Soft Power and the UK’s Influence (Select Committee Report)

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2015 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

To move that this House takes note of the Report of the Select Committee on Soft Power and the UK’s Influence on Persuasion and Power in the Modern World (Session 2013–14, HL Paper 150).

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, in asking your Lordships to take note of this report on power and persuasion in the modern world, I begin by thanking the excellent members of this committee, who worked tirelessly and showed great patience towards their chairman. I particularly thank the superb service we received from the clerks to the committee, particularly Susannah Street and Tristan Stubbs, our adviser Ben O’Loughlin and additional helpers. What they were able to do in terms of producing at rapid speed immense drafts covering immensely complex areas was quite remarkable. The whole committee is very grateful to them.

I also thank the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for replying to our report in a helpful document. It did not, of course, accept all our recommendations or agree with everything, but it clearly recognised the validity of a number of our themes. However, this report was not directed solely at the FCO, or even solely at the Government. It certainly concerned a range of departments and aimed its remarks wider than government altogether, because we are talking about both a governmental and national story. I also thank the witnesses who came before us—we had a great many—and those from all over the world who put in written evidence in enormous volumes.

Although it is a year since the report was published, it has, in a sense, improved with age—rather like a fine claret or a good cheese. Its relevance seems to have increased with time. We have seen in the past year how Vladimir Putin and the barbaric, so-called Islamic State can bend and abuse soft power and communications techniques in the digital age to persuade the world of their ugly aims, to misinform and recruit, and to terrify and outwit the West. We need to learn lessons from this. A sort of “cold peace”—not quite a cold war—has descended, which creates entirely new conditions to which we have to adjust. We can also learn from the billions of dollars being spent by many other nations in developing their soft power messaging nowadays—although some of this is, frankly, naked propaganda. One of the points emerging from our report is that propaganda, if that is what it becomes, loses all credibility. Persuasion through soft power is much more subtle.

This brings me to the first of four messages from the report that I should like to highlight. First, soft power is not an alternative to hard power. In the new global landscape, if we are to safeguard our national security and interests, and sustain our global influence, both soft power and hard power are needed. This point has not been grasped by some commentators. This mixture has been dubbed “smart power”, but it goes further than that. To defend ourselves, however well equipped are our Armed Forces, as they must be, we need to win the narrative as well. In the information age, with half the world on the world wide web and, apparently, more mobile telephones than human beings on the planet, this involves priorities and resources far outside the usual definitions of military spending. We now have to operate on new strategic frontiers, as the very eloquent director of Chatham House, Dr Robin Niblett, pointed out to us. We may not want any conflicts, but there are new tools of conflict that we have to be ready to use. In other words—as General Sir Graham Lamb shrewdly observed in this morning’s papers—while we need more expenditure to defend our nation, it needs to be of the right kind and we must be careful not to prepare to fight the last war under the totally new conditions that now exist.

Secondly, Britain has enormous assets of power and influence to operate in this completely changed environment, but we could use them much better. Britain is remarkably well regarded around the world, and our report gives a long list of our strengths. Our global reach and influence in terms of culture, creative industries, education, sports, health, services of every kind—particularly financial—legal procedures, accounting methods, scientific research and technical ingenuity is enormous, right across the planet. Our language carries its own internal DNA and attitudes across the planet, and across cyberspace. Our institutions are widely admired and copied, including the monarchy and Parliament itself, despite the rotten press that Parliament gets at home. Our instruments of communication and cultural diplomacy, notably the BBC World Service and the British Council, are highly effective and seen as models. Our scholarships and exchanges, though not nearly as extensive as some of us would like, are a powerful added attraction.

The BBC World Service, by the way, is reckoned to be the world’s most trusted news medium, even though it faces huge competition from digital media and other TV channels developing around the world, such as Al-Jazeera—and there are many others. Perhaps most of all, as power and wealth shift eastward, we in Britain are embedded in the institutions and structures of this new global network as few other countries are—we are very fortunate in that respect—notably through the 53-nation Commonwealth. I declare an interest as President of the Royal Commonwealth Society. Frankly, however, the committee was not entirely convinced that our policymakers have grasped the full value of the Commonwealth network in modern conditions, both in itself and as a gateway to the new great powers and markets such as China and Brazil. Nor am I satisfied. Only the other day, sweeping cuts were announced in UK contributions to key Commonwealth institutions. These were, luckily, swiftly reversed by a very understanding and efficient Secretary of State at DfID—but it is symptomatic all the same that that sort of thing could happen at all.

In the report we do not shy away from some negatives. Probably the less I say on our visa regime the better, because it always gets twisted. However, almost every one of our witnesses pointed to the negative aspects of the visa regime. There have been some improvements in the past year but it seems to cause bad feeling all round, clearly without having much impact on immigration totals, as we can see from the latest figures. I cannot for the life of me see why we should not at least try to have a Commonwealth business and tourist visa concession, to make things less difficult for genuine Commonwealth students, and perhaps even have a proper gateway at our airports for the 140 million subjects from Her Majesty the Queen’s realms when they visit us. Our attractiveness would be vastly enhanced if we made those sorts of improvements.

