Diplomacy

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Thursday 11th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, for initiating this debate. It is now nearly 50 years since Dean Acheson said that Britain had lost an empire but had not yet found a role. In many ways, this is still true today. We continue to have tremendous reach. Senior membership of the United Nations Security Council, the EU, NATO, the Commonwealth and a host of other multilateral institutions are all admirable roles. However, alongside our desire to sit at the top table, there seems to be a lack of vision about how this middle-sized country on the edge of Europe can project its capabilities in a fashion commensurate with its ambitions.

The record of the recent past is poor in vision. Mr Blair's Chicago speech of 1998 on liberal interventionism seems as anachronistic as Britain's rhetoric at the time of Suez. Through our use of force, we have lurched from the positive power projection of the 1990s to international criticism and domestic cleavage. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, that if we have a “little England”, it is partly due to his Government's extravagances rather than to anything that was planned or preordained. This Government have moved with admirable speed to come to grips with what a national security strategy should look like. However, a security strategy inevitably does not cover the central question of how the Diplomatic Service should serve our national interest.

Despite the Foreign Secretary's excellent speeches in recent months, we are not yet clear about the shape and form of our Diplomatic Service in this period of austerity. While financial savings can and must be found, they will be least damaging if we have a clearer sense of our priorities. Building Britain's prosperity and safeguarding her security are not always compatible or obtainable in equal measure. The two require very different skill sets and capabilities in policy and diplomacy. The balance between them becomes ever more important in a democracy in which every citizen, through the internet and news media, becomes a freestanding and engaged foreign policy expert. On the high street, the exigencies of national interest are not always understood or supported. A recent YouGov poll, in advance of the Prime Minister's visit to China, showed that nearly 64 per cent of people were less concerned about our security, trade and economic interests there than in the plight of Tibet.

The national security strategy highlights how we find ourselves in a world that is more uncertain than it has ever been. Globalisation is in a “long crisis”, according to a recent Chatham House paper. This extended period of volatility, where demographic, economic and security challenges extend across the globe and where nationalism and interdependence are rising together, opens up a fresh set of challenges. Our values and outward-looking posture mean that we are better suited than most to confront these new trends, yet the comprehensive spending review has left our foreign policy capabilities rather weaker. In these circumstances, perhaps we need to define our power and those capabilities rather more narrowly than our ambitions would suggest.

Alongside the national security strategy, we need a more pragmatic view of our foreign policy priorities. Principal among these must be a realistic assessment of our global reach. I suggest that it should be somewhat more limited than the fully adaptive posture that the strategic defence and security review suggests. In these austere yet unpredictable times, we may well have to make a case for defining our international mission more accurately as managing global risks on behalf of British citizens. In practical terms, this should result in our lending more support to the EU's External Action Service than we have given to date to allow it to do more representational work for us while our own independent presence is reduced.

While there may be some specific differences in foreign policy among our EU partners, overall our values and priorities are surely more aligned than divergent, and we should consider how we might use the External Action Service as an opportunity rather than view it as an inconvenience. The vision of our strategic reach must nevertheless not be constrained merely to our commercial or national security imperatives. DfID’s budget and objectives should rightly be more closely aligned with our Foreign and Commonwealth Office-led interests, and indeed with the MoD’s capabilities, particularly in conflict-afflicted states, and I welcome the direction of travel in that regard.

The projection of our soft power is the reason why we are still well regarded in the world. Our language is spoken across the Commonwealth and beyond, our universities are worldwide centres of excellence, and the BBC and the British Council are almost as important for projecting influence as our military is for projecting power. Although the CSR has been “creative” in spreading the costs of these institutions across other bodies, they have all undoubtedly been rendered more vulnerable with the cuts. The danger is that years of success will be lost over a short period, with a cost to the nation over the longer term.

