Commonwealth in 2020

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) on a passionate, and in some ways quite prescient, maiden speech. He has picked a pretty appropriate debate in which to make it, and I wish him and anyone else making a maiden speech today all the very best. Some of us were also elected at pretty short notice back in 2015, and it is absolutely appropriate to remark on the welcome we received from the support staff, the Doorkeepers and so on.

It is great that we are able to debate the future of the Commonwealth and Britain’s relationship with the Commonwealth on Commonwealth Day itself, as the service has been taking place in Westminster Abbey and as the House has agreed to the Second Reading of the Birmingham Commonwealth Games Bill. It is great to see the Minister in his place; I was looking back at Hansard and I do believe that he moved the motion in the debate on Commonwealth Day last year in Westminster Hall, as a Back Bencher—a debate in which I responded on behalf of my party. The debate is a little higher in profile today given that it is happening in the main Chamber.

The presence of the Earl and Countess of Dumbarton, making their last appearance in their current roles, has given a bit of added focus to the celebration in Westminster Abbey. We wish them all the best as they move on to pastures new. Another attendee in the abbey, as well as Mr Speaker, was the Speaker of the Malawian Parliament, the right hon. Catherine Gotani Hara, whom I had the immense privilege of meeting when I was in Malawi last year and with whom I enjoyed a very nice lunch this afternoon. The bringing together of such a number of different people from a number of different backgrounds and different parts of the world shows the effect of the Commonwealth.

The theme for Commonwealth Day in the year ahead is “Delivering a Common Future: Connecting, Innovating and Transforming”. It certainly will be a year—indeed years to come now—of innovation and transformation in the UK’s relationship with the rest of the world, and not necessarily for the better. I hope that Scotland’s constitutional future and international relations will also be transformed; I might say a bit more about that later.

It is worth reflecting, as others have, on both the history of and the recent developments in the Commonwealth. Last year’s debate was marked the 70th anniversary. That milestone has come and gone, but the institution continues to demonstrate its relevance and interests to the member states. We welcome, as others have, the readmission of the Maldives to the Commonwealth at the start of this month, following a period of internal democratic reform that resulted in its becoming the 54th member. That shows how the Commonwealth can be a force for good.

The UK’s term as chair-in-office is coming to an end, and the position will be taken on by Rwanda. As the shadow Minister remarked, that is unusual and a first, because Rwanda is not a former British colony. It is also a member of La Francophonie collection of nations, so it has a very interesting dual role.

Like the hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore), who made a brief intervention, I was on the delegation of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association that was part of the preparatory work for Rwanda taking on the chair-in-office. We noted features of its democracy, including its high level of female participation and representation in Parliament, and its stable and growing economy—remarkable in that part of the world and given the country’s history. But there are also concerns around freedom of the press and freedom of participation, and it is right that such issues should be raised. The delegates at that conference will have much to learn and discuss.

I pay tribute more widely to the role of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. I was an executive member between 2015 and 2017, and found it a valuable experience. The CPA plays an important role in connecting parliamentarians, and promoting mutual learning, sharing and partnership. It does not simply say, “Look at what a great example we can set here in the United Kingdom”, but asks, “What can we learn from different Parliaments around the world?” I mean, a number of members of the Commonwealth still include hereditary members of the aristocracy in their legislatures —Tonga, Lesotho and a small island state known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: it is not our job to go and lecture other members of the Commonwealth on the ideal models of democratic participation. We should all be in learning mode.

One of the most celebrated features of the Commonwealth is, of course, the Commonwealth games, which leave a lasting legacy wherever they are held. I was taught to swim in the Commonwealth pool in Edinburgh, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in January. The 2014 games in Glasgow also left a lasting and visible legacy in that city. Over the period from 2007 to 2014, the games contributed £740 million to the city’s gross value added, so Birmingham has very much to look forward to in the years to come. I just hope that it gets weather as exquisite as we had for those two weeks in 2014, which has not been repeated.

As well as looking at the past, I want to look at the future, and how the institution will develop in years to come. I am not sure whether it has been touched on yet, but we cannot ignore questions about how the secretariat is funded, financed and run, because we have to keep the house of the institution in order. Failings in that area might lead some members—there are plenty of voices in Australia, for example—to question the value of the entire institution, which would be pretty unfortunate. That is why we have to look back to the principles of partnership, mutual learning and accountability.

The bigger challenge that the Commonwealth has faced, and which has been touched on, is the difference between the declarations and statements made and the ambitions that the Commonwealth has for itself, and then the reality in many of its member countries. It champions—and we want to champion—democracy and human rights, but there are gaps and standards that are not lived up to, and that is particularly true on the question of LGBT rights, about which the shadow Minister spoke so eloquently; I entirely agree with him.

I admit that Malawi—a country that I have close and fond relationships with—is behind the curve in recognising the rights and freedoms that the LGBT community should have. If the Commonwealth is to be a force for good and make a difference in the modern world, these are the kinds of issues that it must seek to address through its structures and among its membership. That brings me to the role of the United Kingdom and its relationship with the Commonwealth, and how it fits with the concept of a global Britain.

For all the undoubted value that the Commonwealth brings to its members, it can never be a substitute or alternative to membership of the European Union. The fundamental differences are clear even from the names of the organisations. The Commonwealth is about a shared heritage and shared ambitions. The European Union is a political, economic—and, yes, a social and cultural—union. Membership of the EU has delivered economic benefits that are simply not possible for our relationship with the Commonwealth to replicate. The relative size of the economy, the nature of the trade in goods and services, and the sheer facts of geography and requirements of transport, mean that no trading relationship with Commonwealth countries could match what we had with the European Union.