I come to my third message. We have all read commentators telling us that Britain has lost its way in this new hyperconnected world. A senior ex-diplomat said the other day that Britain is “without ambition or direction”. In truth, it is more that the commentators have lost their way—clinging to the 20th century view of Atlantic hegemony, superpowers and trading blocs when in fact the great new markets, growth, capital flows, influence and political power are shifting to the rising nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The UK, our report urges, must engage more actively with the networks of the future. It is in these huge new markets, and in parts of the world that are growing in power and influence, that the UK must re-establish its reputation. Given our Commonwealth connections and experience, this is a world in which Britain most definitely has a major role and is well placed to succeed and stay ahead in what Prime Minister calls “the global race”. That, of course, depends on the UK staying strong, confident and united at home and within.

I would add in brackets—this is a personal observation —that I greatly regret that your Lordships still have no proper international committee to bring to bear the House's collective wisdom and wide knowledge of these very fast-changing new patterns of international relations and trade. I think that this is a real omission.

Our report offers a long list of to-do recommendations to government—and not only to government—about how to adapt to these new global conditions. I will not tire noble Lords with a full catalogue, as they can read about them in the report, but we emphasise that in this changed world embassies, far from becoming less important, as the futurologists used to tell us, are becoming more crucial in protecting our interests and promoting our British story. Therefore, resources should be added to, if possible, and distributed in that direction.

We argue that the main departments of state concerned with projecting the British case and narrative to the world should co-ordinate more—that is, mainly DfID, the FCO, the Ministry of Defence and the DCMS, although many other departments have an overseas face. This is one of the remarkable changes: that every department of state in a sense also has a face outwards to the rest of the world. We suggested that they should review closely how well they have got on together in Afghanistan over this past decade. There is a long list of other recommendations, which I shall skip but which I am sure will come up in the debate.

Our fourth message is that to be effective, and safe, the United Kingdom needs to widen its diplomacy and understand that it is dealing with empowered and e-enabled publics everywhere and in every country. This is a completely new development in this hyperconnected world. Perhaps I may put it in the words of the former German ambassador here, Wolfgang Ischinger. He describes it very succinctly and reflects what we say in our report. He reminds us in the Foreign Affairs magazine that has just come out that,

“new technologies have already fundamentally changed the practice of diplomacy and statesmanship. Today’s diplomats must be prepared to speak to a global audience and to constantly contend with an international media circus. They must be both hard-nosed negotiators and global communicators”.

He goes on:

“Most notably … cyber attacks and hybrid warfare”—

in which, of course, we are deeply involved at present—

“have demonstrated that cyberspace has already become a battlefield on which familiar concepts such as deterrence and even defense need to be defined anew”.

In the end, as I think our report indicates, it all comes down to building relationships of long-term trust with nations large and small around the globe, and developing a mutual respect and attractiveness. It takes a lot of patience but, if we can build up our soft power relations in all their varieties and forms, then in the hours of crisis, which are bound to come, that is what will guarantee co-operation and support in winning our struggles and preserving our safety and prosperity.

The established world order has now unravelled. The strategic imperatives of a transformed global order demand that the United Kingdom becomes the best networked state in the world and that we use all our persuasive powers to full effect. That is the key message of our report—and, if it makes a marginal contribution to the big changes of government, of policy and of mindset which we now desperately need to survive and prosper in this puzzling and dangerous new world, it will have been worth while. I beg to move.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con)]

My Lords, as the debate gets under way, I remind noble Lords that there is an advisory speaking time of nine minutes, and that when the digital clock shows nine, their time has elapsed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My Lords, it remains for me to thank your Lordships for your very favourable reception for this report. There were some terrific speeches and I think that we were all very pleased to hear the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf of Dulwich, about her expertise in universities. I hope that we will hear a lot more from her.

I am left with the overwhelming impression that there is a lot more to be said on this subject—not merely by the Minister, who has to fit within his time, but generally. So many leads were opened by fascinating speeches. The report probably should have said more on healthcare innovation. I very much take that point. The most reverend Primate was saying the other day that we should have said a bit more on religion and the churches, and we probably should have. I can tell my noble friend Lord Addington that the report gave quite a lot of coverage to sport. We had a number of hearings, which included the absolutely stunning statistic that 1.4 billion people watch English Premier League football on television. That is almost a quarter of the entire human race. There is no doubt where the source of sports inspiration comes from; it comes from this island and this country.

My final hope is that we do not just leave it here, so that this was a one-off debate on a one-off subject. In our report, we say, “Please could the National Security Council move on from dealing with incidents and look at this strategic issue once every six months?”. We also asked, “Please could a government department, maybe the Cabinet Office, report to Parliament at least once a year?”, and, “Please could we make it a habit of having annual debates, rather like the one we have just had today?”. Despite Dean Acheson’s jibe many decades ago, a very clear role has appeared for a nation like ours in this new digital world. We have the assets, the skills and the experience. All we have to do is to make them work much better.

Motion agreed.

Soft Power and Conflict Prevention

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Friday 5th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, I am particularly pleased that the most reverend Primate should have brought this issue before your Lordships’ House today. I am honoured to be following his words and flattered that he has referred to the report, which we published in March this year, of the inquiry that I had the honour of chairing with my many distinguished colleagues.

We were not the first to come to this concept; it is one to which your Lordships have given considerable attention over the years. There have been excellent debates in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and indeed this year. We are dealing with central issues in the completely changed international order in which we now have to operate and think our way.

