Egypt

Lord Jay of Ewelme Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I thank my noble friend. Foreign Office Ministers, particularly junior ones, have to be quite careful when it comes to taking out a crystal ball and making bold forecasts, because this is a particularly fluid situation. My noble friend has done a pretty good job himself in raising certain crystal-ball issues, and these are very much in my mind and that of my noble and honourable friends and their advisers in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He is absolutely right that we now have to look at implications and try to be one step ahead of the unfolding scene. Gaza and the Israel-Palestine situation, oil and energy supplies throughout the region, and the now increasingly unfashionable pattern of nepotism—which seemed to cause so much anger in Tunis and was clearly a feature in the riots in Cairo, and which was a feature in other contexts as well—all need to be looked at, together with the position of other countries all around the region.

Even in Lebanon we have a fragile situation, with a new Prime Minister who will we hope command sufficient support all round to achieve a delicate balance there. There are issues of potential turbulence in many other regions as well. This means not only that we are already in a new international landscape but that we now, as a result of what has been happening for the last few weeks, have to have a further reassessment. I can therefore assure my noble friend that every effort will be made to peer into the future—it sometimes seems very dark indeed—and to make proper provision for the interests of this country in a new and changing world.

[Lord Jay of Ewelme]

I thank the Minister for his Statement and join others in expressing sympathy for British citizens caught up in unrest and our admiration for the consular staff, both in Egypt and sent from London, who are helping.

I understand the pressure on the Foreign Office budget at the moment, including the consular budget, but will the Minister say whether the Foreign Office is considering developing the concept of rapid reaction forces to provide greater flexibility in the management of consular staff and increasing the chances of having the right number of people available in the alas increasing number of emergencies for which British citizens will quite rightly expect and deserve support from our consular services?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I am sure this is in the mind of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, about which the noble Lord knows a great deal. He probably knows a great deal more than I do; he has spent more time there than I have. This is an age that requires agility, adaptability and rapid deployment as never before in handling international affairs, securing stability and peace, and protecting and promoting our interests, so this kind of design will be increasingly required alongside the stable institutions of Whitehall and the hierarchies of government that have prevailed in the past. We have to have some new thoughts on how to deal with the instant conflagrations and instant fires that can spring up in this globalised total communication, totally informational world.