If the Government do want to strike ambitious trade deals with Commonwealth countries, there will have to be arrangements, and give and take, on both sides. India, for example, has already signalled that it would want to see an easing on visa restrictions and travel opportunities. Therefore, although Brexiteers might rejoice in the ending of freedom of movement within Europe, the reality is that modern trade relies on the movement of labour, irrespective of our trading partners. People will still want to travel as a consequence of any future trade deals that might be entered into.

What the Commonwealth certainly is not, and should not be thought of as, is some route back to the bygone days of an empire or Britannia ruling the waves. Even if some of the more extreme elements on the Tory Back Benches were to think this desirable, it would quite understandably be resisted by the other member states. When the UK Government try to brand these islands as “global Britain”, we have to ask how that reality matches the rhetoric, because even for Commonwealth countries—the countries with which we are supposed to have the most historic ties, which so many Brexiteers saw as somehow preferable to our historic European ties—access to the UK is limited and constrained. I, and colleagues who are with me in the Chamber, have repeatedly raised concerns about the ability of artists, academics and businesses to get visas—not to stay, settle down, take jobs away or cream off the welfare state, but just to access the country to attend conferences and cultural events—yet they still face massive and expensive bureaucratic hurdles.

When I was in Malawi last year, we went to visit the British high commission, and it was festooned with “Britain is GREAT” branding, and adverts saying, “Come to the United Kingdom and take part in the Chevening scholarships”. Yet the night before we had been discussing with young Malawian members of civil society the fact that they could not even apply for the Chevening scholarships because they were not getting their visas. We hear time and again of visitors who come here, invited by the British Council and by the Commonwealth Secretariat, and who are denied their visas and access to the United Kingdom. So the notion of Britain being open for business—of global Britain in some new, glorious era—simply does not match reality.

Nowhere is that clearer—again, I echo the shadow Minister on this—than on the issue of the visa charges for Commonwealth citizens who have served in the UK armed forces. When personnel who are Commonwealth citizens leave the UK armed forces and wish to apply to continue to live in the country that they have served for years, they face fees of thousands of pounds to do so. The Royal British Legion reckons that a service leaver with a partner and two children will be presented with a bill of almost £10,000 to continue to live in the UK, despite their years of sacrifice and service. Without leave to remain, these veterans are cut off from being able to access employment or state support, leaving them and their families reliant on charitable funds or facing repatriation to their country of origin. We wholeheartedly support the Royal British Legion and others who are campaigning for these fees to be scrapped for Commonwealth service leavers.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

For the record, there are a huge number of people on the Conservative Benches who entirely agree with that point. We should look after these men. I have served with Fijians of great distinction. They have the right to stay here, and we should not charge them for it.

[Patrick Grady]

I thank the hon. and gallant Gentleman for his comments. Perhaps if we put forward some amendments to an immigration Bill, when it comes, we can achieve some cross-party consensus on this.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

We are hearing from members of the armed forces and the Royal British Legion that these people have been recruited because we are not meeting our own recruitment targets here in the UK. We are going out to these countries and actively recruiting: promising the earth and then delivering very little for their families. It really is not how we should be operating.

[Patrick Grady]

I entirely agree. My hon. Friend speaks with some experience on these matters. The mismatch between rhetoric and reality is a bit of a theme on a number of issues in this debate, particularly the final one that I want to touch on. Again, this will not be a surprise to the Minister, because we have exchanged words on it in Westminster Hall on many occasions.

The issue is, of course, the UK’s role in the question of sovereignty over the Chagos Islands. Mauritius, which claims sovereignty and whose sovereignty has in fact been recognised by a resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, is a fellow member of the Commonwealth. Where is global Britain in all of this? Mauritius has had to seek an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice. The UN resolution stated that the United Kingdom should surrender the British Indian Ocean Territory unconditionally, and the deadline for that was breached in November 2019. Where is global Britain in all that? Where is the respect for the partnership of the Commonwealth of Nations?

[Andrew Rosindell]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Patrick Grady]

Yes, I happily give way to the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on overseas territories.

[Andrew Rosindell]

I totally understand and accept the points that the hon. Gentleman is making about the Chagos Islands and Mauritius, but will the Chagossians be consulted on whose sovereignty they wish to fall under? As we have that policy with all our overseas territories, such as Gibraltar and the Falklands, which have had a referendum, surely the Chagossians should be the people who should determine their destiny of their own homeland.

[Patrick Grady]

As the hon. Gentleman well knows, I am a huge fan of popular sovereignty and very committed to the concept of self-determination. But I do not want to make light of his comment; he is absolutely right. The point that I am trying to make is in the context of how the UK Government respect the rules-based order and the decisions coming from multilateral institutions that they claim to want to take part in and respect. Absolutely—the Chagossian community themselves should be at the heart of the decision-making process about their future and the future of their islands. I look forward to hearing from the Minister on that. It is probably not the last he is going to hear of it, if it falls within his wider ministerial remit.

This is the challenge regarding the question of Britain’s role in the Commonwealth in 2020. The reality that we have experienced with Brexit is that it is a fundamentally narrow, isolationist decision that will reduce the UK’s role on the world stage, and its relationship with the Commonwealth should not be used as a fig leaf to cover that reality. That stands in contrast with the ambition of my party and an increasing number—in fact, perhaps now a majority—of people in Scotland for a Scotland that plays a fuller role on the world stage as an independent country that defines its independence by its membership of supranational, international multilateral organisations like the Commonwealth of Nations, the United Nations and the European Union.

The more the United Kingdom bangs its isolationist drum and sooks up to superpowers at the expense of the established multilateral system, the sooner the day of Scotland’s independence and its membership as the 55th member of the Commonwealth of Nations will come.