Therefore, we now find ourselves with these substantial reductions in budgets, which necessarily will have been arrived at without forethought. What is now needed is a hard-headed judgment of what we can achieve and, where these goals are more limited than those we have aspired to in the past, we need to set out and prepare for them in a more considered and coherent manner. That should be the basis of an active diplomacy that has risen to the new challenges, and I hope the Minister will be able to give us an indication of how he intends to achieve that.

China: Liu Xiaobo

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Wednesday 10th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

So far as I understand it, all human rights issues were discussed, and that would certainly include the one that the noble Lord has mentioned. We welcome reports that a forthcoming revision of Chinese criminal law may reduce the scope of the death penalty by 10 to 15 non-violent crimes. In our language, of course, that would not necessarily be enough but it is something to welcome, and we hope that China will continue to limit the scope and application of the death penalty.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that, while he is right that there is a place and time for delicate discussions, China does itself no favours in barring other people who are not related to this particular instance from travelling? I raise the plight of Mo Shaoping and He Weifang, legal scholars who were due to come to London for a legal conference, who have no visas for Norway and were not in any sense going to draw attention to the Nobel prize; they have been barred from coming to a conference here, although they are entirely legitimate and innocent. We must defend the right of people to travel and to mix with the rest of the world, while at the same time being sensitive towards China.

Foreign and Commonwealth Office: Educational Allowances

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

There is no suggestion, as I made clear, that these allowances will be discontinued for the Diplomatic Service. I cannot comment on other branches of the Crown service or other public services because that is another question for which a rather different set of arrangements apply. The figures for which the noble Lord asks are that the ceiling for junior boarders in the current year is £7,239 per term and £8,236 for senior boarders, which is a reduction of £100 since last September. The figures are considerably lower for those attending as day pupils.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

Will my noble friend comment on whether, given the large sums involved and these rather austere financial times, there are any efforts to have negotiations with DfID and the Ministry of Defence for a collective purchase agreement at a limited number of schools so that the costs might be constrained in that way?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

That is a very valuable thought. As far as Foreign and Commonwealth Office is concerned, the numbers are rather small. We are talking about a maximum of 2,000 children, of which only 500 are being educated in the United Kingdom. Given the circumstances of where these children go—whether to be near their grandparents or to where an available space is found—it is very difficult to concentrate on a single discount operation. This is slightly outside the question, but I believe that the Armed Forces are large enough to have a kind of discount arrangement, but we do not have the numbers or the weight to engineer that kind of system for the Foreign Office.

Afghanistan

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Wednesday 27th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I wholly agree with the noble Lord: that must be right. The squeeze is on al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. It has had to move elsewhere and is more dispersed. The process is continuing and to abandon it now by withdrawing would be a regrettable and deplorable act.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, I will pick up on the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, about negotiations with the Taliban. My noble friend's response was somewhat at variance with the Statement, which clearly says that the UK will support a settlement for Afghanistan that meets six qualifying objectives: whether it is representative, upholds human rights and so on. The emphasis is on the UK supporting a settlement. Can my noble friend reassure us that if we are expected to support a settlement, some of the preconditions, such as upholding human rights and giving no one disproportionate influence, will be part of our endorsement of a settlement? It concerns me that we may say that these things need to happen for us to support the settlement, but then allow the Taliban to disregard the High Peace Council and these statements entirely.

My other question concerns media reports that ISAF and NATO are turning to the Russians for logistical support and assistance in Afghanistan. Can my noble friend tell us more about the accuracy of the statements, because this could have a rather perverse outcome on the ground, given Russia's previous history there?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I will tell my noble friend a bit more about the Russians in a moment. First, I will deal with the other question. I do not think that anything that I said is inconsistent with the Statement. I made it clear and repeat, first, that we regard this as an Afghan process and, secondly, that President Karzai has said that he is willing to reach out to all his countrymen, which I suppose must include a moderate Taliban, provided that they meet certain conditions. That obviously means cutting ties with al-Qaeda, ending violence and pursuing their aims peacefully within Afghanistan’s constitutional framework. We will support the President in that. I do not think that there is anything inconsistent in that view. However, the process is in the hands of the Afghan people and one hopes that it will lead to positive results in that some, and perhaps all, of these conditions will be met. However, we shall have to see.