It will be noticed that in the title of our report we avoided using the words “soft power”. We called it, as the most reverend Primate has already pointed out, Persuasion and Power in the Modern World. We did this because we believed that the term “soft power” was rather open to misunderstanding by certain commentators and was seen as a sort of easy, appeasing option to necessary harder and rougher methods, a way of trying to duck hard action in response to violence, cruelty and hideous persecution, especially the persecution of Christians in a uniquely violent and dangerous world today. I have in mind one particularly absurd and ill informed article about British foreign policy in the Daily Telegraph, which tried to depict soft power as some sort of weak alternative to the firm use of guns and killing power in the face of terror and the shadowy wars against brutal but elusive enemies. It seemed to be an argument for more of Iraq and Afghanistan, ignoring the lessons of those difficult campaigns.

Of course, soft power is no such thing. Hard and soft power, as the most reverend Primate has made crystal clear, are all parts of the same armoury—along the same spectrum of choices in our work to defeat violence and evil and protect the oppressed, promote tolerance and uphold both our values and interests and our nation’s position against brutal attack and terror. The big difference from the past is that we are now in a world not of armies and states at war with clearly established declarations of war, but of the mass involvement of peoples and networks in constant conflict. Thanks to the information revolution, we have almost total connectivity on the one hand combined with the terrifying absorption of civilian populations in violence and guerrilla wars to a greater degree than ever before. In these conditions, it is not the side with the biggest battalions, the most missiles and the most killing power that wins; it is the side with the best narrative and the best and cleverest communications techniques. We are in what the director of Chatham House, Robin Niblett, with great ability and clarity, has called a world of “hybrid wars”. This is a situation in which we require entirely new forms of diplomacy and a new power in conveying our message in order to ensure the results that we want, and that the direction in which we would like others to go is achieved in a way that old, pure hard power conflicts—more tanks, more rockets—clearly cannot achieve and no longer achieve.

That is the first point that I wanted to add to the most reverend Primate’s most excellent presentation of our report; indeed, I think that he did rather a better job than we did ourselves in putting forward its contents, and I thank him very much. My second point is that people say, “Well, it’s all very well talking about tolerance, values, the rule of law and good governance and so on, but you can’t eat those things; they don’t put food on the table”. That is what the sceptics say. They are wrong. In fact there is a kind of equation that exists in the modern world that I do not think has been fully understood by all Governments: values equal trust, trust equals confidence, confidence equals investment and investment equals prosperity, business, growth, jobs and food on the table. It is not necessarily the preaching but the conveyance of that message of values, and the urging of others to uphold them, that produces the prosperity and the development that everyone wants.

It is not just a matter for Governments. A committee of Parliament reports and its thoughts are directed at departments, Governments and so on. We have already had a useful reply from one department, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, to our report, but this is a world in which agencies and professions are as deeply involved as government. The most reverend Primate mentioned the British Council and the BBC World Service. They are more than ever the spearhead of promoting soft power stories and the case for our country and its place in the world. However, it goes far beyond on that. All the professions are now weaving together fantastic global networks. Business and markets are just as much our ambassadors as they are concerned with commerce. The media are central to the story. It goes far beyond that into journalism, electronics, engineering and the creative arts, which are central to the story of promoting our soft power. As we have seen in this morning’s newspapers, museums have a key role to play. While one expects a lead from the Government, this is an endeavour, a story, in which everyone is involved.

In our report, we came to the conclusion that a number of other countries were doing a great deal as well. In fact, many of them are spending far more resources on promoting the story of their country, their version of soft power, than we are doing in Britain. Nevertheless, that does not detract from the point that the soft power assets of this country are simply enormous. They cover the whole range, as the most reverend Primate mentioned, including respect for the monarchy, understanding our parliamentary system, our traditions, our experience, our legal system, and even our accounting system and our educational network, which includes huge global linkages between 530 universities through the Association of Commonwealth Universities, which is run from Tavistock Square and links the entire planet into the higher education system.

It will probably not surprise your Lordships that I mention the place of the Commonwealth in this story, and in the United Kingdom’s role and ability to prevent conflict and to carry forward the case for this country’s position in the new world in which we have to compete avidly and vigorously in entirely new markets and new conditions. Why do I bring the Commonwealth into it? Some people would say that it is not really the best example. We read in the media of endless quarrels between different Commonwealth countries and of doubts about whether all Commonwealth countries are keeping up to the standards they are signed up to and so on. We saw an example of that with the Heads of Government meeting in Colombo last year. That is just the visible tip of things that the media can see. The genius of the real Commonwealth network is that it is people-driven, civic society-driven, community-driven, common interest-driven, certainly education-driven and increasingly market and business-driven. Increasingly it weaves together non-governmental forces, including in the central role the message of the church, of course, in an age of weakened Governments and empowered groups, tribes, interests and, indeed, the street. That is why the age of hyperconnectivity has acted like a blood transfusion to a network covering almost a third of humankind, half of them under 25, half of them women struggling to have their full and rightful place, millions of them young entrepreneurs aspiring to break out of development dead ends, many of them from smaller states and small islands—there are 32 of them in the Commonwealth network, to which globalisation has given not much chance at all, and 16 of them are realms of the Queen’s subjects under Her Majesty the Queen.

