Sri Lanka

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I certainly agree that hideous atrocities and crimes were committed. The UN panel report is very revealing, as are other reports. It is the view not just of the United Kingdom but, I think, of the whole international community that there is an essential need for the Sri Lankan Government and others to be open and prepared to examine the past in an open and unbiased way in order to find at least a basis on which better unity can be created in the future. The noble Lord is absolutely right that to try and bury these things in the past will lead to more suspicion and difficulty, and that is not the way forward.

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, the previous Government are to be commended on appointing the right honourable Paul Murphy and Mr Chris McCabe, a former Northern Ireland Office official. It is hard to imagine a more diplomatic, courteous or experienced team. Despite that, President Rajapaksa and his Government showed no interest in engaging with them. Can my noble friend tell the House whether there is any improvement in relations between the Government of Sri Lanka and Her Majesty’s Government? If not, is it likely that we will be able to achieve any engagement and understanding, either directly or through Commonwealth colleagues, or will we have to resort to pressure from the international community, including the United Nations? How will we deliver the kind of inquiry that the noble Lord mentioned earlier in his reply?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

We all very much hope that it will not go that way and that there will be an improvement in relations, which have not been good thanks to an attitude which seems determined to try to put up a wall, as it were, rather than embrace the opportunity that the UN panel report offers. Clearly we do need a clear inquiry. The so-called Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission is at work and maybe it will be able to contribute to more openness. However, the pattern is not good, and I would be misleading my noble friend if I said that there had been much improvement recently; there has not.

Republic of Ireland and the Commonwealth

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

Yes, I certainly confirm that absolutely.

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that during the peace process I approached the leaders of all the political parties in the Republic of Ireland, all of whom said the same thing—that an application from Ireland to rejoin the Commonwealth was unlikely but that if unionists were to request it as part of the peace process it would undoubtedly be deliverable? The unionist parties did not request it so that moment has passed. However, it seems to me that perhaps an application will only follow invitations. Will my noble friend undertake to explore with the Secretary-General and other members of the Commonwealth whether the Irish Republic might be invited as a guest to Commonwealth events, perhaps even the Commonwealth Games, to help move us in a direction whereby it would not have to make an application but would nevertheless be welcomed in?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

This is one of the very interesting and exciting approaches that now become possible as our relations have kept improving to their present excellent level. I cannot make any precise promises because, as I said at the beginning, we must expect the signs to come from the Irish Government that that is the way forward, but there is no reason why the Commonwealth Secretariat should not invite any country, including the Republic of Ireland, to be aware of the vast variety of Commonwealth developments, associations and branded activities throughout the globe in which Ireland or any other country may be interested.

Government Departments: Soft Power

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Thursday 28th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, on securing this important debate. Particularly at times of international crisis and pressure there is a mistaken tendency for us to focus on so-called hard power, and soft power can be crowded out. The noble Baroness has enabled us to focus on this important matter.

I say at the start that it is very important to clarify that those of us who regard soft power as important do not at the same time regard hard power as unimportant. On the contrary, I come from a part of the world where I am very much aware that special forces, intelligence gathering, the increasing use of cyberdefence and all the rest of the paraphernalia of hard power are extremely important, though sometimes they are at their strongest when they are used as a threat rather than when they are actually implemented. We are seeing a little of that at the moment in various parts of the world. It is very important that we sustain the capacity to project hard power, which has been leaking away in recent decades. However, it is true that sometimes those who emphasise soft power find it difficult to bring the two together. The noble Baroness pointed out earlier that DfID, for example, sometimes seeks to distance itself in a way that is, frankly, wholly inappropriate. It is very important that the various components work together in this regard. Therefore, I emphasise that when we speak today about soft power it is not as an alternative to, but as a component of, the projection of power of this country.

In recent decades there has been a hesitation to speak about the projection of power of our country as though there was something wrong with that and we should be much more held back and reticent about these things. If our country can be a power for good why should we not be proud of that projection of power? We do not have a history of always being perfect in that regard, but no country has. Anyone who travels around the world with open eyes and an open mind can see that this country has had a tremendous influence for good in many parts of the world and can continue to do so. If we do not ensure that we project that power, others with more malign attitudes will.

One of the difficulties has been that in the country as a whole, and perhaps in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office too, there has been a feeling that there are other countries with greater population and more access to resources and commodities, which must inevitably mean a falling away of power for our own country. There is some truth to that. However, when countries fell away, it was not fundamentally because their populations diminished or their resources and commodities decreased and were exhausted, but rather because their conviction about their purpose failed them.

