EU: Reform
Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bach, for his kind words and look forward to working with him. We may come to different conclusions, as with my noble friend Lord Dykes at times, but I know that we have putting British interests first at the core of our belief. Prosperity and security are key to what we do.
At the moment, we are deep into negotiations with Europe. As I have just mentioned, the Foreign Secretary is visiting his colleagues throughout the rest of Europe. We have already set out some of the reforms that we wish to take through. Clearly, we have already made advances on banking reform, fisheries, and certainly with regard to the budget, making sure that a £29 billion cut in the previous budget would be over a seven-year period, while also protecting British positions on other matters. As these matters develop, we announce them clearly to the British public. I suspect I will be here on a few more occasions giving more details.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on her vital new role. I think we all understand that the strategy is one of negotiations in a reformed European Union. Those are the words of the Prime Minister. I understand about the negotiations side of it, but could she say a word more about the reform strategy? It has to be fundamental. How will it be formulated, who will plan it, with whom will we work and how will it be carried forward?
UK National Plan on Women, Peace and Security
Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Warsi
The noble Baroness will be aware that the National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security relates to foreign countries. Therefore, Northern Ireland would not fall under it. We do, of course, have a national action plan in relation to violence against women and girls, but I am not sure whether it covers the specific issue of women as peacebuilders. I will certainly write to the noble Baroness with information on where that element of work would fall.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend accept that the Commonwealth network is potentially an enormous pressure group for gender equality as well as for peace and security? Can she assure us that our support for the development of the Commonwealth network is part of the action plan?
Baroness Warsi
The national action plan forms the broad basis of work that the Foreign Office, the Department for International Development and the Ministry of Defence do. There are six focus countries where the action plan will be delivered. I do not think that it has been split between Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth countries—it is a broad plan that works across the world.
Iraq
Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, I hope that it will please my Liberal Democrat friends behind me if I begin by reminding them that it was H H Asquith who, at the time of the crumbling belt of an Empire 100 years ago, was strongest in pointing out the extreme dangers of disturbing what he called the,
“hornets’ nest of Arab tribes and sects”,
in the Middle East and Mesopotamia region. I must say that I think the wisdom of Mr Asquith prevails and I also agree substantially with some of the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours.
The priorities of foreign policy, which we must have and must clarify, are absolutely clear to me. They are, first, to stay out of Iraq in its present internecine turmoil, except of course for humanitarian reasons. That is easily said, but it involves a great deal of courage and a great deal of difficulty, but obviously we must do our best on that front. Secondly, we must support the Middle East areas of stability that remain and maintain friendships in what is now a sea of turmoil with what the Minister rightly described as our regional allies.
What do I mean by our regional allies? We are close to little Jordan, which is threatened. We ought to be supporting Jordan quite openly, clearly, unashamedly and vigorously in every way we can. We should support Turkey, which despite some of its present difficulties, is a strong nation and a good friend. Although it is more difficult, we need to support in its agony little Lebanon, which is facing appalling difficulties as a result of the Syrian refugees, but somehow must be preserved and strengthened and helped to overcome its internal political difficulties. I would have added to the list the giant of the Middle East, Egypt, which represents one-quarter of the whole Arab population and which some of us have just visited. The only difficulty is that the Egyptians are currently mismanaging quite badly the public presentation of their internal affairs. They need to understand just what damage that does to their own progress and road map. An Egypt that is stable and on the right road to building a Parliament that respects human rights is a clear priority for this nation, and it would be—if we were not getting some of the relationships slightly wrong—a real asset that should be supported. If Kurdistan arises and if we really are seeing the breaking down of the line-drawing by Sir Mark Sykes’ and François Georges-Picot, we must understand Kurdistan’s ambitions and work out how to support them and the Gulf states.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, and others that we must stay out of Iraq for two reasons. The first is that the Sunnis will in the end defeat themselves. There is the potential for endless breakaway in such organisations and movements. They are always splitting. Those of us who served in Northern Ireland in its most violent days will remember that, first, it was the IRA, then it was the Provisional IRA and then it was more extreme versions of the IRA and so on. They were always splitting away from each other, as each became more violent. Likewise, ISIS is being seen as too violent even for al-Qaeda.
The great Middle East expert, Alastair Crooke, was telling some of us just the other day that true Islam is resistance against established authority. It always tries to undermine the established authority of states. What we have seen, therefore, is not so much an invasion of Iraq from the north as a Sunni arising inside Iraq. That is what we have to deal with.