I turn to the Russian position and the rather interesting things that have been said recently about that. First, my noble friend will know that the Russians have already been helping quite substantially. There is nothing new about Russian involvement and assistance in this matter. Perhaps I may give her the details. Russia already provides considerable support to the ISAF mission in Afghanistan, including additional helicopters and basic material supplies for the ISAF forces. The NATO Secretary-General has said that NATO is now in discussions with Russia on increasing that support. A decision on how Russia wishes to do this is obviously a matter for it. I agree with my noble friend that, when one thinks about the historical baggage and the irony of past situations, this is an unfamiliar, new situation. However, when I read about it, it struck me that it confirms that what the world is trying to do in Afghanistan is to eliminate a tremendous danger of instability arising from the al-Qaeda operations, which would affect everyone. Instability and failure in Afghanistan would be just as much a threat to Russia—and, indeed, to China and the great rising powers of Asia—as to Europe and America. Therefore, I was heartened by this support. Provided that it is of the right kind, that we learn the best lessons from it and that we learn from the Russians what lessons they have discovered from their own failures in the past, I think that it is a positive development.

BBC and British Council

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I do not just agree but most strongly agree with what the noble Lord says. His commitment is also very admirable in relation to these two institutions. They are taking, over four years, some budget cuts. That must be accepted, but practically every institution except one or two is also taking some reductions. To concentrate on the World Service, its new position within the BBC overall, but still under the strong governance of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, will be enhanced and strengthened. As to purposes, while I cannot say the same in terms of precise expenditure, we will see a strengthened performance for these brilliant institutions.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

Will my noble friend assure the House that, while the budget for the World Service has transferred to the BBC, the Foreign Office and its priorities, particularly its emphasis in the strategic review on adaptability, will still be at the forefront of the decisions that are taken? As regards the Burmese service, one hour of broadcasting has 8.3 million listeners in a country which is desperately in need of free and impartial information. Will our foreign priorities still determine what decisions are taken in Bush House?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

The short answer to my noble friend is yes. The BBC will remain in the same relation of governance to the Foreign Office as now, and in fact no language service can be closed without the written approval of my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary. On the Burmese service, there were some media reports about closures, but they were speculation—and inaccurate speculation at that—and my right honourable friend made clear to the Foreign Affairs Committee in the other place the value he places on the Burmese service of the BBC World Service. My noble friend can be reassured on the point she has rightly raised.

Argentina: Falkland Islands

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Monday 11th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, will my noble friend explain his views on why 12 Commonwealth countries supported the Argentines in the UN committee? Is that not a source of some regret to us?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

It is always a pity when there is not full agreement, particularly among our fellow Commonwealth members with whom we operate closely on many issues. But they have their point of view, to which they are perfectly entitled. The debate goes on, but it is not a binding debate as no binding resolutions are involved. I expect that the debate will continue, particularly among not so much Commonwealth countries but other Latin American countries.

Bahrain

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Wednesday 6th October 2010 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the political situation in Bahrain.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)]

The British Government attach great importance to our relations with the Gulf states and are committed to strengthening our already strong relationship with the kingdom of Bahrain.