For me, the important power that our country has and the contribution it can give lie in some of the things that the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, was talking about—our convictions and the things we believe in. The issue is not just about our systems of government, but the culture of our government and the way that we do things. These are important and we should continue to project them. They strengthen us as a country. As they strengthen us, there are other social and economic benefits for our country. This is not merely an altruistic question.

That is why it is so short-sighted to be reducing our capacity to project our ideas through, for example, the BBC World Service. I ask the Minister to confirm what I understand was said recently to the House of Lords Communications Committee by the deputy chair of the BBC Trust: that when the BBC takes over full responsibility in 2014, it will restore the funding of the World Service, and that the current cuts are primarily the responsibility of the Foreign Office. If that is true, can the Minister assure us that that matter can be attended to directly within government at this point, and not simply passed on to the BBC, which does not yet have full responsibility? I should welcome clarification on that. A number of other noble Lords with much more experience of the BBC World Service have spoken much more eloquently about it than I.

I should like to focus on two or three other areas in the time at my disposal. It has always surprised me how few people in this country realise what an extraordinary jewel the British Council is. I pay tribute to the previous Government who increased its funding over a period. It is important that that funding is sustained as much as possible over the next period, although there are threats to it. That is not to say that I entirely go along with some of the strategic judgments of the British Council.

For example, I remember that some years ago I was concerned about what was happening in Peru and other parts of Latin America. Money was being taken away, DfID offices closed and the British Council office in Peru was closed—as happened in a number of other Latin American countries—and all the funding was funnelled away to places such as China, because that was supposed to be the big area of growth and development. Frankly, I do not care how many British Council offices you put in China, they will not make a great deal of difference there. However, they would make an enormous difference in places such as Peru. The policy was particularly extraordinary, given that this country is one of the biggest investors in Peru. Yet that somehow did not seem to matter. Here was a country where we had real links and understandings. It was a country coming out of conflict after the Shining Path. We did not pay attention. We reduced our funding and influence on programmes of government. Now we find that Peru is in the middle of a political crisis and is sliding back towards authoritarianism and political fascism. We are not there and we could be doing something good in a relatively smaller country where our budget would make possible real improvement in development. That would not be possible in a country such as China.

I want to ask questions not just about how much money we put into places but about our strategy and the way that we try to deal with these issues—including in our own country. It is surprising that the British Council is not more to the fore in teaching English as a foreign language to the many people in our country for whom English still a foreign language, given that the British Council has extraordinary experience of this throughout the world. Yet, even in my own part of the world, Northern Ireland, where the peace has brought us many people from other parts of the world, the British Council is not being used as it might be in this regard.

I come back to another area that I have mentioned a number of times, and about which I know that my noble friend the Minister feels very strongly: the importance of the Commonwealth. Here we have a remarkable institutional opportunity to use soft power in a striking way. Not only the previous Government but others before them focused on the development of our relationships within Europe and outside. I am a strongly pro-European Member of this House, but our interests and relationships in Europe do not have to be at the expense of relationships with the Commonwealth. Our friends the French have not diminished their commitment to the Francophonie with their commitment to the European Union. I sometimes think that we feel that it has to be one or the other; this is simply a dreadful mistake. I seek an assurance, which I know will not be hard for the Minister to give because he is personally very committed, that the Government recognise and are continuing to build our relationships within the Commonwealth, which are of enormous importance.

The terms of the Motion address the question of departmental co-operation. This is important. For example we have, in government departments that have responsibility for policing services throughout our country, a tremendous resource when developing policing systems in other parts of the world as part of post-conflict development. We have in our medical schools and colleges throughout the country all sorts of ranges of skills. Some of them come simply from long-term academic commitments and some from the experiences that we have had in our own country and in other places. Our educational system is a huge resource and strength for us, and yet at the moment I despair of the attitude that seems to be around that we should obstruct students from other parts of the world from gaining access to our courses because of some notion that they might decide to stay. The truth is that the vast majority of students at a senior level take what they learn from us back to their own countries and become part of a network of ambassadors for our country all around the world for the rest of their professional careers.

This is not something that only we recognise. I am working with Martti Ahtisaari, a former President of Finland and a Nobel Prize winner. He wants to do something for sub-Saharan Africa, and for north Africa. With the rest of us, he is trying to establish a fund to bring 100 PhD students to universities in this country. As a former President of Finland, he recognises that the best place in Europe for them to come is to this country, to some of our best and most esteemed universities, because they will not just learn academic subjects but become imbued with a culture that can strengthen democracy, as well as professional and academic development, in their own countries. It does not come out of books or down the line; it comes when you soak up—as young students do, like sponges—the culture of the country in which you have come to live and study, and which you then take back to your own country.

