Commonwealth

Lord Northbrook Excerpts

Thursday 28th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Northbrook (Con)]

My Lords, we are all grateful to Her Majesty’s Government for initiating this debate. I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon is unable to be present, but I welcome his capable last-minute replacement, my noble friend Lady Goldie. I put on record that my noble friend Lord Ahmad, as other noble Lords have said, deserves our great praise for his strong support of the Commonwealth and overseas territories. I must confess to be rather a newcomer on this subject compared with many speakers, such as my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford, who is president of the Royal Commonwealth Society, and my noble friend Lord Marland, of Odstock, who is chair of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council—both marvellous ambassadors for the association.

At the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in April 2018, the Prime Minister said, “I agreed concrete steps to achieve a fairer, more secure, more prosperous future for the group’s 2.4 billion people”. As many other noble Lords have said, the themes of the meeting were environmental sustainability, fairness, security and prosperity. Among other commitments in the 12-page communiqué were agreements on the need for democratic, accountable institutions, justice for all and encouraging trade among members.

In March 2018, the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Swansea, the former chair of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, talked of,

“the need to distinguish between the Commonwealth of declaration and the Commonwealth of reality”.—[Official Report, 22/3/18; col. 438.]

So does the Commonwealth survive, according to a Guardian article of April 2018, due to its,

“dogged and unlikely persistence as an international grouping, for permitting the British delusion that old imperial patterns of trade can replace the present arrangements with the EU”?

Or is it, as my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford recently stated,

“not just about governance and … not a treaty organisation at all? Today, it is just as much a vast network of professions, civic agencies, universities, schools and every kind of professional and scientific or medical interest”.—[Official Report, 13/3/19; col. 1017-18.]

I will look first at a main CHOGM theme—trade. According to the ONS, in 2017 UK exports to the Commonwealth represented 9% of all UK exports. In contrast, exports to the EU were 44.5%. Thus, the UK exported nearly five times as much to the EU as to the Commonwealth that year. According to a Financial Times article of April 2018,

“Most of the countries involved are small; almost all of them are far from the UK … proximity still matters in trade …The Commonwealth … does not function as a trading area”.


My noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford and some commentators place faith in a “CANZUK” bloc emerging, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK. I hope that they are right, but Canada’s most important trading partner by far is the USA. Its regulation and trade policy are oriented towards its southern neighbour. Australia and New Zealand are closely aligned with each other, but beyond that they are far more concerned with China and other Asian markets than English-speaking countries on the far side of the world.

The UK’s decision to join the EEC in 1973 dealt a severe blow to the likes of New Zealand, but in truth a global trading bloc anchored on the UK was already disappearing. The “sterling area” of fixed exchange rates that had facilitated trade within the British Empire had been severely weakened when the UK was forced to devalue the pound in 1967. Thereafter, the Commonwealth as a meaningful trading area began to cease to be so important. Poorer countries, especially in Africa, retain access to the UK through preferential EU trade agreements but have relatively little to sell. The UK can do little more than replicate those EU deals. The biggest non-EU economy, India, is emerging only slowly from the protectionist regime it maintained under the Congress (I) for decades since independence in 1947. It certainly dislikes signing trade deals and bilateral talks with the EU have stalled for years. Canada, apart from its NAFTA and Trans-Pacific Partnership commitments, has already signed a bilateral deal with the EU, which the UK will hope to replicate. The same is likely to be true with Australia and New Zealand, which are in the process of talk with the EU. I noted my noble friend Lord Marland’s comments in a TV interview that the UK should consider joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership. I ask my noble friend Lady Goldie whether this would be possible.

So what were the other three themes the Prime Minister talked about? The first was environmental sustainability. In a Written Answer in November 2018, the Foreign Office Minister stated:

“Twenty countries, over a third of the Commonwealth, have now signed up to the Commonwealth Clean Oceans Alliance – the Blue Charter Action Group co-chaired by the UK and Vanuatu to tackle marine plastic pollution”.


