Foreign Policy

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble and learned friend Lord Howe on introducing this most timely debate, given that we have a new Government. We live in a rapidly changing world, parts of which are very dangerous indeed, and in a time of limited resources. I welcome the speech of William Hague, which I have had a chance to read. I hope that the distinguished representatives from the Foreign Office recognise the advantage of having a powerful and senior member of the new Government as the new Foreign Secretary. His speech carries all the more impact for that.

However, foreign affairs are far too important to be left to the Foreign Office. I hope that that will be understood. Of course Foreign Office officials are a class act and I have had the privilege of working with them in many ways. However, I hope that the Prime Minister will give the message of the Foreign Secretary’s speech to every Minister in this Government, and more widely. As the noble Lord, Lord Desai, said, we are not an enormous country in terms of the scope that we used to have, but we have a lot of assets and a lot of people involved in all sorts of ways. All of them now have to get involved in ensuring Britain’s future place in the world.

Perhaps I may give three brief illustrations of my involvement. By accident, in 1982 in the Commons dining room, I was talking to the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, who was our Minister of Trade. He was rushing all around the world trying to sell our goods. I was Minister for Local Government. I said, “I have responsibility for the water authorities. Can I help?”. As a result, I went to Riyadh, Oman, Abu Dhabi and Baghdad. No one has seen the picture showing me shaking hands with Saddam Hussein, because I have kept it strictly hidden. The reality was that, although I was a Minister who might not have been thought to have had direct involvement in the trade field, there were many opportunities within government where people could play their part.

In 1997—I am sure that this will cheer up the noble Lord, Lord Kerr—I went to Seoul to firm up an investment in Northern Ireland for Daewoo. Last week, we had the pleasure—I declare an interest—of receiving a most distinguished delegation from Abu Dhabi and the UAE for the opening of a major new investment by Abu Dhabi in the new international convention centre in the Royal Docks. I welcome the priority that the Foreign Secretary gave in his speech to the special relationship with the UAE.

We need teamwork and support, with leadership from the Foreign Office, backed up of course by defence, a field in which I was particularly involved. I recognise, and tribute has been paid to, the amazing work of our Armed Forces in very difficult circumstances. They are a great asset but they are under great pressure. They do not have limitless capacity.

As I said, we are in a rapidly changing world and I wish to make a point about the changes that may be proposed, such as the closure of posts. I do not think that I am disclosing any secrets as a previous chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee by saying that, when the new threats involving al-Qaeda emerged, we had to turn to a number of posts in countries that we had not previously thought to be significant in our intelligence relationships. They became extremely useful at that time. If we had closed those posts, our problems would have been very much greater. It is because we face major challenges that we must work as a team.

One quotation that I found today gives me great concern. Many of us know Prince Turki al-Faisal, who was the head of Saudi intelligence and then the ambassador here and in Washington. He was quoted recently as saying that the United States had forfeited the high moral ground in the Middle East through “negligence, ignorance and arrogance”. That statement and the fact that we are in many ways associated with the United States in many actions that have led to that conclusion are very serious matters indeed.

There is an interesting comment in the Foreign Secretary’s speech. He points out that there are 100 million Pakistanis who have mobile telephones and who get news and information about the situations in Palestine, Gaza, Iraq and Afghanistan. They are not necessarily people who incline to our point of view or are sympathetic to it. This country faces major challenges and the only way in which we will face them is collectively, as a team, with everybody involved in the effort.