Finally, I will say something not just about government departments but about this Parliament. It is the mother of Parliaments. We should hang our heads a little at how we have behaved over the past few years, and at how we are perceived; but our reputation and standing are not yet completely gone. I appeal to the Government to understand that this Parliament, in both its Houses and in all its aspects and Members, is a tremendous resource for the development of democracy in other parts of the world, and to see this as a resource that can be used through WFD, the IPU, CPA and all the relationships that we can use and develop.

Again, I thank the noble Baroness for bringing this opportunity to us. I hope that the Foreign Office in particular will accept responsibility not for looking to a continual sliding down of the strength and power of this country, but for taking the opportunity to develop all its resources and move forward with pride and a sense of ourselves as a country that has something to give to the rest of the world.

Libya

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Friday 1st April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Howell, for providing this opportunity for us to debate a rapidly changing and uncertain situation. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, posed the question as to our national interest in this and he gave a number of answers. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, asked whether we were not making an enemy for life out of Colonel Gaddafi. He has been an enemy for a very long time. We have a national interest that goes back considerably. Let us not forget that this was the man who provided shiploads of Semtex and other weapons to prosecute a terrorist campaign within the United Kingdom on both sides of the Irish Sea and beyond. This is the regime that was responsible for the Lockerbie bombing and the death of WPC Yvonne Fletcher.

Let us reflect on that event in 1984. WPC Fletcher was policing a protest of Libyan dissidents outside the Libyan embassy. They were there to protest against the regime of Colonel Gaddafi, and she was shot. Much later, the regime effectively accepted responsibility for her death. But what was it about? It was the typical reaction of this regime to anyone who questioned the regime and tried to express a different opinion—not only dissidents in the traditional sense of the word. One of the dilemmas in the medium term in rebuilding the country is that all trade unions, political parties and groups that had any disagreement with the regime have been got rid of, frequently by horrible violence. What we are about—I strongly support the line being taken by the coalition Government and their allies in this regard—is policing international law. This regime has been opposed to international law and has sought in many ways through terrorism and other means to undermine the rule of international law.

It is important for us to see this in that context. We are thinking of this in the context of Iraq and Afghanistan, where we went much further than the notion of policing and holding the peace. In the first instance in Iraq, we did have a no-fly zone in Kurdistan, for example, which went on for a long period of time but did introduce the opportunity for the Kurds to have their own autonomous area in relative peace and stability. That is how we need to understand our intervention. We need to understand it as a support for international law.

The weakness of international law as it has developed over the recent past with, for example, the responsibility to protect is that the law requires to be policed. If there is not the possibility of using legitimate force to police the law, it is weak and cannot be implemented. That is our responsibility and that is what we have undertaken. That is also the limit of what we should be doing, but we should be doing it clearly, unashamedly and firmly on behalf of the international community. That is what we are doing. We have sought the support of the United Nations in that regard.

What would be the implications of not implementing the rule of law? The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, has already mentioned people fleeing for their lives from a place where they could not be safe, and coming to Italy, France and the United Kingdom. But there are wider implications. They are for all those in this so-called Arab spring or awakening. If Gaddafi is not stopped in this international policing operation, the message would be that those who seek to challenge authoritarian dictatorships should not expect any protection from the international community and in particular the international democratic community. The message to authoritarian dictators is that if they are prepared to use force against their own people—as the army in Egypt was not prepared to do—do not worry because there are no adverse consequences from the international democratic community. That would be a terrible thing.

That is why I am so disappointed by the way that the European Union has responded. My noble friend Lord Teverson indicated that it is not that there was no response from the EU, but that it was modest, limited and, as my noble friend Lord Trimble said, even a little confused. We come back to the intervention of Britain and France. Our two countries justified their place on the Security Council, because it was Britain and France—Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron—who came together and pressed the case for the United Nations to take responsibility in this matter. Sometimes we think of them as just two nations that are members of the Security Council, and we forget that our relationships within the Commonwealth on the part of the UK and la Francophonie in the case of France, are important in the context of the United Nations. If used properly and wisely they can actually bring forward much greater and more appropriate decision-making in that important forum.

That is what was done and both those leaders and their diplomatic services deserve credit for that. It shows that their position on the Security Council is important. Sadly, our German friends and colleagues did not do themselves or the European Union any good in their failure to understand that this is a matter of international law and it must be sustained. That is why when we think about Colonel Gaddafi—I do not doubt that he needs to leave the leadership of his country—there is the matter of international law. In Resolution 1970, repeated in Resolution 1973, the Security Council referred him to the International Criminal Court prosecutor. That needs to be pursued. The way to pursue that is through international law. This man has repeatedly broken international law, not just recently with his own people, but much more widely. That is how we should press the case forward.

