Foreign Policy

Baroness Morris of Bolton Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morris of Bolton]

My Lords, it is an easy task to congratulate my noble friend on his excellent maiden speech. He comes to your Lordships’ House after many years of service in another place. In his role as deputy chairman of the party with responsibility for candidates, he shared with me a passion to broaden the diversity of Conservative MPs. Anyone looking at the Conservative Benches today will see a much changed political party. However, it is as a former shadow Foreign Secretary that today my noble friend displayed an acute grasp of the world in which we live. His speech was a powerful and humorous contribution to the debate and we welcome him to this House.

As the world picks itself up from the aftermath of the financial crisis and continues to grapple with the threat of global terrorism, war, hunger, drought and natural disasters, it is all too easy to look gloomily upon the future. However, as my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon illustrated, there are countless opportunities for us to seize, and I add my congratulations to him on securing such an important and timely debate.

One of the strengths of our country and its great institutions is that, following a change in government, there remains a degree of continuity and stability in dealing with our international partners. We are assisted greatly in that continuity by the professionalism and expertise of our diplomatic service and dedicated officials in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and elsewhere, of which the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, spoke with passion.

However, the new Government represent a change in emphasis and some exciting and important changes in approach. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary wishes to carve out a distinctive new global identity. He believes that successful economic policy is the foundation of successful foreign policy, and he wants to focus on emerging nations and gives particular mention to the Gulf states. As someone said to me the other day, the Middle East is right in the middle of world business. We do more trade with the region than we do with China, and we have historic and deep-rooted friendships. I declare my interest and friendship as chairman of the Conservative Middle East Council.

One area where Great Britain has a long-established but growing relationship with the Gulf and the wider Middle East region is education. Just as education nurtures the talent of the next generation here at home, it is also a powerful tool in supporting development abroad. Education links between the West and the developing world—in particular, the Middle East—have the potential to yield benefits far beyond the confines of academic achievement in those countries. In this respect, we are extremely fortunate that our higher education system is world-class and international in outlook. It is an asset on which we should be able to capitalise, and indeed many of our universities are developing links with new parts of the world—arrangements that benefit students at home and abroad.

I have just become the first chancellor of the University of Bolton. From its days as an institute of higher education, Bolton has forged alliances across the world and three years ago established a campus in the Emirates in Ras al Khaimah. In fact, we are now on our third campus because we keep outgrowing our premises. We are currently educating up to masters level hundreds of students, male and female, from 35 different nations in construction, civil engineering, IT and business.

I am also a member of the International Advisory Committee of the Amman Arab University. The founders of the university, who number leading academics and former government Ministers, want their students, many of whom are older and working and unable to study abroad, to have a flavour of the western education which they themselves received when they did their masters and doctorates in the UK or America and which was instrumental in shaping and broadening their outlook. Properly implemented, these links can generate greater understanding between different cultures and traditions, and make conflict and tension less likely. Education is a ladder of opportunity, and a bridge between nations and peoples. We need those bridges, because engagement is the only effective way of promoting better international relationships.

Finally, I could not possibly speak in this debate without mention of Palestine. I declare interests as a trustee of UNICEF UK and of the Disability Partnership, both of which run programmes in Palestine; as the vice-chairman of the Britain-Palestine All-Party Parliamentary Group; and as the first chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Arab League. The remarkable and enchanting Middle East region will never reach its full potential while the question of Palestine is unresolved. To this end, the Arab world must continue to push its peace initiative to normalise relations between Israel and her neighbours, and I hope that we support them in this endeavour. Israel has a right to exist but so does Palestine, and there will be peace and security only when Palestinian children can live without blockades and settlements and with real hope of a prosperous future.