiration.
Recognising that our time here today is limited, let me say something about Pakistan, which my right honourable friend has just visited—a country whose fortunes, like ours, are entwined with those of neighbouring Afghanistan. The Government want to help to ensure the democratic, stable and prosperous future that the Pakistani people deserve. Myriad ties bind the UK and Pakistan together, and Britain will continue to support Pakistan in the difficult challenges that it now faces.
To come even closer to home, my honourable friend the Minister with responsibility for the Middle East, Mr Jeremy Browne, set out the Government's policy towards the Middle East region two weeks ago. He made the point that we are extremely well placed to work in partnership with the countries of the Middle East in a way that benefits their peoples and ours. The countries of the Middle East and the Gulf will continue to be essential suppliers of the world's energy needs, and there are similar mutual benefits of flows of trade and investment between Britain and the region. This week, I had the pleasure of welcoming trade delegations from Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and the honour of meeting their respective Ministers for trade and industry. As the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, reminded us, we have launched a joint task force with the United Arab Emirates as part of that process. I reaffirm to her, as I think she already knows, that the Government have appointed Mark Prisk, Minister of State at the BIS department, to cover trade—admittedly, on a temporary basis. We have further intentions on that front, but Mr Prisk is the Minister in place, with reinforcement from many other Ministers.
We will also work to try to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, the poison of the Middle East, support the proximity talks which are currently under way, and pursue the concerns so graphically described by the noble Lord, Lord Wright of Richmond, my noble friend Lady Morris—whose name has now come back into my overloaded mind—and the noble Lord, Lord Hylton.
We remain resolved in addressing the international concerns about Iran’s nuclear programme and the role that that programme could play in creating havoc and instability in the Middle East. We accept the obvious point that Iran’s neighbours have a key role. Indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, suggested, Turkey may have an increasing importance in this respect as it readjusts its foreign policy position—not immediately favourably to the West but, in the long run, possibly in a very favourable way indeed. There are some very interesting developments going on there.
We will continue to work with the European Union as well as with NATO and other powers to counter yet another threat, not much mentioned in this debate, which comes from Somali piracy. The international response to the very dangerous situation in the Gulf of Aden and the wider Indian Ocean has seen unprecedented levels of co-operation and co-ordination between the EU, NATO and independently deployed navies. That comprehensive approach is very interesting as it is relevant not only in that kind of environment but in dealing with other security challenges and threats which require an innovative mix of military and non-military responses—hard power and soft power interwoven. In fact a broader recognition that the channels of influence now lie in less traditional places, such as the G20, will be the key to future stability.
We have got to look beyond our traditional horizons for our energy security and energy needs. The emerging economies all need reliable and affordable energy to develop further, but that has a direct impact not only on climate change but on worldwide energy security. There is huge growth of demand for energy in oil-producing Middle East countries which are becoming major consumers as well as producers. We are working with countries such as China and India to help develop, make economic and deploy cleaner technologies, such as carbon capture and storage, and to improve energy efficiency in a vast range of new ways being developed by technology. There is the fascinating development of shale gas, which has changed the energy landscape in the US. If it is replicated elsewhere, it could be fundamental in altering the energy vista in every continent, with great rewards for countries as far afield as China and Poland, although there are some uncertainties about how the whole development can be managed. Other countries, such as Brazil, with its enormous oil finds and sugar cane biofuel, also have a great deal to offer the United Kingdom and the European Union, but we need to make sure that they see British companies and a transparent, open and global market as being in their best interests.
There is a point that I should make to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and other noble Lords about the strategic defence review. It will be guided by foreign policy requirements. It would be absurd if it were narrowed into the silos of departmental Whitehall, of which the noble Lord, Lord Butler, reminded us. That is not our approach at all. We have to embrace our thinking in all these areas within the overall framework of our positioning in the world, our foreign policy and our purposes, which in turn reflect back into the greater social cohesion in our own country with its many minorities and multi-ethnic patterns.