I conclude by again congratulating the most reverend Primate on bringing forward this central theme. The reality is that the transformed international landscape is now filling up with a quilt of networks and new alliances, some involving the old West, where we belong, but some excluding it altogether. Not only economic power but political power has to a very large extent shifted eastwards. The Commonwealth is only one of these new or renewed systems, but it is a mighty one, and for a heavily interdependent Britain it is a huge potential asset in every respect, from both the trade and business point of view and the point of view of our contribution to peace, stability and development and to the effective containment, prevention and resolution of conflicts around the world. We on this island have an amazingly fortunate position. We have rather inherited the Commonwealth in ways that perhaps we do not always deserve. Over the past 40 years, it has not had the attention that it should have had, but the wheel has turned, and new growth, markets, savings and power now lie either in Commonwealth countries or in the countries to which they are a gateway, such as China and the great rising powers of Asia, which are also using soft power weaponry to full effect. We should grasp these opportunities brought to us by the new technology, the new age and the digital world and share them with our excellent European neighbours who are struggling at the moment. We have to work with them as well, as the good Lord has placed us in Europe and that is where we have to be, work, operate and co-operate. The two horses can be ridden, if I can put it that way, so long as we keep our balance and our confidence in what we can do and achieve. I repeat my gratitude to the most reverend Primate for enabling us to put forward these thoughts in this debate.

Commonwealth: Young Entrepreneurs

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Monday 24th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord may be surprised to know that I was not aware that this is Dominican Republic week. However, I am conscious that there are a range of Caribbean-related festivals not just in London but across Britain. Indeed, on one occasion I presented the prizes at the Miss Grenada Commonwealth competition in Huddersfield at what should have been about 10 o’clock at night but turned out to be one o’clock in the morning.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, I have to declare an interest as president of the Royal Commonwealth Society. Does my noble friend agree that what these young entrepreneurs really need is access to funds to get their businesses started? If, as in many other parts of the world, the banks will not play and are not really being as helpful as they should be, should we not also encourage the development of all kinds of alternative finance built on peer-to-peer lending and so on, as well as many other opportunities, which are enabling small businesses all over the developing world and certainly in the Caribbean to have proper access to funds for the first time?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, of course we should be doing that. Part of the problem in the Caribbean is that, apart from Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, we are talking about very small islands with very small economies, and getting major enterprises going in such areas is often a little more difficult than it is in larger countries.

EU: Balance of Competences Review

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, it is not a question of which competences we agree. We are asking various stakeholders, and getting very large pieces of evidence from producer groups, about the current balance of competences. I think that the Scotch Whisky Association has produced the most pieces of evidence so far—clearly a stakeholder. As Ministers have said before from this Dispatch Box, the current Lisbon treaty has a lot of headroom on competences, not all of which are currently exercised by the European Union. We are asking stakeholders to say whether they are happy with the current balance, whether there are areas in which they would like the balance to be tipped back towards the national level or whether there are areas in which they would like the balance to be tipped further towards common European policies.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

Would my noble friend, who knows a lot about these things, accept that it is not just a question of looking at the balance of competences? It is also about looking at unpicking and unravelling some of the categories of competences, which are now substantially out of date, as they were invented in the last century. For instance, agriculture now embraces all aspects of climate, energy and scientific issues as well; and many aspects of social policy, which used to be centralised, are now much better handled at a very local level. Those are all areas in which it is not just a question of taking the competence as it stands but unravelling and unpicking it to see what aspects are best dealt with at a global, national or local level. Would he take that message back to his ministerial colleagues?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, one thing that has come across strongly to me from the first round—and the second round, which we are currently considering—is the dynamics of globalisation, on which the noble Lord is himself a great expert, and the extent to which the context in which we operate with our European partners in a great many sectors differs fundamentally from the context in which we joined in 1973. As I have stressed before, we are not seeking to arrive at policy recommendations in this review; we are asking for evidence of how far the current arrangements satisfy the various stakeholders and where there is room for improvement, reform or change.

Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 29th August 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My Lords, at this stage in this extremely good debate, I want to concentrate on just one set of questions. Where is the rest of the world on this matter? Why is it coming out as just an American and British-led western affair, maybe with France tagged on the end? Where is the wider international support that the Motion in the other place this afternoon refers to? Where are the other great rising powers in the new global order? Where, in fact, is the coalition of the willing—eastern, western and southern—that we need?

The spreading use of chemical weapons is just as much a threat to the huge modern megacities of Asia, rising Africa and emerging Latin America, many of which have higher incomes than we do, as it is to the USA and the United Kingdom. The citizens of Changchun, Shanghai or Nanking are just as much in danger as we are. In fact, one could argue that the threat from Middle East regional devastation and from missiles flying around the area is greater for China than for America. Half of China’s soaring oil imports of about 5 million barrels a day come from the Middle East, quite aside from the soaring price of crude oil itself.

Most of Japan’s oil and gas imports come from the same source. As Japan’s deep troubles with nuclear power continue, so will its colossal and rising imports from the Middle East region. Some 75% of all gas and oil imports from the Middle East go not westwards to America, us or Europe, but eastwards to Asia, much of it through the Strait of Hormuz. That is predicted to rise to 90% by 2020. Very little flows west and to America almost none at all—in fact shortly it really will be none at all.

