Queen’s Speech

Baroness Goudie Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goudie (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as listed in the register and I congratulate my noble friend Lady Ritchie on her maiden speech earlier this afternoon.

We have an opportunity today in this House to look at the promises that the Government made in the Queen’s Speech. It is for us to scrutinise that legislation and ensure that those promises are kept. I am a European. I am a child of Europe and I love Europe. I find it very difficult to say that we will no longer be in Europe, but, having accepted that decision, I am prepared to work hard with other people to repair whatever damage has been done between ourselves and other communities to ensure that we go forth in a much better way. At the same time, I am not prepared for us to give anything up. We must never give up.

I am reminded that it is the 25th anniversary of the events in Beijing. Women’s rights are human rights and a lot has happened to women. We have moved back and we have moved forward, but in the present situation we are moving back very badly. When one of the partners that we are meant to be trading with, America, is not prepared to accept CEDAW or allow any of its funding to go towards supporting maternal rights in any country, and goes around the world trying to persuade other countries not to put funding into maternal rights and family planning, it is not the best way to be going forward. So I hope that when we do these trade deals with America we can put some pressure on there.

Also, America refuses to accept the International Criminal Court. I hope that we can take a look at that court in future, because it does not have a good record at all in terms of prosecutions on PSVI and other human rights. I sometimes wonder whether that court is worth being kept or whether we should look at something completely fresh. I hope that we can discuss that or put it on the agenda of the G7 or the G20 in the next year or two, because it is a bad institution.

On the G7, I hope that Britain will take a lead on the issues that it has taken a lead on before, but I am concerned about where the G20 is taking place. We know that Saudi Arabia has started to play games about women’s rights and human rights. We know that that will be a plaster for only a few weeks, or a year or so. I hope that Britain is not taken in, as other countries might be, at the G20, or at the W20, in which industry will be taking part.

On the foreign service and Ministry of Defence inquiries, I hope very much that we will strengthen these departments. We should encourage people to come and work for us, pay them and give much better facilities than they have previously had, and we should encourage them to stay and not be headhunted off after a couple of years. We need to have a defence department, diplomacy and a foreign service that really care. Embassies abroad should be serviced properly and should have the right staff who can take in everything, from DfID to trade and the position of people who need help—the whole gamut—and soft power. At the moment, less is happening in embassies than before.

On the whole question of DfID, I would like an undertaking from the ministry about what I read in this morning’s Daily Mail, which you have to read to find out the Government’s policy. The political editor, John Stevens, said:

“The foreign aid department will escape the axe”


of the Prime Minister’s scaling back of the proposed Whitehall shake-up and the Prime Minister will largely concentrate instead on improving the Minister’s performance. Now this newspaper constantly attacks foreign aid, however it comes, so I have a proposal to ensure that we continue giving foreign aid. Maybe we should have better governance over aid. At the moment the governance is quite good, but it could be much better. There should be better monitoring. Nothing should be without measurement, so if the monitoring were done better and there were more transparency between the NGOs, INGOs and other organisations that we give funding to, we would see a difference in the attacks by the extreme right, by newspapers and by programmes such as “Panorama”. We would then see a whole difference and people would understand why we are giving aid to these countries and the conditions that people are living under.

Also, if we do not educate girls and boys, the world will be in a much worse state than it is now. It is vital. So I would like to hear an undertaking not only that DfID will stay but that it will be strengthened and given much more respect from the outside world and the inside of Whitehall. I sometimes feel that DfID is the poor relation, in particular with the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence.

On those three departments, the issues of PSVI and girls’ education both slip between departments, particularly PSVI. You cannot get decisions made because somebody is thinking, “Oh well, we will have to put this back or that back.” I hope that the conference in March will take place and that it will be more than a conference, and that Britain will come back to being the world leader that it was on this issue, and that the right sort of funding will be put in. The funding can be found. We must do this: it is absolutely vital.

On aid, my noble friend just mentioned that a large amount of aid goes to countries and is just given there, and then we find out four or five years later that it has been siphoned off by some member of the ruling family or something—I am sorry, I forgot the time. I was on my bandwagon.