Queen’s Speech

Lord Stone of Blackheath Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stone of Blackheath (Lab)]

My Lords, the gracious Speech did not refer to Egypt, but when a group of us from this House visited there earlier this year, Egyptians, knowing that their country had been mismanaged for some time, asked us for our help. They face huge problems with education and healthcare, the large numbers of unemployed causing unrest, the need to retrain people for technical jobs, an acute shortage of energy that is limiting industrial expansion and their reliance on imported basic foods, wheat, sugar and oil to expand their agriculture.

Since that visit, we have established an active All-Party Parliamentary Group on Egypt, and the Egyptians that we met there have worked hard, through Samir Takla, a devoted Egyptian expat here, to arrange for 20 of us, from both Houses and all parties, to go again to Egypt this coming weekend. The Mohammed Farid Kamis Foundation, which built the British University in Egypt, has arranged for us to meet the Prime Minister, the Foreign and Interior Ministers, the Grand Mufti, the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, His Holiness the Coptic Pope, Mohamed Fayek, the chairman of the National Council for Civil Rights and people from all sides in the parliamentary elections, and we will be accompanied by the British ambassador to Egypt, James Watt.

In view of our country’s historical relations with Egypt, its strategic location and its influence in the Middle East, Egypt must be a priority for our help. I am told that in Syria, following the collapse and descent into chaos of that country, we have allocated £600 million for humanitarian aid for those affected. If we aid the new Egyptian Parliament, as soon as it is in place, to act decisively, responsibly, transparently and mindfully, we could perhaps, with the use of tens of millions of pounds, help it to turn that country around. The Minister offered this “smarter aid” in her opening remarks for good governance and the rule of law.

We in your Lordships’ House have a part to play too. Egyptians asked for the experienced parliamentarians of our APPG to be part of a process to facilitate with them a continuing national dialogue. We are already in discussions with them on their need for religious freedoms, civil liberties, women’s rights, the rule of law and equality in their economy, but they want us, immediately their Parliament is formed, to help them to begin to mobilise all available energies within Egypt by creating what we have now termed the Middle East Centre for Civic Involvement, MECCI, which would be used to identify issues, find solutions and prioritise them for the people. We would do this using the facilities in their great international universities where the faculty would involve their wider academia, the students would link to youth, and experts from the UK could act as facilitators.

Within Egypt’s 94 million people, there are many groupings that have their own hopes, fears, grievances and aspirations—Copts, Nubians, the youth, women’s groups, health professionals and educators. MECCI would establish within Egypt a robust process of sensitive, patient long-term dialogue with short-term feedback, and would facilitate listening to each and every group and help to translate their frustrations and fears into pragmatic slates of requests. At the same time, we would offer the parliamentarians and local devolved authorities tools to find solutions and prioritise these. There would be continuous feedback to the people on plans, actions taken and progress. I would like to make it clear that this new Middle East Centre for Civic Involvement would be a tool for parliamentarians and the people to communicate with each other, and would be closely affiliated to our All-Party Parliamentary Group on Egypt.

Today I am asking noble Lords to help us to help Egypt to gain the governance that it seeks, and for Her Majesty’s Government to support this work whereby Britain could help to facilitate wider reform and stability of the whole region. Over time, with the experience that we gain in Egypt, MECCI will begin to link with other individual countries in the region. Sheikh Mohamed Bin Issa Al-Jaber’s MBI Foundation has generously this month provided ample funding for a scoping exercise for MECCI. Sheikh Mohamed has been promoting better education and governance across the region for over 20 years. His generosity now has allowed us to spend time interviewing consultants familiar with the situation who have successfully dealt with similar conditions elsewhere. Together we will plan out how MECCI might work in practical terms, what it would cost to set up, and how it can be funded sustainably.

We have consulted on all this with the Egyptian ambassador here in the UK, its Minister for Foreign Affairs, its team who put together the constitution, and all the people we met on our first visit. They all realise that they are taking on a huge task to restore Egypt to its former glory. I hope that Her Majesty’s Government will see that if we do not succeed in helping Egypt to rule with the will of its people, it could become another Syria. There are forces afoot within Egypt and in other countries that would actually like Egypt to follow Syria and for mayhem to ensue. We need to support Egyptians through this dialogue to help to remove the causes of conflict, instability and extremism; to promote national unity and thus restore peace; and to re-establish their tourist industry and regain the confidence of foreign investors through the respect for the rule of law. Were Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and others in the Maghreb to find their feet in these next years and begin to work and trade together, they could serve as a light to the nations that surround them, which could be the beginning of a Middle East and north Africa that contributes greatly to the world’s economy, ecology, art, science, medicine and culture.

In closing, having kept the Foreign Office and DfID informed on all this since we returned, I ask the Minister whether Her Majesty’s Government are prepared to offer a positive message of support for MECCI that we 20 parliamentarians can take to the people of Egypt and their parliamentarians this weekend.