So where are all these great nations—the new powers in the new landscape in this crisis? I understand that the Arab League seems to be onside, at least verbally. But where are the other great powers which have demonstrated all the economic growth and which have most to lose from more chaos in the Middle East? Where are India, South Korea, Brazil, Australia, Indonesia or Malaysia? Where are the new super-rich ASEAN nations on which we increasingly depend for our own investment? Where are the new alliances such as the Shanghai Cooperation group or the Trans-Pacific Partnership or the increasingly connected and modernised Commonwealth network that is of increasing importance? Even the Russians, who take a totally different view on how to handle Syria, as we know, are just as much threatened by chemical weapons spreading as we are—as indeed is even Iran, as the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, reminded us.

My biggest fear is that this is all emerging not as a global issue, but as a purely American-led western action. The USA is a great ally and friend, and a great nation, but too many of its policymakers have a misapprehension about America’s role in a now-transformed international landscape. Nobly but wrongly, its leaders speak about superpower leadership but, nowadays, in this network world, the role has to be partnership not leadership. America’s partners all over the world—a coalition of the willing, as I say—need to address the chemical weapons horror and make the chemical weapons convention hold or be strengthened, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, rightly suggested.

I know that Ministers have tried in vain to get a wide and constructive response through the United Nations. However, if we cannot get this together through the outdated machinery of the UN—if the UN cannot unite—then we have to try other routes. At all costs, that should not mean ending up with a West-only initiative. Power now has to be shared between the old West and the new East and South. With power goes responsibility and the duty to co-operate. Governments and diplomats now have to learn to play the network. It is a new game in which our skilled diplomatic forces, our fabled diplomacy, can help lead us and guide us. A new constellation of powers, alliances and influences across the whole world has already taken shape, and the sooner we recognise that in facing this issue the better.

European Union Committee: 2012-13 (EUC Report)

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Tuesday 30th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My Lords, I join others in warmly congratulating my noble friend Lord Boswell, and indeed his fellow chairs of the committees and all the committee members on their work. I pay tribute to it because it is immensely detailed and clear. I am not myself a member of the EU Committee system, so I hope that that is acceptable. A decade ago I was chairman of Sub-Committee C so I hope that makes me accepted as part of the old alumni of the EU Committee system.

I will concentrate on a section of the committee’s report on its forward look, on the way in which it is affected by and looks at future policy and scrutiny work—matters already referred to by my noble friend Lord Bowness. I do so against a background of widespread debate and shifting perceptions throughout the European Union itself concerning its procedures and aims. That, of course, is over and above the equally significant changes in the whole pattern and character of international relations, generally in a world that is now almost totally connected, with governmental and non-governmental networks increasingly melding together in a completely novel way. It is important, is it not, that your Lordships should remain well ahead of the game, as indeed we are in so many other fields? One has to realistically say that, whatever else is going to happen in the coming year, the forward-look things will not be as usual; things will be very different all the time.

I draw evidence for this view of change from the clear and increasing resistance to integration and ever-closer union as guiding EU principles which we have seen from the Netherlands Government, from Italy, and from the obvious German resistance; from the all round and outright resistance to more centralisation of power in attempts to repair the euro; and from a clear call for a return to what has been called deliberative intergovernmentalism. I also refer to a remarkable paper issued by the organisation Policy Network, which is a body of impeccable pro-EU credentials chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, who is sitting there on the Opposition Front Bench. This paper, Coordination in place of integration? Economic governance in a non-federal EU, is by Professor Renaud Thillaye, a senior researcher of Policy Network. Its message is simple: we have reached the end of member-state tolerance for one-size-fits-all measures and demands for more central power. Instead, the professor advocates the kind of sensible dialogue which leads much more to practical open-method co-ordination, and therefore to a substantial alteration in the size and nature of the flow of Commission-inspired EU proposals, directives and all the rest with which the committee has to struggle so nobly. However, it is undoubtedly, in its own words, “somewhat burdensome”.

Professor Thillaye points to the deep deficiencies in the present EU model and its outcomes, such as stagnation in research spending, the waste of skills, increased poverty in southern European countries and the appalling levels of unemployment. He refers to,

“the sense of a ‘diminished democracy’”,

and cites the EU scholars who claim that,

“the EU Single Market and the EMU restrict greatly ‘the capacity of member states to realise self-defined socio-political goals’”.

Instead, he wants to see an “enriched dialogue” between member states—and, of course, Parliaments—and concludes that:

“The EU should avoid imposing specific measures from above”.

My own conclusion from all this for the work of our own committee is that, in addition to being concerned with two specific principles, as the report we are debating today outlines, it should add a third principle, governing both its scrutiny work and its policy work in the future.

The two principles mentioned in the report, which are familiar to us, of course, are subsidiarity—whether something is to be done at the right level; and proportionality—whether it can be done less onerously. I would like to see a third principle added to the committee’s future work; namely, flexibility—whether something is better done through co-ordination than through centrally conceived law-making regulations and proposals.

Is it not perfectly clear that in this digital age of instant hyperconnectivity on every issue, the advantages of well focused co-ordination on specific issues, rather than centrally imposed instruments handled by cumbersome hierarchies, are greatly increased and can speed up decision-making instead of delaying it? It is obvious that the committee’s valiantly performed task in holding the Government to account is not at all helped by the endless, enormous stream of Commission proposals, all requiring Explanatory Memoranda from the Government, the quality of which—as we have heard in this debate and as the report confirms—is getting weaker and not stronger, I am afraid.

