Queen's Speech

Lord Harrison Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harrison]

My Lords, I too have long admired the experience and expertise of the noble Lord, Lord Howell, in the field of foreign affairs. I have also admired his agility over the years in outflanking the right-wing Eurosceptics on his Back Benches, and I hope that he forms a coalition within the coalition with my Liberal Democrat friends to ensure that that is reinforced.

I would have appreciated it if the Minister had been present when the trio of Ministers set off for Afghanistan and fell out within that narrow coalition, such that Dr Fox told us that the British Government were not there to promote women’s education as an example of soft power and Mr Mitchell replied that he was. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Astor of Hever, whom I also welcome to the Front Bench, could explain what the line is.

I welcome the fact that the international development section of the proposal says that the Government will honour the aid commitments, particularly to live up to the 0.7 per cent gross national income ambition by 2013—a very early date. This is indeed ambitious; the Labour Government achieved a change from 0.28 per cent to 0.52 per cent over the period of their government, and I would like to know what the Minister is planning in order to achieve that. If it is inscribed in legislation as something that has to be done, what happens if there is a failure in such an ambitious plan?

One of the purposes of aid has been demonstrated by the commitments given by Prime Ministers Blair and Brown, especially about Africa in the Gleneagles agreement. This week we have had a report from the One Campaign, headed by Bono and Bob Geldof, to demonstrate that Africa is changing because aid has been put in and more democracies have appeared. That is very welcome, and let us see what happens in future. As the Government are proposing that Africa has a seat on the United Nations Security Council, perhaps the Minister will give us some ideas about how the representative might be chosen.

I welcome the commitment to the Commonwealth, strengthened as a focus for promoting democratic values and development. That is good, but what are the new ideas and what are some of the challenges ahead? One such challenge is that in time the Queen will no longer be with us, much to our regret, but it is not true that Prince Charles will inherit the position of head of the Commonwealth. What is the coalition’s thinking about that?

In terms of new ideas, I would like it recognised that this House is very much the House of the Commonwealth. We have many representatives of those who have been brought up or lived their lives in the Commonwealth and have great engagement with it. Does the coalition agree with that? Can we strengthen some of those ties? Let us be a bit imaginative. Could we invite members of other Parliaments elsewhere in the Commonwealth to attend here on an occasional basis?

Added to that, I caution colleagues opposite in the coalition that if they are to reform the House of Lords in the way that they describe: please do not lose the baby with the bathwater. We have enormous expertise in this House regarding not just the Commonwealth and foreign affairs but Europe. I give as an example the late Lord Dahrendorf; he was a German commissioner in the European Community of those days and ended up as a distinguished Member of this House who enormously improved what we could do. Please do not lose that.

What plans does the coalition have about appointing Peers? I thought that it was an excellent innovation by our Labour Government to appoint some excellent Members to the peerage to represent us on the Front Bench. I give just one example: the noble Lord, Lord Malloch-Brown, brought in from the United Nations. That was very good.

The Commonwealth is also represented here by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. I hope that the coalition can try to deal with some of the scepticism found in the British media and press. I give the example of the CPA visit here to witness the elections. A very dusty and sceptical interview took place on the “Today” programme. Sad as I was that we made mistakes during the election in terms of not having sufficient ballot papers and not enabling people to vote, it showed that we have things to learn from the Commonwealth—it is not just a one-way matter.

I bring to the attention of colleagues opposite the fact that I recently attended the British Islands and Mediterranean conference as a regional executive of the CPA. There is much to learn from the smaller and the new Administrations that are represented there. They, like small businesses, often have the ability to innovate, change and think afresh. I was pleased when I visited our Dutch friends last year—I hope that this too will be copied—that our then Foreign Secretary David Miliband had visited them and that his visit had gone down very well. We must take care of the smaller countries within the European Union as well.

Represented at this conference on the Isle of Man were of course the Channel Islands, Malta, the Isle of Man and Cyprus. The Minister will know that today the Cyprus talks have been reconvened, with the Turkish Cypriots in the north no longer represented by President Talat, for whom I have great sympathy, but by Mr Eroglu. I hope that we do whatever we can. Here is an opportunity for the new coalition to try to help the restarted talks and see whether some initiatives can be made there.

I was sorry to see that in the document produced by the coalition there was no mention of the single European market and its completion, or at least its further deepening. This to me is a classic example of where we could coalesce as a House of Lords by promoting the lodestone, in my view, of the European Union: to create that open and free market, which would be of enormous benefit to all those who work within it.

I am sorry to say that I have not been able to make remarks on the growth of the Members of the European Parliament. I hope that we are better engaged with those. I praise our own spokesman, my noble friend Lady Kinnock, who is a distinguished former Member of the European Parliament, as now are members of the coalition Government, such as Nick Clegg and other colleagues. We should re-engage with the European Parliament. I hope that the Conservatives will rethink their allying themselves with some of their stranger bedfellows on the European continent.