The Prime Minister announced that the UK would make up to an additional £5 million available to provide technical assistance to developing countries that join the initiative. She also announced a young leaders’ plastic challenge badge, working in partnership with the UN—among others—to help an estimated 50,000 young leaders in Kenya and two further African countries to become leaders in raising awareness about the importance of reducing plastic consumption. Importantly, in a Written Answer last July, the Foreign Office stated that the Indian Prime Minister had announced a ban on all single use plastics from 2022. Vanuatu has also made huge progress in this area. I note that many Commonwealth African countries have been helped financially to gain access to clean water and sanitation.

With regards to the second theme—fairness, democracy, good governance and human rights—I have struggled to find much in the way of progress. I see that £212 million has been given to support nine Commonwealth member states to deliver 12 years of quality education. Can the Minister let me know what other progress and measures have been achieved or are in progress in these areas? I see that £1.8 million has been given to the Commonwealth’s electoral observation programme, but I could not find much else.

On the third theme—security, unity against cybercrime and violent extremism—I note from a Written Answer from the Foreign Office last November that:

“In support of the Commonwealth Cyber Declaration, the UK has partnered with the World Bank to deliver national cyber security capacity reviews in 11 member states. With support from Oxford University’s Global Cyber Security Capacity Centre and Australia’s Oceania Centre, we are now well placed to meet the commitment for every Commonwealth country to voluntarily undertake reviews by CHOGM 2020”.


In total, the UK has given £37 million under the security theme, but the total amount given by the UK Government, of £500 million, as many other noble Lords have said, is absolutely minor compared to our overseas aid budget of £13 billion. The Foreign Office has a budget of over £1.3 billion. These budgets must be increased and, as other noble Lords have said, there must be more co-ordination between the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, DfID, the Department of International Trade and trade envoys, rather than all of them being in a narrow silo pursuing their own interests.

Perhaps the most significant outcome of the 2018 meeting, in terms of attendance, was the decision of the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, to attend. When I went to India in 2017 as part of an all-party delegation, we asked him what his views were on the Commonwealth. I remember his words exactly. He said: “Well, they are nice people to have a cup of tea with” —hardly a ringing endorsement. Also, as other noble Lords have said, he was very upset with the UK’s attitude towards limiting numbers of international students studying in the UK—a short-sighted policy supported by almost no one in Government except the outgoing Prime Minister. Therefore, I was mightily and pleasantly surprised that he attended CHOGM. The director of the Royal Commonwealth Society said last year:

“As India cements its status as an economic superpower, it is increasingly apparent that they are starting to see the enormous potential of the Commonwealth as a ready-made soft power network”.


Professor H Pant, professor of international relations at King’s College, London, has stated:

“As a rising power, India too is looking at those avenues where its status as an emerging power is recognised during this period of unprecedented global structural changes and shifts in balance-of-power equations. The Commonwealth … provides India with a platform to engage with a wide array of states across the world with similar political cultures. … it needs its own arenas and platforms, especially ones where China is not a member. Modi’s renewed look at the Commonwealth may well be an indication that New Delhi is eyeing the organisation as a prospective forum for its power projection. To actualise this, however, New Delhi will have to invest diplomatic capital to remould the platform according to its own strategic needs. Modi’s London visit, in this context, could be considered as a step in that direction”.


An Indian official put a slightly different slant on the reason for Modi’s presence, saying:

“The Commonwealth is useful to us because it gives us a chance to talk to fellow Asian countries without China being in the room”.


Finally, what is the soft power aspect that is so important about the Commonwealth? UK Commonwealth envoy David Concar put it very succinctly in a 2015 interview, almost reiterating the words of my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford. He said:

“there is no other international organisation like this. It is not a military or security organisation... It is not an economic grouping… it’s a soft-power organisation, a network of countries that share the same values, have the same common law heritage. It is also unique as it is not just an inter-governmental organisation. It has very significant networks in Civil Society Networks through the Commonwealth Youth Program and others. … The Commonwealth includes all the world’s major religions and an immensely diverse range of countries. It is well placed to act as a platform to promote tolerance and respect. This can help young people in communities resist radicalisation”.

I think this is a very good summary.