There has been no Arab spring. Experts talk about Arab awakening being about jobs, dignity, liberty and so on; it is not so. What was coming was always power fragmentation, digital street empowerment, the overthrow of all authority and the transmission of power to the street or, in the language of the French Revolution, to the gutter. That cannot be solved by western intervention. It was the wrong call to depict what was going to happen as being akin to the freedom of the former Communist satellites in eastern Europe.
That has to be explained better to our American friends. Again and again, I find that we are accused around the world of not explaining to the Americans the full consequences of the original Iraq invasion, which some of us certainly supported at the time—I fully concede that point to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. With our experience, our skill and our collective memory, we need to explain more clearly that what is needed in this turmoil of the Middle East is not military intervention or an assertion of American military leadership—which I think President Obama understands, although he was slightly moving away from it the other day—but an America that is a partner with the rising powers of the region in trying to maintain areas of stability amidst a sea of turmoil.
A constant theme that we hear is the danger posed by jihadist recruitment, with too many young men being seduced into fighting for the caliphate. I agree with the Prime Minister that this is a danger, but I am not sure that the answer is to talk just about values. Every country has its values and one sometimes feels that some of the Asian values—including a commitment to family life and so on—are better than anything we can deliver in the West. To keep young men from being recruited by the jihadists, we need a very strong purpose and direction in this country—a cause to fight for, a cause to be proud to belong to. We cannot be surprised if young men with no jobs and with a woolly and blurred view of what we stand for as a nation are dragged away into fighting for glory and the fantasy of the new caliphate.
On oil prices, about which we had some warnings, the shale revolution in America, which is ceasing to be a gas and oil importer—it may even be exporting gas very soon—has just about counterbalanced worries about oil supplies from Iraq, which have not yet been affected but may be affected quite soon; they are mostly in the south. There is perhaps also a feeling that Iran’s output will rise. I think that there will be a balance. Oddly enough, the people who have the most to lose in Iraq—they do not get mentioned very much—are the Chinese. They have huge investments in Iraq and rely greatly for their vast oil imports on Iran and Iraq. It is time—and I hope that HMG will realise this and put it to Beijing—that the Chinese, who are inclined to say, “Well, we don’t really have a foreign policy; we don’t believe in intervention”, face up to the fact that they are involved and take a serious view, as they found they had to do in Sudan, where they were also heavily invested.
To end, the pollsters, focus groups and election experts keep telling us that foreign policy is not important. When they look at the list it comes 14th—after immigration, health, crime, schools and all the rest. They are wrong. The truth is that foreign policy can break nations and Governments. We have to be extremely careful at this incredibly dangerous, precarious moment that in the quagmire of the Middle East our experience and wisdom as a nation and our understanding of the vast dangers that Mr Asquith pointed out 100 years ago are realised and built upon and will see us through.
Eastern Mediterranean: Turkey, Cyprus and Syria
Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, I feel privileged to follow the masterly survey by the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, of this tumultuous and fragile region. I think he is quite right, while taking us around the whole area, to avoid going too deeply at this stage into the even greater turmoil of the Syria-Iraq situation and the beginnings of the end of the post-Ottoman settlement. That is a major issue with huge implications for this country and requires in due course a full day’s debate in your Lordships’ House on all the implications that flow from it.
I will concentrate on a narrower aspect today, and simply ask: what can we in the West salvage and what further can we pick out in the way of a winning thread for the UK’s strategic interests from this general situation in which there is so much turmoil and grief and, I fear, more grief to come?
One slightly more cheerful aspect is that the region as a whole is changing very fast. Issues which seemed intractable only a few months or years ago are beginning to change. One aspect of that new scene is the energy dimension in the eastern Mediterranean, with significant new gas resources discovered off Cyprus, Israel, Lebanon and offshore from the Nile Delta, in which Turkey is also very interested. I think that the Lebanon aspect has to be put on the backburner for the moment, regrettably, because of its political difficulties. It does not yet have a president and its politics are very tricky indeed. As the noble Lord, Lord Starkey, reminded us, it has been almost submerged by a colossal influx of Syrian refugees. I do not think it will be able to carry forward new policies for developing its offshore resources, but the others can. Israel has gone fast ahead already with gas from the Tamar and, shortly, the Leviathan fields in very large quantities, which could be exported through an Israeli pipeline, possibly through Cyprus, north and south, into Turkey or by other means. So there are new chess pieces on the board quite suddenly. I should like the Minister and her colleagues to think about how they can be rearranged and what could be gained from them.
