Foreign and Commonwealth Office: Educational Allowances

Debate between Lord Howell of Guildford and Lord Campbell-Savours

Monday 1st November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what was the total cost of educational allowances paid to Foreign and Commonwealth Office and associated departmental officials in the last 12 months for which figures are available; and whether they intend to amend the cap on those allowances.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)]

My Lords, we contribute only towards the education costs of children of staff who are required to work in posts overseas. These officials pay UK tax wherever they work and are entitled to have their children educated at public expense. In 2009-10, we spent £13.3 million on children educated in the UK and £11.5 million on children at schools overseas. The ceiling on the amount that parents can claim towards boarding schools is reviewed annually and was reduced in September this year.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Is it not true that excellent quality, state boarding-school education is available in the United Kingdom at an average price of around £9,000 per annum, plus a £3,500 contribution towards tuition by the state as against public school fees of between £22,000 and £30,000 a year? Why cannot the Foreign Office save tens of millions of pounds by capping the amount of money that a Foreign Office official can claim to the level of state boarding-school fees?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. It is true that state boarding-school places are excellent, but unfortunately it is not true that they are available. Diplomats with children who need to be educated when they go abroad to places where they cannot take their children—I have a list of 48 countries to which children are not allowed to be taken—need to find places quickly. However, they find that they are not at the top of the queue for the 5,000 boarding places available in state schools in this country. I appreciate very much the point that the noble Lord makes but it does not add up if you are trying to find a place for your child.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

That is a very valuable thought. As far as Foreign and Commonwealth Office is concerned, the numbers are rather small. We are talking about a maximum of 2,000 children, of which only 500 are being educated in the United Kingdom. Given the circumstances of where these children go—whether to be near their grandparents or to where an available space is found—it is very difficult to concentrate on a single discount operation. This is slightly outside the question, but I believe that the Armed Forces are large enough to have a kind of discount arrangement, but we do not have the numbers or the weight to engineer that kind of system for the Foreign Office.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, if the cap were to be reduced from over £25,000 per annum to the £13,000 to £14,000 that I am suggesting, surely that would create the demand in the state boarding school sector that the Minister said in his first reply is missing?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My Lords, the difficulty that the noble Lord must appreciate is that although there are state boarding-school places, and perhaps there ought to more, they tend to be filled up very rapidly with children with real boarding needs from domestic households and families. Diplomats inevitably come along at the last minute, because postings sometimes have to be on an emergency basis, and they find that those places are filled. If the sums were reduced to the levels that the noble Lord is talking about, parents who are already on fairly modest salaries and are paying a contribution to meet the total requirements of the school where their children are being educated would simply not be able to afford it and the children would not be educated. We have to face it: if we want good diplomacy, we have to allow the children to be educated.

Israel and Gaza

Debate between Lord Howell of Guildford and Lord Campbell-Savours

Tuesday 8th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what recent discussions they have had about the situation in Israel and Gaza.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)]

My Lords, the United Kingdom is in regular contact with the Israeli and Palestinian Governments and our international allies regarding the current humanitarian situation in Gaza and the wider issues relating to the peace process. As my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary said in the other place, it is essential that there should be unfettered access to Gaza, not only to meet the humanitarian needs of the people of Gaza but to enable reconstruction of homes and livelihoods and permit trade to take place.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, in the face of threats to intervene and break the blockade by Iranian Revolutionary Guard naval units, why cannot the United Kingdom Government announce that they are prepared to challenge the blockade by providing a naval escort for a flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian aid into Gaza, aid which has been given prior clearance by the European Union in the way that Bernard Kouchner has suggested? Would that not be a far better way to proceed? The Israeli Government are far more likely to heed that kind of initiative.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I recognise the noble Lord’s strong feelings on this matter, but we simply do not think that that is the right way to proceed. We think that the right way is for the restrictions and the so-called blockade to be lifted beyond the present arrangements, by which some humanitarian supplies get in but not enough. We think that the right way forward is to put maximum pressure on Israel to do that. That is the sensible way forward for Israel’s own security and for the future prospects for the peace process.

Gaza Flotilla

Debate between Lord Howell of Guildford and Lord Campbell-Savours

Wednesday 2nd June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I am grateful to my noble friend for those questions. On the legal status, United Nations Resolution 1860 is pretty clear that the blockade should be lifted. I do not want to tread into the niceties of international law beyond that but, given that the United Nations and the international community have said what they have, Israel must be getting very near illegality in maintaining such a vicious blockade, which clearly has such bad effects in humanitarian terms. We believe that it should be lifted. We cannot see that it is doing Israel any good and it is not doing the situation any good, so it should go. As to the sabotage of ships that my noble friend mentions, the trouble is that many issues and questions are flying round. For example, were these ships sabotaged? Did two of them have to stop in Cyprus? Why were there 400 or 500 so-called activists on a ship if it was meant to be carrying humanitarian materials? Perhaps it would have been better to carry those materials than so many bodies. All sorts of issues are not straight at the moment and need to be looked at in the investigation, but that certainly is one of them.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Do the Government rule out punishment of the state of Israel in all circumstances in the event that it is found guilty on these matters?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

That is one step down the line. The first thing is to find out what happened, who is guilty and whether we are looking at a botched operation by the Israeli elite corps, as most people in Israel are admitting, or whether we are looking at crimes that require punishment. That lies far down the line, so I do not think that this is a time for ruling in or ruling out.