We are concerned by increasing tension in the run-up to parliamentary elections there on 23 October. We hope that all sectors of Bahraini society will engage fully in the political process and work to reduce current tensions. We encourage the Government of Bahrain to allow all groups competing in the election level playing fields and to maintain their programme of democratic reforms.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, the noble Lord must be aware of the deteriorating political situation as he has just alluded to it. Is he aware that political activists have been imprisoned, have been denied access to lawyers, that there are allegations of torture and that opposition parties and NGOs which were legal until recently have been banned in the past few days? How do we expect a level playing field in that regard? There is alleged to have been a terrorist plot against the Government of Bahrain which the US, of course, refutes. Will the noble Lord tell the House whether Her Majesty’s Government agree that there has been a terrorist plot and how they will consider recalibrating their position with Bahrain should the elections turn out to be a complete sham?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I thank my noble friend for her concern in this matter, which is very proper as we take all allegations of torture extremely seriously. We are aware that allegations have been made in a number of cases. Of course, we are dealing with a long-term situation of great pressure under which Bahraini society has to operate, with pressures from all sides, particularly influence from Iran. Nevertheless, these are extremely worrying allegations. Our ambassador has raised them and has demanded and sought transparency and due process in all cases. They have also been raised at the highest ministerial level and we will continue to pursue our questions about the allegations of torture. I have to say that the Bahraini authorities insist that they have nothing to hide and that there is no evidence of torture. Nevertheless, the allegations remain and we will continue to raise them with the Bahraini authorities.

Korean Peninsula

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Wednesday 28th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I agree totally with the sentiments behind what the noble Lord says. As to bringing these matters before the International Criminal Court, the ICC can go against an individual in a country that is not a party to the ICC only if the action is triggered by the UN Security Council, and there we have a problem. China is a member of the UN Security Council and therefore the chances of progress there are very small. However, these matters are constantly in our minds and certainly, if the ICC chooses to make further investigations and can identify an individual rather than just generalise against a whole country, we will be very glad to see that.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, coming back to the Question of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, does my noble friend agree that the role of China in several international disputes—not least with Iran, as well as with North Korea—is becoming similar to that with Russia during the Cold War? Do we not therefore, across the other partners in the Security Council, need to take a more robust stand, otherwise we will end up with an impasse, as was the case with Russia, for 30 or 40 years?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My noble friend is right. Of course we must be robust but I emphasised earlier that China has its own view of reform of the DPRK. It is not content with the present situation—understandably so—and has supported the sanctions movements against North Korea, which are strong in the European Union and have also recently been beefed up at the suggestion of Secretary Hillary Clinton in America. Therefore, the Chinese are supporting these sanctions and that is an advance, but I think that we have to move in the right direction through a combination of skill, diplomacy and persuasion to bring North Korea to a realisation that it must act responsibly or it will be on the path to its own self-destruction.

Kabul Conference

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Statement and welcome the £200 million in additional funding to support stability and development. I recognise that the Afghan Government, with our support, favour a broad dialogue with the Taliban—the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, spoke at some length today about what that means—but I wonder whether we are exercising leverage with Pakistan, which is critical to the success of our mission given the role of the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency in supporting the most violent and reactionary elements of the Taliban in terms of the reconciliation. Unless the Pakistanis lean on their friends to desist from disrupting the peace and reconciliation that there is, we are not going to get very far. I notice that the Foreign Secretary sets great store by the UK-Pakistan strategic dialogue. Does that include a security dimension, and are these talks happening in that format? Finally, will the Minister tell us whether the Prime Minister intends to appoint a new special envoy to Afghanistan given the departure of Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles? Surely a regional approach dealing with India, Pakistan and Afghanistan would be facilitated if we did not rely solely on the Americans and had our own sources of influence in those capitals.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I am grateful to my noble friend. On her second point, William Patey, a very able ambassador, is appointed to be our man in Kabul and fulfils that role. I had the pleasure of meeting him only two or three days ago when he was here. I was enormously impressed by his experience and grasp of the complexities. This is, in effect, not quite the replacement but the development of the role that Sherard Cowper-Coles had previously. He has now completed his assignment there.

Pakistan’s role is vital—my noble friend is completely correct. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has visited Pakistan and discussed in detail with the Pakistani leadership how we can work more closely together, how we can support them, and how in particular they can achieve their twin aims: to defeat—that is a strong word—the Taliban elements on their own territories and their side of the border; and to help contain—that is perhaps not quite such a strong word—the Taliban activities on the other side of the border in the Pashtun-related areas. This dialogue is crucial. Without sensible progress on that front, there will be no stabilisation in Afghanistan. That is why we place the highest priority on a very close dialogue with our Pakistan colleagues.

