China

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, we are all very much in the debt of the noble Lord, Lord West, but this must be a prelude to a proper debate on one of the most important subjects before the world. I urge my noble friend the Deputy Chief Whip, who is sitting on the Front Bench, to take this message from this debate: we must have a full debate on China very soon. Indeed, with all the expertise in your Lordships’ House, we need more foreign affairs debates.

It is often said that democracies think in terms of the next election, despotisms in decades. The real problem here, as was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, is that we do not have a strategy. We must decide whether we wish to continue to be a world power. If we do, those who wish the ends must wish the means. This issue needs to be at the very top of the new Prime Minister’s agenda, whenever he or she takes office, which I hope is in the next week or so: do we wish to be a world power?

The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, referred to how we are cross-party. The noble Lord, Lord Collins, referred earlier to how the Opposition totally support us on Ukraine. We need a national council, consisting not only of the Prime Minister and inner members of the Cabinet but of the leader of the Opposition and others from the other side of the House, so that we can plan a strategy together that we know will be supported by both. There is no point in thinking merely in terms of the next election; we too have to think in terms of decades.

The Chinese have been doing that, with their belt and road policy, by taking an option on a port in the Solomon Islands and by taking over Piraeus in Greece. We need an effective answer, spearheaded by the Government and supported by the Opposition, and we need to discuss it fully in your Lordships’ House.