Queen’s Speech

Baroness Helic Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Helic (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. We have entered a new international reality in which our fundamental principles are being challenged, facts are distorted, policies are conducted on Twitter and executed by drones rather than through diplomacy. Citizens are observers of the spectacle unfolding in front of their eyes, waking up to new realities with little control over their own security. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to tell us when our Government found out about the assassination of General Soleimani. If the Foreign Secretary really found out about the attack at the same time as many of us did, at just after midnight on Friday, then we are collectively in more trouble than I thought possible.

Avoiding being dragged into a conflict in the Middle East must be an urgent priority. I hope that the joint position the Government have taken with France and Germany on Iran will be maintained. The recent events also raise two fundamental questions that we have to consider: what kind of international law are we prepared to protect and respect, and what is our country’s strategic direction? We are living through what has been termed a “deepening geopolitical recession”, with a lack of global leadership, American unilateralism, the erosion of US-led alliances, Russia bent on undermining the stability and cohesion of the transatlantic alliance and an increasingly empowered China promoting its own model as an alternative on the global stage. Combined with the hostile use of cyber power, WMD proliferation, terrorism, migration, climate change and inequality, we face a perfect cocktail of negative trends at the very moment when we are preoccupied with decoupling from the European Union. I therefore strongly welcome the plan for a security, defence and foreign policy review, as well as the Government’s intention to promote and expand the UK’s influence in the world.

I would like to make three suggestions in that regard. First, I hope that particular attention will be given to funding for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and to ensuring that our intelligence agencies, both human and cyber, have the resources, oversight and permissions they need to meet a growing array of hybrid threats and challenges. In this context, I welcome reports that the Government intend to develop tougher measures to require the registration of so-called “foreign agents” in the UK, so that anyone representing the interests of foreign powers will be obliged to disclose the relationship. I hope that the Minister can update the House on these proposals.

Secondly, I know that, more than ever, in the post-Brexit era Britain will need foreign investment, but I hope that the proposals will be measured against the UK’s national interest. I hope that we can consider as a potential model Australia’s foreign investment policy, whereby the Government review major investment proposals to ensure that investment and sales decisions are not driven by any external strategic non-commercial considerations.

Thirdly, I welcome the Government’s ambition to develop a sanctions regime, to address human rights abuses, as an instrument of UK foreign policy. This is an ambition worthy of the highest praise. My hope is that the Government can live up to this noble ambition with consistency in a world where our trading partner China is erecting so-called re-education camps for the Uighurs and other minorities; where our ally the state of Saudi Arabia has been found responsible for premeditated extra-judicial execution, and where our Commonwealth ally India has introduced a new citizenship law discriminating against its Muslim population. As these examples show, we cannot pursue our economic interests in isolation from human rights. In that regard, I welcome the Government’s strong and clear commitment that all girls need to have access to 12 years of quality education, but I hope that we will not forget the importance of educating boys as well, if we are to address gender inequality.

Finally, while I welcome the fact that the role of the Prime Minister’s special representative on the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative has stayed intact, and that the review conference will be held in the spring, I hope that the noble Lord, who has done much to ensure that the initiative continues, will be given all the necessary support by both the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary. So far, that support has been in short supply. If the Government are serious about wanting to help tackle the scourge of sexual violence, we have to be determined and persistent. So I put it again to the Minister that we should dedicate a minimum of 1% of DflD funds towards helping fight violence against women. Finally, I hope that he can also give an update on the Government’s efforts to set up an international accountability body that would ensure that those who commit this heinous crime bear the consequences.

Regardless of how we arrived at this point, Britain is leaving the European Union. Progress and success are possible, but they are not inevitable. I hope that, as we embark on this new era, we will never close ourselves to the world, that we will remain open and that we will make an effort to export not only goods but values too.