Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke
Main Page: Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke (Labour - Life peer)
Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke (Lab)
My Lords, it is a rare privilege to hear such excellent maiden speeches as those we have heard today—inspiring maiden speeches that make us proud to be part of this House and what it can achieve. It has been quite inspiring to listen to two people who have come here and who were probably absolutely terrified when they were delivering their maiden speeches. Even for those of us who have migrated from the other end of the Corridor, it is always terrifying to make a maiden speech, but I do not think that I have ever heard two such speeches that were so absolutely wonderful.
As I am following my noble friend Lord Barber, I had a little look at his past life. He has the kind of CV that makes you wonder how he fitted in life, because he has done so much in so many different places. His speciality is the effectiveness of government. As he said, he worked for David Blunkett—my noble friend Lord Blunkett—and for Tony Blair when he was Prime Minister. He set up the Delivery Unit in No. 10—innovative work that attracted the attention of the IMF and the World Bank. I was a Minister at that time, and I saw the difference that was beginning to be made by the work that he had put in.
I hope that he enjoys the House of Lords. His seminal book, How to Run a Government: So that Citizens Benefit and Taxpayers Don’t Go Crazy, should be compulsory reading on both sides of the House. He went on to have a very successful career in the private sector before setting up Delivery Associates, which allows him to work with leaders across the developed and developing world; he told us about some of that in his maiden speech. What he said about Palestine was particularly moving, because people do not often praise both sides whenever they are talking about such troubled countries. We can learn a lot from him.
My noble friend has worked with Governments all around the world, including that of my own favourite place, Australia—but more on that later. His work in Pakistan embodies the toughest part of his mission. He is right: soft power has to go together with hard power. If you do not have hard power, you are going to get run over, and that is something that we have to avoid.
He has reviewed efficiency and public value and has even developed a new measurement of public value. If that was not enough, he is now the chancellor of the University of Exeter, and, lo and behold, he also has a hobby: he is the chair of Somerset County Cricket Club. I have been to a cricket match only once; frankly, watching paint dry was much more exciting. Unfortunately, I was with the cricket-obsessed Prime Minister of Australia; I kept asking if I could go, as I found it a rather long one. In addition, my noble friend is a member of the FA’s performance advisory group.
If anyone knows the way forward for our economy, it is my noble friend Lord Barber. I welcome him to this House and his contribution to the subject of this debate. He is so right: hard power and soft power can frequently go hand in hand, and he is here to steer us through these difficult times. I thank him very much for his maiden speech.
I have nothing like as distinguished a career as my noble friend Lord Barber. When I left university, I became the economist of the Scottish Trades Union Congress. I was called the head of the economic department but, given that there was nobody else in the economic department, my job was making the tea and occasionally vacuuming in the morning. It was a critical time for North Sea oil; it was in its infancy, and the traditional industries of coal, iron, steel and shipbuilding were suffering.
One of the reasons why I am interested in soft power is that I am interested in getting the proper kind of investment into countries, particularly when people do not necessarily understand it. Inward investment was at the heart of what the Scottish TUC was doing, and it was not an easy path. Few international investors knew anything about Scotland. Some saw potential, not least the oil and gas drillers, but there was a stumbling block in the way. It was called the “managing director’s wife syndrome”; some noble Lords who have done international development will know about that. Sexism was rampant in the 1970s. The wives knew nothing about the country and did not fancy moving to a dull and wet place, so soft power had to be developed. There were terrific films of lovely places where they could live, featuring beautiful schools with exam results that then beat most of the world and, of course, historic castles. It began to work, and I began to learn a lesson about how you sell your country.
I have never lost my interest in inward investment. As a Minister and then as a diplomat, I was probably profoundly boring on it, but we see all over Britain the change that inward investment can bring, and soft power plays a big part in its success. Try as I might, I have never forgotten the “managing director’s wife syndrome”, formed out of scepticism and a lack of knowledge about quality of life. When, decades later, I became the high commissioner to Australia, I was able to employ the lessons that I had learned from soft power and presenting a Britain that is dynamic, attractive and highly skilled. I told my team that, when they went out to present to companies, they had to view inward investment as the key to what they were doing. I insisted that they take with them somebody from UK Trade & Investment—as it was in those days—Visit Britain and the British Council, and it worked.
My noble friend Lady Alexander has already talked about the British Council. The sheer impact it had on education and soft power was absolutely amazing. Thousands of young Australians came here because of projects that had been developed by the British Council. I found it a fantastic opportunity to go out and meet these young people. Then, when they came back, they were really inspirational. But I am worried about there not being a full understanding of the economic benefits.
My noble friend Lady Alexander knows the British Council well. She was also the vice-chancellor of Dundee University. She was out selling what was so important to us: education and its opportunities. What noble Lords probably do not know is that she comes from a family of missionaries, so she knows the different kinds of soft power that can really influence people as easily as possible.
I will leave noble Lords with a very quick story about magpies. Magpies are murder in Australia. They are much bigger than other magpies, the sweet little birds we have here. They come down and poke your head, and it is horrible. Kids go to school with ice cream cartons on their head because it is so horrible. Tony Blair, in one of his first speeches in Australia as Prime Minister, talked about magpies. We found out then that he had lived in Australia as a young boy. His father was a lecturer and he had had his run-ins with magpies. It turned the whole debate about Tony Blair around, because I could hear people saying, “He is one of us; he understands what this country is like”. That is the kind of soft power that we need to use to get more inward investment.