King’s Speech

Lord Oates Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Oates (LD)]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in welcoming the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, and the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, to the Front Bench. I have no doubt that they will make as highly effective a contribution as they did from the Opposition Benches. I declare my interests as chief executive of United Against Malnutrition and Hunger and a trustee of the Royal African Society.

The noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, set out many of the foreign policy and development challenges that face the new Government. I shall highlight a few in particular. First, there is the vicious cycle of conflict and hunger that is bringing misery to millions in the DRC, Gaza, Sudan and many other countries. Malnutrition is a critical issue. It is responsible for the deaths of nearly 2 million children every year and it leaves those who survive with impaired cognitive and physical development, robbing individuals of opportunity and undermining the capacity of economies to develop and lift people out of poverty.

Secondly, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester highlighted in his speech, unsustainable debt servicing is now a major issue that is destabilising key strategic partners such as Kenya, and many other countries besides. It is constraining their ability to meet their development goals and raise up their populations.

Thirdly, climate impacts are exacerbating many challenges faced by low-income and middle-income countries, further threatening food security and impacting health as malaria, dengue and neglected tropical diseases become more widespread and resistant, as well as causing more extreme weather events, with hugely destructive consequences to developing economies.

The Foreign Secretary has characterised his approach to foreign and development policy as one of “progressive realism” and “partnership”. It remains to be seen how this will play out in reality, but I hope it will mark a decisive shift from recent years, which left our reputation around the world tarnished and diminished. In truth, our foreign policy over the past 30 years under Governments of all parties has suffered significant failures, and I hope the new Government will recognise and learn from the mistakes that we have made.

Fundamental to what went wrong has been a stubborn determination to cling to the comfort of our own self-image rather than considering objectively how we are seen in the world. Gaining that understanding requires a willingness to listen to and learn from others, to recognise that our perspective is not the only valid one in the world, and to understand that other countries may face challenges that make them considerably harder to govern than our own. Recognising others’ perspectives does not mean abandoning our values, but it does mean understanding that many who are now hostile to the West have become so not because of the values we espouse but because of our failure to consistently uphold them. Many people simply do not buy into our self-image as champions of human rights and democracy. More often, we are seen as hypocrites, ready to abandon our friends and values when we tire of an issue or our interests pull us in another direction.

Zimbabwe, a country close to my heart, is a case in point. Courageous Zimbabweans who have been waging a long struggle for freedom and the rule of law see us repeatedly trying to pick winners rather than standing for consistent values. Ahead of the Southern African Development Community summit that will be held in Harare in August, an all-out assault on democratic space is under way. The opposition leader Jameson Timba has been in detention with 78 of his supporters for 39 days, and just yesterday a Zimbabwe National Students Union meeting was violently broken up by police and 44 students were arrested, including the president of the student union.

Today we hear that Tambudzai Makororo, one of the women arrested with the opposition leader, is in a critical condition in jail. She was brutally beaten by police and lost her baby in prison. She had surgery on 8 July to deal with her injuries from police beating and has now developed sepsis as a result of the terrible prison conditions. It is absolutely essential that she is released without any delay for medical treatment. Sadly, the UK has remained silent through all this.

In conclusion, I hope the Government’s policy of progressive realism will recognise that one day, however long it takes, Zimbabweans will achieve their democratic aspirations and, when they do, they will remember who stood by them and who abandoned them—who just spoke about values and who actually lived up to them.