Foreign Policy

Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2010 Lords Chamber

[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.

Queen's Speech

Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne]

It is an honour to participate in this important debate and I pay tribute immediately to the new Ministers on their appointments on foreign affairs, European affairs, international development and defence. Special tribute must be paid to the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, whose wise guidance and leadership on many foreign affairs issues I have always studied and often followed. I pay special tribute also to the noble Lord, Lord Astor of Hever, whose experience on international development is widely known. I also pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, whose special work on sub-Saharan Africa and development issues in the European Parliament I was often given the opportunity to support.

The electorate have given both Houses a unique and unexpected opportunity. The Conservative election manifesto promised to deliver a “liberal Conservative foreign policy”. The accident of coalition government has given the possibility for a Liberal Democrat-Conservative foreign policy to be achieved. I welcome this new and enhanced focus on Britain’s foreign policy. The new Government’s commitment to fundamental values, democracy and the rule of law in all of the UK’s overseas activities is well reflected in the declaration in the gracious Speech of anticipating the building of richer and fuller partnerships with our fellow democracies. A stronger and leading role in the European Union, a more powerful partnership with the Republic of India and a firm and steady continuance of our historic and close partnership with the United States of America are very welcome developments.

The UK must aspire—and we have the capacity —to become a more capable, more coherent and more strategically effective international power than we are today. Clear co-ordination of foreign policy with other departments, including the Department for International Development, UKTI as well as the MoD, is surely the key. Your Lordships’ House has immense potential to help to achieve the new Government’s foreign policy goals. This House contains a deep well of extraordinary foreign policy experience and of experience in all related fields. Your Lordships’ knowledge is unmatched on an historic and continuing basis elsewhere in our UK institutions and globally. Might it be right now to create a foreign affairs committee, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has already mentioned? What better forum on foreign policy can we offer the British people than such a committee here in our House—impartial, trusted and probing in a constructive manner as this House always does? For there is much to do, and yet, without a committee of this nature, your Lordships’ House is seriously restricted to gracious Speech interventions, to Questions and to short debates. Surely we have much more to offer.

Your Lordships have, too, a matchless parliamentary record on EU matters through the exceptional work of the EU Select Committee. Continued challenge for the EU Committee lies ahead. EU expenditure is rapidly expanding. The European External Action Service, while I hope that it will bring a more co-ordinated foreign policy, will drive up expenditure. Lisbon, for all its many faults, is offering the European Union a legal identity. That gives immense new horizons to the European Union. Britain should and, I hope, will, play the fullest possible part in all this growth. Will the Government confirm that we will take a very powerful stance on all these issues?

There is widespread corruption in some member states of the European Union. This will soon need European Union intervention, which must be backed strongly by key member states, including Germany, the UK and France, if it is to succeed. I cannot help but wonder whether our new Government would be strengthened by the return of the UK Conservative Party to the group of the European People’s Party. I noted with pleasure that a good relationship developed immediately between our new Prime Minister and Mrs Merkel. I had an excellent letter this week from President Buzek, President of the European Parliament. I know how much the European People’s Party would welcome the return of British Conservative parliamentary colleagues to their fold.

European enlargement is not over, but is an ongoing process with key European countries such as Turkey or Moldova left outside the Union. I believe strongly that countries such as Turkey and Moldova are very important strategically both for the European Union and for the UK. We should work there to promote the values that this Government have endorsed. I have seen the wonderful work of British embassies here and in other nations and I, too, rue the decrease in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office budget, which was sharply felt and bitterly regretted in all our embassies around the globe.

I also seek from this Government a more active foreign policy in Iraq. The gains of liberty have now been underpinned by three elections and equally regular changes of government and members of parliament. The gracious Speech gave a firm commitment that Her Majesty's Government will,

“fully support our courageous armed forces”.

The extraordinary and heroic efforts of the UK’s Armed Forces in Iraq, which included nation-building of an exceptional kind, are well recognised and honoured by the Iraqi people. I was asked recently to deliver a message from Prime Minister Maliki and his office and Cabinet of enormous and continuing gratitude to the British people for the great sacrifices and the noble work of the UK’s Armed Forces, as well as its politicians and diplomats, in gaining freedom for the Iraqi people.

Surely those gains must now be consolidated by business development and capacity-building. The previous Government overlooked that despite the obvious and free-market imperative of British business and industry’s early return to Iraq. I have an honorary position in chairing the Iraq-Britain Business Council. I see there the immense difficulties that businessmen have in gaining visas to come to the UK and the even worse problem that Iraq has not been a priority country for the UK. Yet Iraq is the largest global untapped market. It is a former British protectorate; English is the second language there; and Iraqi businesses and Government, as well as the people, express strong preference for working with UK partners on every level. Iraq remains a high defence and security issue. Her neighbourhood is highly volatile; her stability is keenly linked to our own and to the future stability of our fellow member states in the EU and of the world’s democracies. Iraq provides a good example of the need for much closer co-operation between DfID, FCO, MoD and UKTI, with the pre-eminent requirement for the foreign policy of the British Government to be in the lead.

As the “liberal Conservative foreign policy” set out in the Conservative Party’s manifesto stated:

“We have great national assets and advantages … We will engage positively with the world to deepen alliances and build new partnerships”.

I fully support those sentiments. With the full participation of both Houses, the coalition Government can achieve them.