Of course, if we are looking at ways of halting or checking some of the less desirable elements of instruments and proposals, there is the yellow-card procedure. However, I think that most people—on all sides, without bias—have agreed that this is an utterly feeble instrument. The requirement of nine member states to make it work is ridiculously high. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs is right to urge that we move to a tougher reformed red card procedure, although that would have to be on the basis of far fewer national Parliaments objecting to make it realistic. Of course, that is precisely what some of us argued for in this very House at the time of the Lisbon treaty but it was rejected outright by the Labour Party and indeed—dare I say it?—by the Liberal Democrats.

Generally, if more ad hoc and e-enabled co-ordination is now to replace EU imposition and integrationist zealotry, a much better dialogue about competences, how things should be done, by whom and in what way is also required between member-state Parliaments and the Commission itself. Sadly, there, too, the Select Committee report speaks of “short and unspecific” responses from the Commission, often coming months late. This just will not do. This is not a state of affairs that those concerned with the welfare of this country or of Europe should accept. The whole balance is wrong and it is leading to increasingly bad results for the peoples of Europe.

I hope that in this House we will be able to debate in the autumn, as soon as we come back, some reports from the Cabinet Office and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on the balance of competences, to which my noble friend Lord Bowness has referred. I am not sure how much we will learn from them about the burning need for change—although the need is there. Frankly, to judge by the first batch, which has already appeared, we are not going to learn much. They seem disappointingly shallow.

It is clear that the people drafting these documents—at least, the foreign policy paper that I have read carefully—have not understood that in the age of global connectivity, tasks and powers have changed, patterns and methods of trade and exchange have changed and the ways in which states relate to each other and negotiate have changed. Except for one brief mention, to which I direct your Lordships’ attention, on page 92 of the foreign policy review, there is no sign of awareness that digital networks change everything and that new alliances and networks must urgently be built if we are to prosper and protect our interests in this country, both as good members of the European Union and in relation to our growing interests in the outside world.

Above all, in the EU context, the old categories of so-called competences have now all been called into question and need unbundling and re-sorting. They were put together in another age. When it comes to actually getting things done, co-ordination between member states looks increasingly preferable to packaged- up EU competences and the capricious judgments of the politicised European Court of Justice. The balance of competences review sees an increasing blur between domestic and foreign policy but does not recognise an equally increasing blur between governmental and non-governmental agencies.

For example, if I may take an excellent report that came from EU Sub-Committee C of this House, there is the structure and role of the European External Action Service. I say excellent; I am not sure that I quite agree with the report’s conclusions on this venture because diplomacy through collective structures was never a great success and the issue now in the digital age is whether it is even necessary. Collective European aims in overseas theatres can now increasingly be achieved by swift co-ordination and alliance for specific tasks rather than by permanent and expensive new bureaucratic structures. The authors of this balance of competences review miss the point about the genius of the digital age: that instant and ad hoc co-ordination can be far more flexible, quicker, more efficient and better tailored to the particular mission in hand than heavy and complicated new treaty-empowered hierarchies of the kind set out in numbing and labyrinthine detail—if anyone wants to follow them—on pages 19 and 23 of the foreign policy review.

The age of vast, cumbersome, all-embracing and permanent treaties cascading measures from the central bureaucracies, with which our noble committees have had to struggle, is well and truly over—rather like the age of the vast, vulnerable battleships of the past. The age of more agile and practical co-ordination between states, focused on well defined common purposes, far more democratically accountable and closer to the people, is now upon us. Nowadays, Governments can come together and co-ordinate actions at the click of a button and then return to the pursuit of their national and local priorities and needs. This is the true path to democracy in Europe and to bringing Europe closer to its peoples. Communities no longer need to be built on massive central power. That was the doctrine of the previous century.

I hope that our committee, with all its excellent work and so well led by my noble friend Lord Boswell, will be able to recognise these changes and follow some of these guidelines in its future work. As I said, your Lordships must be ahead of the game in a totally transformed set of international conditions. If we are not, who will be?

Human Rights: Burma

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, noble Lords will have seen the Written Statement issued yesterday on the visit. It does not specifically mention the issue of child soldiers, but it touches on a very large number of human rights issues. I will check and get back to the noble Baroness on the specific issue of child soldiers. We are monitoring the situation; we recognise, for example, that the Kachin ceasefire has been agreed but not yet fully implemented. The President promised, when he was here, that all remaining political prisoners will be released by the end of this year, and we will of course be watching to make sure that that promise is carried out.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

There is a sort of race here. The Chinese are pouring in vast sums of money and investment into Burma, which is potentially a very rich country indeed. While we must obviously maximise our pressure, counselling and support for overcoming human rights abuses, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has specified, the right approach must be to embrace as fully as we can that country in its efforts to modernise and move away from military rule, and we should consider supporting it and working with it, perhaps in the context of a future membership of the Commonwealth.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord on managing to get the Commonwealth into this discussion. Burma is currently the poorest country in south-east Asia. If it is to pass through this transition successfully, it also needs economic assistance. My noble friend Lord Green has also been in Burma. We are engaged in the question of how far British companies, as well as British technical advice, can assist in the transformation of the Burmese economy.

G8 Summit

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My Lords, we should all be grateful to my noble friend Lord Trimble for initiating this debate and for his excellent opening speech. I also welcome siting this G8 conference in Fermanagh, which is one of the most beautiful areas of our United Kingdom. I got to know it well during my privileged time as a Minister in Northern Ireland for two and a half years. As my noble friend Lady Falkner has reminded us, the Prime Minister’s priorities for this G8 are the three Ts—trade, tax compliance and transparency. All are excellent issues which we should pursue with vigour.

