Defence, Diplomacy and Development Policy

Lord McInnes of Kilwinning Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord McInnes of Kilwinning (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure and a privilege to congratulate my noble friend Lady Penn on her excellent maiden speech. It was accomplished, intelligent, erudite and demonstrated the huge knowledge that she is going to bring to your Lordships’ House. I first met her when she came to interrogate me on Scottish politics when I was at Harvard. I ended that interview far more nervous than she was when entering the Chamber today, I am sure. We are very lucky to have someone with her knowledge of government, not only from working in the Home Office and the cockpit—Downing Street—but with NGOs and other international development agencies. Her thoughts and wisdom will make a huge contribution to your Lordships’ House.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, for bringing this important debate before your Lordships’ House, not least because I was not able to speak in the debate on the gracious Speech. I shall focus on two areas: the importance to the entire United Kingdom of the review the Government are undertaking, and the specific importance of Britain’s ability to continue on a joint departmental basis to bring stability to fragile states.

Today, on the eve of leaving the EU, I welcome the Government’s commitment to a full root-and-branch review of what “global Britain” will mean for security, international aid and foreign policy. Too often over the past three years, “global Britain” has only been shorthand for many as to what our economic and trading focus is to be in a post-Brexit world. The Government’s review will, I hope, provide the opportunity to ground the phrase “global Britain” in the idea of Britain being a respected force for good in the world.

While we were in a pre-Brexit world—can we believe such a thing ever existed?—your Lordships’ Select Committee on Soft Power and the UK’s Influence identified the importance of smart power, which was an integration of our focus, utilising all departmental avenues and ensuring, importantly, that we have a clear sense of ourselves as well as a clear focus on all that we want to do in the world.

As part of having a sense of ourselves, I would urge the Government to consider in their review the importance of Britain as a force for good in binding the United Kingdom together. Increasingly, with inevitable strains and demands being put on our United Kingdom, it is important that the entire country has a sense of pride and security. The institutions through which many people still identify pride in the United Kingdom are the serving Armed Forces, our excellent diplomatic network and our internationally respected international aid commitment. These are all key foundations of the integrity of this country. To be the only country in NATO that meets both its 2% defence spending commitment and its 0.7% international aid commitment should instil pride in all of us. It would be unwise to in any way destabilise this national pride through a desire to rebrand or undermine any of our previous commitments.

I hope my noble friend the Minister can reassure me that any changes arising from the review will be judged not only by costs but by a sense of Britain being a force for good in the world. If not, I fear we could undermine some of the key bonds that keep our United Kingdom together. I also ask the Minister that any review also consider how all parts of the United Kingdom may feel part of the new integrated security, defence and foreign policy review. We have heard already from the noble Lords, Lord McConnell and Lord Ricketts, about the importance of COP 2020 being in Glasgow this year, demonstrating that the whole United Kingdom is part of that global Britain.

Secondly, I would like to focus on our role in international development, its role in ensuring stable and self-sufficient states and how priorities must be maintained in a post-review environment. Like other noble Lords, I am aware of the chatter about departmental mergers as Whitehall moves into a clear delivery mode following Brexit. However, I would be concerned if we were to undermine DfID’s footprint in Whitehall through merger. The importance of a Secretary of State in Cabinet and—dare I say it to the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts?— a Permanent Secretary in Whitehall should not be underestimated.

I will now turn to the safer part of the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, and refer specifically to the importance of state stability. For global Britain to be recognised as a force for good in the world, it must be the market leader in supporting fragile states and building stability and resilience in them, which we know are the best ways to promote development and reduce poverty and inequality. We also know that the days of an appetite for the traditional model of liberal peace-building in an interventionist, military- traditional mode are clearly behind us—because of not merely the problems of past interventions, but international cynicism over western countries making such interventions.

Development requires a stable platform that can be achieved only by peaceful political solutions. The work of the Stabilisation Unit and the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund is essential to ensure that the UK has a nuanced security and development policy and is prepared to use defence capability to avoid humanitarian disaster; probably more importantly, it is also there to help avoid the root causes of destabilisation and war.

To be successful, our interventions must have at their core the creation of participatory stability in countries. To be inclusive, that will require dialogue with all actors in conflict states and destabilised states. Much of this work has to be done at the grass-roots level to build confidence in a solution that will allow the kind of stability required for economic and public policy development.

To do that will require Britain to be seen not only as a force for good but as a fair player, with the eradication of human misery as our primary purpose. Britain cannot do everything, of course, but strengthening failing states is the most cost-effective way of building towards self-sufficiency in many parts of the world. It is no accident that 50% of our foreign aid is spent in fragile states. That is because fragility produces the requirement for foreign aid investment. By introducing stability, we will do much to make a safer, fairer world and, importantly, further to establish and augment Britain’s reputation around the world.