Ian Murray
Many of the reports that the Foreign Affairs Committee has produced and is currently producing have questioned the Foreign Office on whether it has the necessary resource. The report presented by the Chair of the Committee last week showed very clearly that the Foreign Office looks as though it is robbing Peter to pay Paul, moving staff around the world to increase its presence in bilateral countries in the European Union—that resource has come from other places.
Lord Ahmad, the Minister of State for the Commonwealth and the UN, told the inquiry that he wanted to look at whether we should work on a Commonwealth caucus but that he does not have any resources to do so. It seems that the Foreign Office’s priorities are the EU, the Commonwealth and developing relationships with China and other trading partners, but the Foreign Office has no additional resource. There have been bids to the Treasury, and we encourage the Treasury Bench to consider those bids seriously so that the Foreign Office is well resourced to be able to achieve those goals.
The Minister for Africa (Harriett Baldwin)
I also congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this slot on the Floor of the House. This is the second week in a row that the Foreign Affairs Committee has succeeded in presenting one of its reports.
I am pleased to hear that the Committee is visiting Birmingham today. As a west midlands MP, I welcome that outreach. I simply want to record that I have listened to all today’s exchanges, which will be communicated to the Foreign Secretary and the ministerial team. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office will obviously formally respond to the report in due course.
Ian Murray
I am grateful to the Minister for that response. We look forward to the Foreign Office not only responding to the report but producing the lessons learned report for the Committee so that we can see what we can do to ensure that Parliament can be involved in these voting processes.