I shall concentrate mainly on trade, although on the tax compliance issue I merely observe that obviously the efforts are completely commendable. However, in dealing with the hyper-connected world of unbelievable complexity in which we now live, it is difficult to see how Governments will ever catch up completely on a multinational scale with all the devices for avoiding and minimising tax liabilities. I leave your Lordships with this thought: we should be a little uneasy about the idea that the answer is more and more power to the tax-gathering authorities, on almost Bourbon levels. It will not solve the problems, which are undoubtedly there. The complexity is very great.

This leads to my main point which I want to share with your Lordships. In this transformed world, the character of trade has changed almost beyond recognition. Modern trade now follows a totally different path from anything that the world has ever seen. In today’s heavily interconnected world, it is no longer a question of products manufactured in one country being sold to another. The advent of the modern supply chain means that most manufacturers use components from a variety of different parts of the network and from different countries.

In these novel conditions, markets are simply no longer definable in terms of tariffs, quotas and other protections. On Europe, for instance, we hear the current mantra that the single market must be preserved, but the nature and meaning of the phrase “single market” has been completely transformed. The common trading platform of the world wide web is building up a new kind of supranational single market which is highly competitive and very transparent; it is criss-crossed by intricate supply chains and knows no regional boundaries whatever. The often asserted “fact” that the European Union is the world’s largest single market is in fact no longer correct. Cybermarkets on the world wide web are much larger. Pacific rim markets, including the vast market of China’s new middle class, are just as large, with the growing consumer markets of India, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, Thailand, Vietnam, east and west Africa and a score of other places all coming on extremely fast behind.

Not only have old classifications such as “manufactured goods” ceased to have any statistical meaning but the trade in services—which 30 years ago was hardly worth mentioning—has taken centre stage with its knowledge-intensive products. The driving forces of international business have shifted into a world which is only dimly understood even now. It certainly was not at all understood all those years ago. In particular, the old idea that the path to free trade lay through negotiating down various tariffs and quotas has lost much of its meaning. It is the non-tariff barriers which are woven into countless procedures, customs and attitudes that now stand in the way. Their existence and persistence depends not on tariffs but on deep cultural factors and processes. The assault on them has to begin not with numbers or even with detailed negotiating facts but with the deployment of soft power in all possible forms.

That all, in turn, depends on the power to communicate and persuade and to open up our economies—for which, incidentally, the modern Commonwealth network, with its common working language, its vast and intimate professional links and its dazzling cross-cultural cross-pollination, is of course ideal. When listening to the Canadian Prime Minister just a short while ago I was a little sorry that, in an otherwise splendid speech, he did not mention that aspect. However, I agree totally with my noble friend Lady Falkner in her remarks that the Commonwealth, as a network, ought to be an ideal vehicle for the kind of proposals that she put forward on improving transparency and tax compliance.

We have to recognise, in the background to all the changes I am describing, that we are dealing with a world which is totally transformed, with 2.5 billion people on the internet at all times. Mr Eric Schmidt of Google estimates that there are now more mobile telephone subscribers on this planet than there are human beings. Every morning, 300 million Chinese go shopping online. We are doubling the data we draw out of the system for trade and other activities every nine months. I will share one further blinding statistic with your Lordships. Under the present system we generate in two days more data than were generated between the dawn of civilisation and 2003. We are, in short, in a completely transformed atmosphere in which trade is operating in totally different ways. That is one point that I hope will be understood by the G8 dignitaries when they gather at Enniskillen and in Fermanagh.

My second point is that there has been a lot of talk about the G8 being the top table, but it is not. There are many top tables today. The rioters last Sunday in the City of London were completely deluded when they talked about this being the power centre—the centre of wealth and riches and so on. Not even the G20 is the top table today. There is a new alphabet soup of organisations, alliances and networks springing up all over the planet, and they are beginning to exert as much power and influence as the old G8 and the other institutions of the 20th century, such as NATO, the UN, the IMF and the European Union, all of which are struggling to adjust. New sets of initials are swirling round in this alphabet soup which we have to adjust to: OIC, SCO, AU, GCC, AL, UNASUR, SAARC, ANMC, PIF and Caricom. I will not take time to spell out what all those stand for. I can see the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, shaking his head. Those are just a few. At the end of the list I put the largest and densest network of all, the Commonwealth network, which unites 2.25 billion people in a common system, as I have already described.

Procedures, attitudes, organisations and institutions have only dimly begun to reflect what is happening, and most of the media, with some brilliant and insightful exceptions, have hardly done so at all. A network world—for that is what it has really become—operates quite differently from one of hierarchies and blocs. Relationships emerge of a quite different quality; priorities are reshuffled; new elements, previously ignored, come to signify. Suddenly, in a digitalised network system, everyone has to be kept in the loop, small nations and large. More than that, the networks become part of the legitimising process. Agreement for international action at the United Nations has to be supported by agreement across the networks. All have to be consulted, won over and brought along, because all are now instantly, and in most cases continuously, connected.