We will support closely the opening out of all links, supply chains and investment flows that take us deep into the great emerging markets of today and tomorrow. We badly want to see the Doha round of trade liberalisation help this process. In doing so, we will all along strive at the same time—and it will not be easy—to uphold our commitments to human rights, political freedoms, open and free trade, capital flows and poverty reduction. We will do this by working more closely with our economic partners than ever before. These are big tasks, which this coalition Government are not afraid to tackle. There are big challenges, which the coalition is not afraid to surmount in a united fashion. This is plainly what the country now wants and what it is now our duty to deliver.
Lord Howe of Aberavon
My Lords, I rise with some strength of feeling that I might be allowed to say a little more than one normally might at the end of a debate of this kind. The note of determination and optimism that has dominated the discussion deserves the tribute of a sentence or two. I do so also rather conceitedly because, to some extent, the entire debate has been like a slice of the television programme “This is Your Life”. It is as though I have been back on a television screen with these surprise creatures being presented to me.
I have known my noble friend Lord Howell probably for longer than anyone else, and I will come back to him. But the contributions made by the mandarin corps—four from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the noble Lord, Lord Butler, as an additional recruit—remind me of the potential of that great institution, of what it has achieved in the past and of the importance of our making sure that it is recharged and sustained with the urgency that it deserves at this time, as well as the diversity of context between some of the politicians who have joined in this discussion. The huge tome that I have here is the bound volume of the issues of Crossbow from 1960 to 1962. It was a period of great importance because it was when I handed over the editorship of that journal to my noble friend Lord Howell. I was prescribed a special supplement from Dennis Thompson on the subject of the Rome treaty and the law, which was inserted in the subsequent issue edited by my noble friend Lord Howell. It therefore shadows, curiously, many of the hazards that we have encountered and many of the opportunities.
Others who have taken part in the debate have reminded me of episodes of some significance. For example, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and I have shared some curious experiences. I remember vividly when we were helping to put together the economic advisory council to the Supreme Rada of Ukraine. We went to Independence Square shortly after it had achieved independence to see the statue of Lenin, which was surrounded by scaffolding. A poster was pasted on it, which said, “We apologise for this temporary inconvenience”. The next time we returned to the square, there was much better news than that. Instead there was a picture of the Madonna—the Blessed Virgin Mary. It moved the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, even more than it did me as a Methodist and she as a Catholic. I turned to her saying, “Do you remember what Stalin said? ‘How many divisions has the Pope?’”. We both agreed that he did appear to have had sufficient divisions.
I have another personal reminiscence. I was guided through the state of Qatar, which I had not much known before, by the noble Baroness, Lady Symons. She persuaded me to go to one of the annual fiestas supporting the case for democracy, freedom and freedom of trade, which is also an important component.
There has been throughout the debate a sense of common purpose despite the contributions having been made from different positions. In a political context, I mention the noble Lord, Lord Maples, for whom I have a kind of illegitimate proprietary title because for many years and until recently he was our Member of Parliament. We live in his constituency, and it is fine to find him reborn in this even more distinguished capacity.
Finally, I turn to the contribution made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. For me he is yet another symbol: this infant prodigy who burst upon the Tory Party Conference in 1968 or whenever it was, and who was my special adviser/personal assistant in the 1983 election. He is a man of formidable ability, quite apart from his precocious rhetorical skills. His speech today has been welcomed by everyone who has spoken about it.
So it is good to know that all these spirits are coming together in what I believe is a powerful sense of unity. I get the feeling that we do recognise the nature of the changes we have been through and that we have to face the challenge of those changes. The divisions that sometimes divide us so crudely—on whether the European Union is a good thing or not or whether what we have with the United States is a good friendship or not—all come together because the fact is that they are the relations with which we have to work and they are the relations with which this House is well qualified to work in the light of the contributions made to the debate today. I thank all those who have said kind things about me and I apologise for making a second speech. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion that stands in my name.