What are the new pieces on the board? First, Turkey continues to want to join the EU, but it wants a reformed EU and finds the present, protracted process, which has gone on and on with chapters opening and closing, humiliating. Secondly, both Northern Cyprus and the republic want to be in on the gas developments when they come. They may be anticipating the benefits a little, but the gas is there. Thirdly, Egypt also wants access to gas in its region, the Nile Delta. Indeed, Israel is now supplying gas to Egypt, which is a remarkable turnaround from the situation that used to exist, when Egypt was supplying gas to Israel.
Anything which helps Egypt at this stage to meet its colossal economic difficulties and which stabilises it is something we should support. Some of us have just had a chance to talk to General Fattah al-Sisi, the new president. It is clear that if Egypt can be a rock in this region, there is a chance that some kind of stability can be injected into the region generally, but if Egypt fails, we are looking into a black pit. After the disastrous wobble that some people had over Mr Morsi, who was clearly a major setback for Egypt's recovery, we should now be quite clear in our support for General al-Sisi.
Israel wants to diversify its export routes. The north and south Governments in Cyprus want to move, as the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, reminded us, but negotiations are extremely slow. I had a chance to hold some talks with Mr Özersay, the TRNC negotiator, and he explained to me some of the difficulties the other day, but there is a will to make progress.
All this creates a possibility of a sort of grand bargain for the region in which Britain could play a useful and even beneficial part. Britain should support Turkey on EU reform. We are natural allies in wanting to be in the European Union, at least from my point of view, but it needs to be a reformed European Union. I think practically everyone is agreed on that.
We could ask Turkey to be supportive and to encourage TRNC to move positively, as it is already trying to do, and we could urge the republic in the south to be readier to share gas with the north and with Turkey. We could ensure that British companies are fully involved. Just as a warning, Russia is already there, signing agreements with Israel and obviously very involved in Cyprus and in its recovery from its financial woes. We could remind Cyprus that it is a member of the Commonwealth and to look for its needs for finance to the rich Commonwealth countries for investment, which it badly needs. I do not think that Cyprus will get enough gas to build an LNG export plant as it hopes, but certainly some gas developments are possible. Some gas could come from Israel for export.
There are plenty of snags and territorial sub-sea border disputes in all that I am saying. It is not straightforward at all. But it is just possible that out of it the Cyprus reunification process, which some of us have been involved in for more than half a century, could at last begin to go forward. That would extract one win out of a generally deteriorating situation in which of course the so-called Arab spring is turning out to be far from a spring and more a scene of Arab anarchy and difficulty which we now have to tackle with renewed skill and diplomacy—of which Britain has a plentiful supply. We should use it and not be ashamed of the fact that we know rather more about this region than almost any other country.
Iraq: Mosul
Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Warsi
My Lords, we have had reports of truly horrendous atrocities that are being committed on the ground. Some of them have been verified and some not. Our embassy is working with the Iraqi human rights commission to get a better assessment, but we have all seen the media reports. There is some suggestion that some of those images may be from Syria where, of course, we are aware that ISIL has been operating and has committed similar atrocities. We can all judge how extreme and appalling this group is from the mere fact that in 2013 even al-Qaeda distanced itself from ISIL.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
Does my noble friend agree that whatever the outcome of all this turmoil in terms of changed boundaries and so on, it is absolutely the priority—imperative—to get a united front by all the powers in the region against this butchery and against the killing and bloodshed that is going on, regardless of whether they have Sunni or Shia affiliations? Does she agree that our country is rather well placed because of our skill and experience? We do not want to be involved militarily, but we are well placed to bring about and help this co-operation and halt all the horror.
Baroness Warsi
My noble friend is right; the region has to step up and take responsibility, but ultimately this matter has to be led by the Iraqi Government. One of the first things we have been asking for is for a Government to be formed after the elections that took place at the end of April. It is important that that Government is inclusive. Much of what we see in terms of tensions between communities is because communities within Iraq feel excluded from the decision-making process. Of course, countries in the region have an incredibly important role to play. It is also important to distinguish between the fact that, of course, there is a Sunni-Shia dimension to these disturbances, but not all aspects of the Sunni community support ISIL.
Ending Sexual Violence in Conflict, and Iraq
Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, of course I welcome the powerful message from the violence in conflict conference last week. That was a very good initiative. Obviously, it needs to reach not just states and Governments but all the non-state actors and private armies around the world that are engaged in violence.