However, if we say that international law needs to be observed there, we need to understand that that is the case more widely. I say this to our very good and much beloved friends in Israel. They, too, must observe international law. They have dealt with their difficult and perilous situation through politics and military force in the past. They have split the Palestinians, because divide and conquer is always a good way of dealing with your enemies. They have had bilateral treaties with Jordan and Egypt and have sought others with other countries but they have not been prepared to treat more widely. Most importantly, they know that the repeated illegal settlement activity is in the end not in the interests of themselves or of international law. We must say to our friends, “We will use all our resources to protect you but only within the rule of international law”.

As we move forward in this difficult operation, which will probably be messy and uncertain and is likely to be long-term, it should be not that we are backing the rebels against Colonel Gaddafi but that we are backing international law for the protection of all the citizens in Libya, of whichever side, and much beyond. If we stand as a country for that with our ally France, and with our other allies and the United Nations, I believe we will not only do good but see international law take steps forward, even in this difficult and confused situation. When things are very confused and in flux and uncertainty, the certainty of law may be an important thing to which to return.

Israel

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, I think we are all grateful to my noble friend Lord Dykes for giving us an opportunity to address this serious question again, albeit in a very short time. Most of us have only three minutes. I will raise just three points; the first is an observation, the second is a fear, the third is an appeal.

My observation is that in these conflicts in general, and in this conflict in particular, it is not only those who are in the conflict who are exceptionally passionate about it; those outside who have any interest and concern—indeed, almost anyone who gets involved—are passionate on one side of the argument. It seems extremely difficult to contain the problem and feel strongly about it, but not feel strongly for one side and against another. The noble Lord, Lord Bew, will recognise that very much from our own experience, and we have seen that demonstrated here tonight. When people become very passionate, it becomes difficult to think clearly and reflectively about a problem.

My second point expresses a fear. I have been going backwards and forwards to the region for a number of years. When I first started to go, I was a little optimistic about the possibilities. In Israel, I met people in the Government, in the Opposition and in civic society. I met people on the Palestinian side in Fatah and Hamas, and in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt, and I had a sense that people wanted to move forward, but in the past couple of years I have felt that opportunity for progress slipping away. A two-state solution would be an ideal thing to achieve, but increasingly it is beginning to slip off the agenda. Israel is the country that needs a two-state solution because I cannot for the life of me see how you can have a Jewish democratic state unless you have a homeland for the Palestinians, yet it is becoming harder seriously to believe that a two-state solution remains possible.

I hope that I can be persuaded otherwise by the facts and I want to see it, but those who believe in an historic existential right for Israel to extend the whole way from the sea to Jordan are mixed together with those who would like a two-state solution but feel that there is no possibility of a partner for peace in the Palestinians and those who want a two-state solution but now see no prospect of one. They are all mixed together and there is almost no other side of the argument in Israel. That is extremely worrying.

My final point is an appeal for international law. I tried to address the question of Gilad Shalit, which was mentioned by noble Baroness. I met his family and senior officials in Hamas and they said, “We found that this is the only way we can get our prisoners out. We cannot get them out by legal means so we get them out this way. We have found that we can do a deal with the Israeli Government”. I hope for his sake and for his family that Gilad Shalit gets home soon. I hope that the Palestinian prisoners also get home soon, but that is what happens when international and domestic law are set aside because of passions. I appeal for a return to the rule of law, for without it there is only chaos in the Middle East.

Middle East and North Africa

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Friday 11th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, like other noble Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford for securing this debate and ensuring that we have a good period of time in which to explore a complex but very critical area of foreign policy for our country. Yesterday, noble Lords will recall, we addressed the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. NATO came into being because of a threat to our country and those of our allies from the Soviet Union. It was remarkably successful, and one might actually say that NATO, along with developments in the European Union, won out in the end. A generation or so ago, the Soviet Union began to dissolve and the whole situation began to change. Like other liberally minded people, I can well recall the tremendous excitement and rejoicing there was at the success of NATO and the European Union in the dissolution and collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of democracy in eastern Europe. But those of us from a psychological background have a rather morose view of humanity at times, and I remember writing that I was concerned that our need always to maintain an enemy might well provoke us to find confrontation, and that the most likely groups with which we would find that confrontation were the largely Muslim states in the southern part of Russia and into the Middle East.