I will end by saying that I hope that at Fermanagh our colleagues and leaders engage with these new issues, because they are entirely new, and do so with a suitable degree of humility, fully realising that in today’s world they are not the top table; they are only players in a far larger and newer scheme of things. They are not the bosses; they are the partners. They have to grasp the opportunity to understand that status, otherwise they could well find that they are not players at all but merely spectators.

Retail Prices Index

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, one of the best things done in this area by the previous Government was to establish the UK Statistics Authority as an independent body. The decision was criticised on all sides. Some noble Lords will remember the article in the Financial Times by Chris Giles which said that it was appalling not to have abolished the RPI and move all the way towards the CPI.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

Did the Minister notice the other day that Sir Mervyn King, the outgoing Governor of the Bank of England, said that one of the main contributors to rising RPI and therefore rising inflation was higher energy taxes? Every time the RPI goes up, it generates a gigantic increase in public expenditure through indexed provisions in the public sector. Could he possibly advise his friends to think again about some of the higher taxes that are being piled onto our energy costs in industry and in the home?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord is quite right to say that the extent to which tax increases are factored into the calculation of inflation is one of the problems. If you are not careful, when inflation is rising, you get into a positive feedback as mortgage interest rates rise, and that increases the measurement of inflation.

Commonwealth and Commonwealth Charter

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his kind reference. I am looking forward to hearing the words of the right reverend and noble Lord, Lord Williams of Oystermouth. I gather it is not strictly speaking a maiden speech, but I look forward to it with great anticipation. The noble and right reverend Lord is joining us on what Her Majesty has called the platform of the future, and his voice will be eagerly listened to on these affairs.

I shall start my brief intervention by quoting from an article in the Daily Telegraph earlier this week which said about Britain that,

“the best vision of what its 21st century economy could become”,

is,

“a Britain which rediscovers the Asian and wider global links that propelled the country’s economic growth in the 19th century and could do so again”.

That is entirely right. It is not a dream but a practical vision. Here, in what we now call the emerging economies and powers, is where our future prosperity and destiny clearly lie. That is something that I—not only me, of course —have been saying for 20 years.

The Commonwealth network is a vital and central part of this totally new landscape and this new scene. I once described the Commonwealth as the “necessary network”, in the sense that if it did not exist we would certainly have to invent something very like it. My right honourable friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary was showing commendable prescience when a year or so ago he described the Commonwealth as,

“a cornerstone of our foreign policy”.

The peoples of the Commonwealth are family, not foreigners. Commonwealth Governments may be unfriendly at times, awkward, difficult or, frankly, even hostile, but these are family matters, not foreign policy matters. Today’s Commonwealth is an all-powerful network concept. The Governments and policy-making establishments in a number of countries may not have fully understood this but, outside Government, the peoples, businesses and civil societies of the Commonwealth nations certainly have. It is both people-driven and driven by the magnetism of shared values, language and culture, a network of peoples and societies as much as of Governments and states—possibly even more so.

The Commonwealth is of course a generator of soft-power linkages and contacts on an unparalleled scale. That is crucial to our national interests here. It used to be said that trade follows the flag. Today, the situation is that trade, capital flows and investment, inward and outward, follow the softening-up of markets through the intertwining of cultures, languages, social contacts, professions and common interests, all nowadays instantly and continuously communicated. This can be even more important than winning orders through one-off trade missions.

The Commonwealth family has evolved as a design of great intricacy, subtlety and complexity, and is a true reflection of a very complex world. That has not been so for 20 years past. So completely were Commonwealth markets washed out of British concerns in the previous century that, even today, it is frankly very hard to come by any statistics of what is now happening with incredible speed across the global trade and investment pattern. Most figures are gloriously out of date. However, we know that exports to Commonwealth countries have jumped by 120% in the past decade, and much more if one just looks at services. We know that a fast-growing Commonwealth GDP is poised to overtake the GDP of the entire European Union, and that intra-Commonwealth trade has been rising fast. We know that vast new consumer markets are opening up in India, south Asia, parts of Africa and Latin America. We know that thanks in part to the new shale oil and gas revolution, which is totally transforming the world’s energy balance, many African countries now face a far brighter future. We know that countries such as Australia and Canada, with which we now co-locate embassies—which is excellent news—and Malaysia are turning out to be both our best allies and powerful sources of finance for our investment needs.

It should be no surprise that other countries want to join what is clearly seen as one of the world’s best clubs, with clear advantages for its members. Of course they want to join. Anyone can see that the Commonwealth badge of trust and commitment to the rule of law, once earned, are good for business, and I hope that the new Commonwealth charter will make it very much more so. As the noble Lord rightly said, a string of countries have expressed interest in being associated with the Commonwealth. Could the Republic of Ireland even be among them? I have had clear signs of interest from Dublin that suggest that it could.

Most important of all are the links of learning and education at all levels, and the personal contact and friendship that these bring to every corner of the Commonwealth system. We know that this is where the real spread of sympathies, values and good business and trade begins. It is a similar story in area after area: legal and judicial systems, administration, medicine, accountancy, the creative arts and science. The Commonwealth may no longer be Anglocentric, but this is where our interests and influence radiate out and where our readymade UK opportunities truly lie.

This is really our Great British repositioning. This must be our strategy and our narrative. Not everyone yet sees or grasps what has happened, or how a transformed Commonwealth coincides again with our global future and interests and makes for us a vast asset. However, it is here that our energies need to be directed as never before if we want to survive and prosper in a thoroughly dangerous and uncertain world.