Does my noble friend not agree that what is happening now in northern Iraq is an immediate threat to our national direction, purpose and security of a very high order, putting in question many of the policy assumptions we have had in recent years? I see no particular point in rowing backwards now to the issues of the difficult past in Iraq but will she assure us that we will continue to work very closely—as I think she has indicated that we are doing already—with the regional powers? That is obviously with Iraq itself but also with Turkey, Egypt and Iran, and even with Saudi Arabia, which of course has a Sunni affiliation but can do a great deal, I think, to help reduce support for the butchers of Mosul, and of course with the United States as well, with its technology and the proposals it has already made. Does she agree that in doing so, sensibly and with our own unique experience, we could help to halt this grim development which breaks open the old assumptions that have governed the nations of the Middle East since the end of the Ottoman Empire, and that we should do so, even if at the moment we do not like Mr al-Maliki’s divisive policies? They may have to be changed, but the immediate task is to prevent a further smashing up of the Middle East order, which we have sought to protect over the past few years.
Baroness Warsi
My Lords, as always, my noble friend makes an important point. He will be heartened to hear that over the weekend my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary spoke to the Foreign Minister of Iraq, Zebari; the Foreign Minister of Turkey, Davutoglu; the Foreign Minister of Iran, Zarif; and to John Kerry on Friday. He and the Government absolutely accept that this has to be resolved as a regional issue. Every state has a responsibility to support stability, including Saudi Arabia. We cannot accept that countries are affiliated to certain elements within Iraq. We have to encourage all Iraqis—the Sunni community, the Shia community and indeed the Kurds and the Kurdistan regional government—to work together to provide that stability, which is so badly needed.
Queen’s Speech
Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, in this poorly arranged debate, there is time to speak only in shorthand, so I begin simply by observing that it is a great pity that there was not a single mention of the Commonwealth in the gracious Speech. Not only is it a matter of supreme interest to Her Majesty but the Commonwealth network and our membership of it is a major asset for the power and influence of Britain in this very turbulent world. It is incomprehensible to me why it was missed out.
Secondly, on Ukraine and Crimea, I am glad that some of the hyperbole has begun to go out of the argument. There has been quite an excessive reaction to the difficulties of that whole situation. I believe that it has been the right approach to squeeze Mr Putin in various ways, by various sanctions. However, like Her Majesty’s Government, I have some faith in Mr Poroshenko and his ability to deal with Mr Putin and see the matter held in hand.
Thirdly, I make a brief reference to the grim news from Mosul this morning, which should alarm us all. It confirms finally that there was never an Arab spring; there was an Arab turmoil, which is now developing in even worse ways in many areas. Entirely new approaches are clearly needed, different from the original analysis of what was supposed to be happening in the Arab world and the Middle East.
I shall now confine my remarks to my main subject, European Union reform, on which everyone now seems to be agreed. It has become the all-party mantra, although there is of course little agreement on exactly what it means. The strategic task was stipulated in the Prime Minister’s celebrated Bloomberg speech of 23 January 2013, but there is widespread concern that the follow-up has been weak—even to the point of leaving a vacuum in the whole undertaking—and we all know how a vacuum in policy and debate tends to fill up with extremist and polarised viewpoints.
The reality is that a mere shopping list of UK demands for “concessions” and derogations from the EU treaties—or mere bilateral UK-Commission negotiations of the kind for which some of the more naive Members of the other place have been calling—cannot hope to meet the need for EU reform, or British strategic repositioning, on the scale or at the depth required. For that to go forward, a far more profound and comprehensive approach is required, challenging parts of the outdated, 20th-century philosophy of the old EU at their roots, and mobilising a powerful and sympathetic alliance across the whole EU—an alliance that certainly exists and is there to be aroused and led in sensible directions.
This is a task the formulation and foundations of which go well beyond the scope of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and, indeed, beyond the capacities of the Government as a whole. One has to remember, as many people do not, that the original ideas for European Community integration were conceived and devised almost deliberately outside Governments and often through private channels and meetings. Just as at that time the best brains were recruited from many sources and disciplines to meet the perceived geopolitical challenges of that era—more than 50 years ago—so the best brains and think-tank resources must be applied to shaping Europe in the utterly transformed world conditions that now prevail. This is obviously not a task suitable for Mr Juncker and his colleagues.
The essence of the new situation is that patterns of trade and international economic intercourse have completely changed their nature in this age of hyperconnectivity, meaning that old ideas about trade blocs, such as the concept of the EU single market, have been drained of their potency. Entirely new trade supply chains and global value chains have sprung up, almost like new rivers. Distinctions between manufactured goods, knowledge goods and services have become blurred. Tariffs have diminished and new protectionist devices have been deployed, particularly affecting services and knowledge industries. New patterns of economic and therefore political power have emerged, of which Europe is only a small part and in which the vaunted clout of the European Union, either as a trade bloc or as a political force, has a greatly reduced impact.