Some look at the developments taking place and are considering the domino effect, or tipping point, which may or may not be reached in the whole region across North Africa and the wider Middle East. They see an analogy with what happened in the 1980s in eastern Europe. Indeed, there may be some common features, but there are one or two important differences from our country’s point of view. At the time when central and eastern Europe began to change, there was no doubt whatever in the minds of the people of those countries that the West in general, this country and the United States in particular, was firmly opposed to the authoritarian regimes and therefore strongly backed the vast majority of people who were looking for freedom. That is not the case in the Middle East where many people, even those who are not antipathetic to the United Kingdom or the United States on principle, not unreasonably view us as those who have supported many authoritarian regimes, and indeed have been their allies. I cite as an example the case of Egypt, which is so much on our minds at the moment. We have poured colossal amounts of money and military aid into the maintenance of what is clearly an authoritarian regime. That is a very important difference.

We cannot quickly and deftly turn and support another approach politically and hope that we will be immediately believed. I remember well during the run-up to the elections in Gaza and the West Bank trying to encourage Mr Gerry Adams and Mr Martin McGuinness to go to meet people in Hamas to try to persuade them that the best future was down the road of democratic politics and peace. Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness were not prepared to do that because their historic relationship had been with Fatah, and so they did not go. But after the elections, which Hamas won, they realised that the situation had changed and Mr Adams sought to go out to Gaza to meet with the Hamas leaders. He found that they were not interested in meeting with him because he had supported those whom they regarded as the opposition. So it is not possible for us deftly to set history to one side. We have supported authoritarian regimes which have been, and in some cases still are, our strong allies. We have to recognise that and be a little humble because we have not, perhaps, handled things as wisely as we might have done.

In addition, we have had the military adventures in the wider Middle East over the past number of years. While we may have largely withdrawn from Iraq from a military point of view, the memory of it remains. Noble Lords will know that I and my colleagues were not just wary but very critical of that military intervention; we thought it ill advised. I do not want to return to that, but I will say that it has always been my view that it is not enough just to criticise something that you do not agree with, you have to provide some kind of alternative. At the time, I was the president of Liberal International, a global organisation of over 100 liberal political parties. I challenged my colleagues and said that it was not enough to say that we did not agree with the Iraq military engagement. We did not support Saddam Hussein, although of course the West did support him when he was at war with Iran, and we did not accept the view of those who were saying that military intervention was the only alternative. We said that we would have to engage.

Supported by Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung fur die Freiheit, the German Liberal Foundation, I began an initiative to create a network of Arab liberal political parties. We had networks in Europe, of course, but also in Asia, Africa and Latin America, but we did not have such a network of Arab political activists and parties. So, in July 2006 in Cairo, we offered people like Ayman Nour, Mr Hariri’s party from Lebanon, three of the political parties in Morocco, social and liberal democrats from Tunisia, and others from Lebanon and Jordan the possibility of meeting together. All these people did then meet and go on to form the Network of Arab Liberals, a group committed to democracy. These people were clearly educated and thoughtful intellectuals, and in some cases with political parties behind them. Many were avowedly middle-class people.

The poor in countries like Egypt are not very politically involved because they have to strive too hard just to survive from day to day in that country. So although I agree absolutely with the noble Baroness, Lady Symons of Vernham Dean, that there are enormous social problems in the form of unemployment, poverty to the point of virtual starvation, very poor healthcare and so on, it is not the people who are suffering most in those ways who are appearing at the demonstrations. The young executive with Google who started the Facebook page celebrating Khaled Said, the young man who was killed last year in Alexandria, and who was himself recently imprisoned and then released, is of course a very well educated and technically capable young man. Indeed, the vast majority of the people congregating in Tahrir Square are people of that kind. What they are demanding is freedom and democracy while also being concerned about all the other social and economic questions.

But here we come to the problem. If we go down the road of democracy in our country or any other country, we have to accept the results from the ballot box. We have not always been prepared to accept the results of elections in the Middle East even when they were clearly free and fair, as was the case in Gaza and the West Bank. Not only did we not accept those elections or engage in a Government of national unity, despite the fact that the previous Government had indicated at the most senior levels that they would be prepared to do that, we accepted those results being set aside and covert military operations being put in place by others to undermine them.

Democracy is very problematic, but it is even more problematic to allow authoritarian regimes to continue to resist democratic pressure from moderate and liberally minded people, because the longer that that is resisted, the more it builds up the strength of those more maligned forces who say, “You’re wasting your time on democracy. The West will never accept it anyway. These authoritarian regimes will not accept it. The only thing they understand is violence”. It strengthens the hands of those who are not democrats and who want to burn rather than change the system.