Foreign Policy

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon for initiating this debate. It is particularly timely given the need for the coalition to set out more fully its vision of the UK’s foreign policy and security. I also welcome my noble friend Lord Maples and look forward to his joining us in the foreign affairs community of this House, which is numerous, as he will discover.

We talk about this period as an age of austerity. It is also an age of insecurity and uncertainty. The Chatham House paper, Organising for Influence, has described this period as the “long crisis” facing globalisation. Ergo, we face an extended period of volatility as the world attempts to reconcile its demographic, economic and security challenges within the constraints of scarce natural resources. Reports therefore of the Foreign Secretary’s speech today as a first move to define his strategic vision are most welcome.

This debate takes place a few months after the general election, when the global financial crisis and, closer to home, the EU’s sovereign debt crisis was almost not discussed at all, yet it affects all public policy in the domestic context. The economy, employment, energy, welfare and well-being are all impacted by their reach. Although voters were not presented with a vision of the different parties’ positions on our foreign policy, the time has come for this discussion. There needs to be a concerted effort to define how effectively the UK can project its influence in the world and what ground its strategic reach must cover.

The formation of the National Security Council is an important first step in this direction and we await, with interest, the publication of a new national security strategy. There is now little doubt that national security is ultimately and intimately bound up with the international—as with financial markets, so too with international terrorism: globalisation has rendered borders more permeable. But the challenge for our NSC will be for us to improve interdepartmental co-ordination with better input and analysis from the intelligence community, while retaining a limited view of national security. One of the frequent criticisms of the US National Security Council is that its remit is too wide, with extensive duplication of analysis. We should seek to redefine national security to deal mainly with risks to the UK and its citizens.

To explain, we should not aim to see longer-term, transboundary threats, such as economic issues or climate change or indeed state failure elsewhere, as a direct risk to the security of UK citizens. The previous national security strategy set out its approach as providing security for the nation, safeguarding our citizens and our way of life. Safeguarding our way of life is far too broad a vision. A more focused view of national security should concentrate on direct threats to UK citizens, which have severe and longer-term consequences for their welfare. Thus terrorist attacks, organised or cyber crime on infrastructure, as well as hard threats such as military action would come under this remit, but climate change, resource scarcity or economic imbalances would not. That is not to say that these longer-term sources of instability would not be on our horizon—they certainly would—but they should be undertaken on a whole-of-government basis and given priority in the Cabinet Office or in a separate Cabinet committee.

I turn to the role of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s renewed emphasis on its role and his intention to expand its reach anew. But at a time when its budget is being constricted, it should take the opportunities offered by the EU’s External Action Service to reduce its bilateral diplomatic focus outside its strategic interest areas. It should engage actively through leading within the EAS, not from outside. The question arises of course, of what we mean by its bilateral strategic choices.

There is much excitement about the BRICs. The Prime Minster has indicated his interest in a special relationship with India, and today the Foreign Secretary has spoken about Latin America. Instead of chasing new special relationships with those with whom we are not equally matched, as a mid-sized European power, we would be better rewarded by placing our trust in the myriad multilateral forums where we have real clout. The task of building a more stable global economy through reregulating financial institutions or protecting the open global trading system is one to which we are well suited to work through the Bretton Woods institutions and emerging forums, such as the G20 and G8. Tackling climate change and managing resource scarcity are serious challenges, but our diplomatic reach there is best served through the EU and appropriate UN forums. So our focus should be to do a limited number of things extremely well, rather than do everything with varying degrees of success.

In conclusion, we need to focus on limited objectives, on an improved policy coherence, and on prioritising our influence in relation to our capabilities and our power. If a new strategy can achieve that, we will have moved in the right direction.