United Kingdom: Soft Power

Debate between Lord Howell of Guildford and Lord Collins of Highbury

Tuesday 15th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I reassure my noble friend that we are working with the British Council on a plan to return it to financial sustainability. We are committed to a successful British Council that is financially stable, and our funding is over £160 million in 2025-26. FCDO officials are working closely with the British Council on a financial turnaround plan to ensure that its finances are returned to a stable footing and that the council can continue delivering for the UK for years to come.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, is entirely right to emphasise the importance of soft power. I just add a note of regret that Joe Nye of Harvard, who is a strong friend of this country and the inventor of much of the thinking behind the whole soft power concept, died very suddenly recently. The world needs a man like that now, and we will miss him.

The Foreign Secretary deserves some credit too, because he has brought forward the Soft Power Council, to which he kindly invited me. The only snag was that when we discussed it and an emissary came to discuss it with me, they were full of new ideas but they seemed to have overlooked one vital idea: that by far the biggest soft bed and fertilising area for soft power in this world is the enormous and growing Commonwealth. There was no mention of that in the initial Soft Power Council report. I know that the Minister thinks quite differently, so could he take a message back to his office and remind them that soft power and the Commonwealth are two massive supports for the prosperity and security of this country as well?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I am tempted to say I agree with the noble Lord, but then I am in danger of suggesting that I am not in agreement with the Foreign Secretary. Let me be very clear: we are at one, because the Commonwealth is very important. We have a new secretary-general, who is working through it, and we are giving support to her in the development of a clear strategy focusing on the best bits of it. However, as the noble Lord knows, I see the Commonwealth as more than simply an association of Governments. It is about people and how we bring them together, whether civil society, businesses or other organisations. The simple fact is that the Commonwealth adds value to business and economic development, and we are absolutely focused on delivering that in the future.

North-west Syria

Debate between Lord Howell of Guildford and Lord Collins of Highbury

Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

As a general point, one of the things that we are concerned about doing is giving support to refugees who have fled Syria, and we are working with all neighbouring countries. I do not have a specific response on Armenia, but I have taken the noble Lord’s point and will certainly raise it in the department. As a general principle, we are very concerned to ensure that those fleeing the conflict are properly supported in neighbouring countries.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, we need to remember that Bashar al-Assad has been kept in power by Russia to do all his dreadful, bloody work over 20 years or thereabouts. I am not quite sure where HTS comes from or what its stance is as it sweeps down from Aleppo, but we need to remember that Kissinger once remarked that there are many situations where one rather wishes both sides could lose—and I am afraid that this may be one of them.

More broadly, these situations arise again and again, and there will be many more in this high-tension area, where everything is amplified by the digital age and hyper-connectivity and where the bloodshed seems to increase all the time. Each time, we issue Statements, we talk with our allies, we wring our hands a bit and we go to the United Nations and have a good chat. Then, somehow, the situation slides on away from us, which is extraordinary, because 20 years ago we thought that democracy was winning everywhere, but now it seems to be sliding away. Are we really using all the modern communications technology, of the kind that the Chinese in particular use with great effect, to maintain the case against bloodshed, killing and Russian troublemaking and the case for democracy, balance and a sensible commitment to a degree of freedom and the rule of law? Our story needs to be brushed up a great deal.

Are we making full use of the Commonwealth of 56 Nations, although I understand that there are soon to be rather more than that? Are we making enough use of our UN representations, with the desperate need for UN reform at every level, despite having Russia and China sitting in there like cuckoos in the nest? This is a world in which the medium is the message 10 times over. It needs a constant and new story to be developed. I ask that we think of that and do not just assume that, having issued a Statement and talked to a few of our allies, there is nothing more we can do.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I absolutely share the noble Lord’s views about our values and how we can restate them. I attended the whole of the United Nations General Assembly, including many events where we engaged with civil society. Our policies should not be just about Government-to-Government relationships, and that is why the noble Lord is absolutely right about the Commonwealth. It is a commonwealth family as well as a commonwealth of peoples. The Commonwealth institutes great people-to-people and parliamentary contact, which restates the importance of democracy.

We also translate our policies through soft power, a term that I do not particularly like. Through the BBC World Service and other means, we are using greater, more effective communication tools and ensuring that we counter what the Russians are doing. It is important that we see the value of that sort of people-to-people communication.

I restate the position on Syria that I said earlier: we are supporting the United Nations Resolution 2354 and a political process that engages as many groups as possible. It is a political process; this is not a war that can be won by conflict. This situation can be resolved only by political dialogue and we urge all parties to engage in that.