On Egypt, for example, we have heard the West say, “Well, you know, my goodness, if we have democracy tomorrow, the alternatives may be Mubarak on the one side and the Muslim Brotherhood on the other”. This is nonsense. The Muslim Brotherhood is not a strong organisation. It has some 100,000 adherents in a population of 80 million. People say, “Ah, but look at all the things that they do, like Hezbollah, in terms of welfare and so on. They’re winning hearts and minds”. That is true of Hezbollah in Lebanon, with which we find ourselves having to engage because it is part of the Government and will be part of any future Government—I am very glad that the UK Government have changed their position on that and have in the past year or two been prepared to engage, albeit rather tepidly, with Hezbollah. However, the Muslin Brotherhood does not have anything of the kind. It has some six or eight clinics in Cairo, in a population of 18 million. It is lukewarm in its organisation. Indeed, Ayman al- Zawahiri's, the former head of Islamic Jihad and a leading strategist in al-Qaeda, has criticised it precisely for that; he regards it as a co-operator with the Crusaders, ignoring the importance of Sharia. We should be very careful that we do not create our own bogeymen, fight against them and then find that we have something much worse in their place.

I said a long time ago that we would end up talking with Hezbollah because it would be part of the Government, and we have. I say again that, however unappealing it may be, we will end up talking with Hamas, as will the Israeli Government. To those who say that the quartet position must be maintained, I say that the Russians have been talking with Hamas all through the period when the quartet position was in place. I do not expect my noble friend the Minister to indicate in today’s debate a dramatic change of position by Her Majesty's Government, but I think that we have got to be much more realistic in our approach. If we press for democracy, and the people express their view in a free and fair election, we must engage. I understand all the concerns about chaos ensuing if Mr Mubarak were to step down immediately. I understand wholly, too, what my noble friend Lord Trimble said about how long we took to get round to things in Northern Ireland, but we had there the containing factor of the British Government prepared to pay endlessly, it seemed, to maintain stability. We had also the relationship with the Irish Government and the European context. We had the luxury of being contained in that while we struggled to find a way forward. That is not the case in Egypt and in other countries in the Middle East. There is therefore a degree of urgency. It is hugely important for us to engage—not just demand that others engage, but engage ourselves in our own national interest.

I have discovered in conversations with a number of the Governments in the Middle East that, while they find it hugely difficult to engage on some of the hard political questions, they are prepared to do so on some of the important social and economic questions. I must pay tribute to the Swiss, Swedish and Norwegian Governments, who assisted me and a number of my colleagues in trying to help countries in the region look at water, energy and the environment—the report which comes from that work will be launched in the Lords in a few weeks. After the Second World War, we in Europe found that we could turn coal and steel, which had been used to create the instruments of war, into subjects for co-operation. Much good has come from that and at our peril do we dismiss it.

Water and energy could become the focus of violence and war in the Middle East, but they can be turned into subjects for international co-operation. A number of countries in the region, such as Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan, are prepared to engage together in a network. We should engage with them and encourage them. I hope that Her Majesty's Government will do that.

I am encouraged by what I perceive to be a new approach to foreign policy on the part of the coalition Government and by the right honourable Foreign Secretary. It is hugely important that we as a country maintain our principles and our concern for our national interest, but that we do not find ourselves on the wrong side of history because of a failure to understand and engage with a changing world.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Alderdice]

Both the noble Lord and I know that the situation in Iraq, both before and subsequent to the election, was substantially more complex than the way in which he has described it.

[Lord Triesman]

My Lords, as I know from replying to one or two debates on Iraq, Iraq is incredibly complex, so I accept that point. I am just saying that we cannot be selective about the outcomes of elections in arguing the point about history. An election produces a result, and the result is the result.

Another quick point that I want to make is that there is obviously a lot that we can do in the area of culture, including through university exchanges—ensuring that students and academics from the region come to our universities—and exchanges in sport. I had some familiarity with such exchange in the Football Association, which did a lot of work training both Israeli and West Bank referees together. They found it much more interesting to talk about the state of English football than about the things that might otherwise appear to divide them. There are lots of cultural things that we can do, not least of which is that we really ought to look at how we support the British Council and the World Service. I wholly support what the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said about DfID money in that regard. It is astonishing to me that, having gone to such lengths to set up Arab and Farsi TV services, within months we cut the resources for one of our best advocates of soft power. That is just completely astonishing.

Finally, I know that whatever the difficulties of today and the past few weeks, and however difficult the negotiations at Camp David or in Washington, in my humble judgment—and this is my humble judgment; I do not say that as a matter of form—it is important to know when the tide is going to turn, what events might precipitate a favourable turn in the tide as well as those that precipitate unfavourable turns in the tide. That is why I have gone through the issues that I have, because we must be ready to catch any favourable tide available. Even in unpromising circumstances, we must be ready. For those reasons, the FCO faces a great challenge; its political skills are its decisive assets, on these occasions possibly more important than any other asset that it has, although I do not exclude the importance of generating good business with people around the world. Bringing people together, helping to find the common ground, and doing that—as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, wholly rightly said—with our own national interests at the forefront of our minds must be among the things that we focus on through these next days and weeks.