The starting point in change must be the excising of the centralising and integrationist mentality from the whole European project. This outlook—the wrong kind of federalism—belongs to a previous hierarchical age before the onset of the information revolution and the consequent empowerment of peoples. It is now rejected not just by politicians but by physicists, scientists, biologists, engineers, psychologists and others. Self-assembly, self-regulation and flexibility all now work organically; rigid and centralised command structures and top-down hierarchies—whether social, political or physical—do not. That is the new reality of our era.
For detail, I have no time, but in my files—and I suspect in the files of many others who have been involved with the Community since the UK first signed the treaty of Rome in 1972, and even before—there is copious documentation on these and other areas on which we have been working for well over 30 years, although to little effect, I am afraid. I must acknowledge, however, that the scene has totally changed, thanks to the microchip and the intensely connected digital world. Rethinking and new analysis must now be undertaken ab initio, within a clearly enunciated strategic reform framework for all Europe. That is an immense but essential task for our best minds in all parties and none, and for our best intellectual networks to undertake—although it is perilously late in the day.
European Commission: President
Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Warsi
It is important that these incredibly important jobs in Europe are filled by the right candidates, and it is important that those candidates reflect the views of Europe in terms of the reform agenda, which were obvious during the European elections. It is also important that there is gender and geographical diversity in those candidates.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, is there not one very useful reminder from this whole saga that, far from being isolated in its aims for European reform, Great Britain has a great many strong allies in moving towards a more decentralised and more modern Europe fit to meet the competitiveness of the 21st century, with leaders who recognise the enormous changes that have taken place and the need for this reform to go forward vigorously?
Baroness Warsi
My noble friend makes an incredibly important point. That is why the Prime Minister has been absolutely clear that he wants the right person in the role of Commission President. It is very important that the British people have confidence that the next President will deliver change in the European Union.
Climate Change
Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Lawson of Blaby
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Howell for his characteristic courtesy. Is my noble friend aware that her reference to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is wholly mistaken? Is she aware that the latest IPCC report explicitly states that estimates of the aggregate economic impact of climate change are relatively small and that moderate climate change, which is what it predicts for the rest of this century, may be beneficial?
Lord Howell of Guildford
My Lords, I will put a rather more moderate question. Is it not a bit regrettable that, whereas in the United States carbon emissions are falling as a result of the huge switch from coal to gas, the opposite seems to be happening here? Is the Minister aware that virtually no new gas turbines are now being built, despite government measures to encourage them? Indeed, some brand new and efficient gas stations are being closed down. Is there not something basically wrong with the policy?
Baroness Warsi
One of the great successes in the United States has been the development of shale gas. It is, of course, a policy of which the Government are hugely supportive. Diversifying our energy consumption and investing in green energy, as this Government have clearly done, will both help ensure that we meet our targets.
Ukraine
Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Warsi
The rights of minority communities, and indeed minority languages, are an issue that every country deals with and struggles with. Indeed, part of my role in the United Kingdom is about dealing with faith and communities and ensuring that all communities feel part of our nation. However, what part of international norms is about saying that you have to invade the territory of another country because you feel that somehow you have an affiliation to a language that may be spoken by some people in that country? Of course it is important for us to support the Ukrainians in their support for these minority communities and to speak out against xenophobia and anti-Semitism, but it is also important to set out what the international norms are.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
Earlier I heard someone in another place say that this was now a matter for the whole of the Atlantic alliance, as of course it is. However, when it comes to the matter of illegal annexations, is it not also a matter for the entire global community, including the rising powers of Asia and including China? Have we had any contact with the Chinese authorities? Has the Minister noticed that Mr Putin is going to be in Beijing in a few days’ time, seeking to secure a major long-term sales contract with the Chinese for gas that he feels he may not be able to sell to Europe? Should we not be a bit cautious? Would it not be a pity if we ended up seeing Russia and China driven closer together as a result of our policies?
Baroness Warsi
My noble friend may be aware of the United Nations Security Council vote on 15 March, at which Russia found itself completely isolated, and indeed on that particular vote China abstained. In the General Assembly vote a couple of weeks after that on 27 March, the result was 100 to 11. That clearly shows not just a NATO/Russia or US/EU/Russia issue but actually a world issue where Russia is finding itself more and more isolated.