Once again, I thank all noble Lords, especially the opening speakers from the two Front Benches, for speaking in difficult circumstances on a difficult day but on an issue that, whatever its difficulties, needed this ventilation.

Arctic Ice Cap

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Jay, to whom we are indebted for achieving this debate, started his speech by asking whether your Lordships’ House had paid much attention to the Arctic in the past. Perhaps one of the notable references was that of Lord Dufferin, who, as a young man in his 20s, took a wooden sailing boat and sailed the whole way to Spitsbergen. This was before he went on to be ambassador at St Petersburg and Paris, Viceroy of India and Governor General of Canada, where he is still favourably remembered.

In those days, the voyage was not much followed up because although Lord Dufferin wrote letters to his wife which were published in Letters From High Latitudes, it was a cold and difficult place. There were much better places to go for resources, such as in the scramble for Africa, the struggle over South America and North America and of course in the Far East. Indeed, every century seems to have seen a scramble or race for somewhere. In the latter part of the past century, it was probably the struggle for space.

One characteristic of every one of those struggles was not just that it opened up new lands in order that there would be more resources available, but that it ended up with military struggle—the struggle for power and control. While we think of the situation in the Arctic and the melting of the waters in environmental terms—I understand that today it is expected in Ottawa that the Minister may well declare a scientific park just off the north of Baffin Island—and although there has been much said about the economic consequences, we must think about the security consequences. Those are the questions that I would like to add to those that have already been raised by other noble Lords when my noble friend comes to reply.

My old friend Bill Graham, when he was defence Minister in Canada, remarked on the fact that the melting of the Arctic ice opened up great opportunities but also real threats. Canada has sent military equipment and men into the region in order to identify its own interests and show that it has the capacity to defend them should the time come. In 2009, the president of the United States in a presidential directive indicated potential security concerns in the region, and Russia has for quite a substantial time had a major military presence on the surface and more particularly under the surface in the region.

We have always to some extent—although this was not entirely true during the Second World War when a threat did indeed emerge from the north—felt that there was some degree of protection. That is not the same if it is possible to traverse the areas easily. Not least at a time when austerity has forced us to cut back on our military naval fleet, it is important that part of our strategic defence thinking over the next number of years should include not just the opportunities, which are marvellous and the requirement to protect our world, but the potential threats to our own security and that of the European Union.

This is not solely a matter for ourselves of course. It is clearly a northward shift of emphasis for NATO. If one looks at the map not from a normal perspective of Britain being right at the centre but looks down at the world from an Arctic projection, one sees a northern equivalent of the Pacific rim, where there is a major confrontation between Russia, which has half of all the coastline, Canada and the United States and, as has been mentioned, Denmark in the form of Greenland, as well as Norway. I am keen to hear from my noble friend what our security advisers are telling us about the need to protect ourselves and our national interests, and what is being discussed at NATO in this regard where there is a much greater and more obvious responsibility.

Education: Marshall Scholarships

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Monday 18th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

The noble Baroness is right to say that we must maintain the scheme. Obviously, we have to face up to the fact that we have to make economies everywhere, but she is right that we must maintain it. I had heard that the number of Marshall scholars in the Obama Cabinet was five, not 10, but perhaps there are some others. Certainly, one of the wisest of the Supreme Court judges is a very distinguished ex-Marshall scholar. The noble Baroness is quite right that we must maintain the scheme, but we have to face economic realities as well—everyone knows that.

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, does my noble friend accept that it is not just a question of the special relationship and diplomacy, very important as those things are, or of looking with gratitude to the past? Because those scholarships can be taken at any university in the United Kingdom and in a range of subjects, they are also an investment in the scientific co-operation between this country and our colleagues in the United States, which is one of the primary engines for future development.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I am sure that that is right, and I would extend the same thought to the Commonwealth scholarships and the vast spread of people going through our universities who go out into the new markets of the world that will dominate our prosperity in future. We want those people to look back to this country to order their equipment, to provide their services and to develop their professions and we want them to realise that we can continue to be the workshop and service counter of the world.

Foreign Policy

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, one of the great strengths of your Lordships’ House is its capacity to look strategically at issues as well as point up particular matters. Today’s debate provides an opportunity to do that. As noble Lords have said, it is particularly timely in view of the development—perhaps even change of strategy—announced by the Foreign Secretary earlier today. I welcome a degree of change of strategy because there have been some very serious mistakes in our approach to foreign policy over the past 10 and more years.

The noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, gave a very thoughtful description of what foreign policy should really be about. I suggest, more mischievously, that foreign affairs are about special relationships abroad. The special relationship with the United States has been mentioned. There is no reason why it should be the—I emphasise “the”—special relationship, but that does not mean it cannot be a special relationship. We have many important and special relationships that we need to work at and continue to cultivate. Our special relationship does not mean that we will always agree with the United States’s approach to foreign policy; some of our other special relationships can be helpful in that regard. My view was always that if we needed to engage in Afghanistan militarily we should go straight in, do something substantial, then get out and not try to create a democracy in a country which was never a democracy in the first place and will not be after we leave it. What we did not do was use the special relationship with India to inform the engagement with Afghanistan. There was no serious consultation with India on the part of ourselves or the United States before the invasion of Afghanistan. That was a very foolish mistake. We should now be using our special relationship with India to enable Britain and the United States to move towards getting ourselves out of a problem because it is not a question of victory in Afghanistan but of finding a way of withdrawing without it appearing to be a humiliating defeat. That is the reality of the position that we are in.

Our special relationship with the United States does not depend solely on our relationships within the European Union. Our history and experience in those areas and our other special relationships are important as well as our relationships within the European Union. However, we must also recognise that we may differ from our European colleagues. I give an example. It seems to me that the position we have taken vis-à-vis our relationship with Turkey is right and that Turkey should be able to move to be part of the European Union and should be a much more valued member of the international community. However, not all our colleagues in the European Union see it that way. I think that they are making a very serious strategic mistake from the point of view of Europe and, indeed, of the West.

I also emphasise the point that my noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby made about the Turkish and Brazilian initiative on enrichment of nuclear material by Iran. It seems to me that this was a constructive approach and that it was extremely foolish of us to dismiss and disregard it, not just in terms of what that means for dealing with Iran but for our relationship with Turkey. We do not have to agree all the time with those with whom we have a special relationship, nor do we need to regard all our relationships within the European Union as being the same. Our special relationship with France goes back long before our special relationship with the United States, and so it should. We should continue to develop it, perhaps sometimes following the example of the French. They saw no reason to withdraw their interest in the Francophonie simply because they were involved in the European Union. I believe that it was a serious strategic mistake for the previous Government to downgrade their interest in the Commonwealth simply because they wanted to emphasise the importance of the relationship with the European Union. I hope that we will review the way we engage with India, Canada, Australia and, indeed, some African countries and Caribbean states—I take some encouragement in that regard from the Foreign Secretary’s statement—because those relationships are extremely important.

The relationship with France has been mentioned. We have important bilateral relationships on military and other matters that simply will not be possible with some other states in the European Union. As we approach this whole range of special relations I am conscious not just of the strength of your Lordships’ House in its consideration of these matters—the breadth of its purview, the length of its memory, the depth of its understanding—but of some of its weaknesses. One weakness is that many of your Lordships are looking back at their experience of how things were in a world that has to some extent changed. It has changed in terms of the reasons for the European Union and the history of our relationship with the United States. It is important that the term “agility” used by the Foreign Secretary is understood to mean fleet-footedness as the situation changes.

It has been said from time to time that much of our foreign policy in recent years has been about the management of decline. That is fine if you are of a generation that remembers when things were up for the United Kingdom; but for my generation that was ancient history by the time I came into this world. I want the possibility of this generation and the next being proud of a country which can actually achieve important and serious things. I should like to take as the slogan for our foreign policy not the management of decline, understandable as that would be for a previous generation, but the slogan that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, has given for the next generation, which is to be in the vanguard rather than the slipstream in our approach to foreign policy.

Human Rights: Journalists

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My Lords, I strongly agree. These are repulsive occurrences wherever they occur and I salute the campaigning zeal of the noble Lord in his feelings on this matter. He mentioned three countries where I agree that some very ugly things have occurred. I have a long list of the areas where we, the Government, are seeking to help and work with the relevant Governments to tackle the terrorising, murder and threatened assassination of journalists, including in Russia, Mexico and the Philippines, as the noble Lord said, as well as in Afghanistan and Iraq. If he would like, I will send him the list, but it is long. We are determined to use what influence we have, which is bound to be limited in some cases, in all these horrific instances.

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, do my noble friend and Her Majesty's Government accept that an attack on a journalist is not merely an attack on a profession and a professional? Because of the extremely important part that journalists play in democratic governance and in holding Governments and others to account, an attack on a journalist in the way described by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, is an attack on democracy. Therefore, countries which do not maintain the special place of journalists and protect them are countries which cannot properly be regarded as truly democratic, as our own can be.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My noble friend is absolutely right to put it in those terms. An attack on freedom of expression and responsible journalism anywhere is an attack on, as it were, the supply chain which leads directly to our own freedoms in this country.