Diplomatic Service and Resources

Debate between Lord Soames of Fletching and Helen Goodman

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

It is very nice to see you in the Chair, Mr Bailey. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) on securing this timely debate. He described the context in which we live at the moment as extremely turbulent, which is undoubtedly true, both in the short term, with our relations with Russia, and also with these big, strategic changes with the growth of China. I agree with him; I saw it 15 months ago in Lusophone Africa, where the Chinese are investing a great deal more than Portugal.

As the right hon. Gentleman said, everything is about context. In 1990, as a Treasury civil servant—we have heard about the divide between the Treasury and the Foreign Office; I am afraid to say that I was a Treasury civil servant—I was sent to Prague. It was obviously a very turbulent time. The Berlin wall had fallen and the Czechoslovak Government were extremely worried that they would face the sort of energy crisis that Ukraine has suffered from, because the Russians were ramping up the prices for the oil and gas that the Czechoslovaks were wholly dependent on.

I was sent to work for a few months in the Czechoslovak Prime Minister’s office. It was a very confused and chaotic time. Havel was in the Castle, but the rest of the Government contained communist members. The first thing I did was report to the head of mission. I went off, and I sat and waited, and the meeting was delayed and delayed. It took place an hour later. When I went in, he was incredibly stressed. I asked him what the matter was, and he said that his servants were on strike and he had been trying to sort it out.

I hope that the Foreign Office has moved on since 1990 in that respect, because it is extremely important that Foreign Office officials project Britain as we are now. I could not agree more with the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) on Britain’s place in the world today. We are a middle-sized nation, not a superpower, and it is extremely important that we behave intelligently and appropriately. Fantasising about what we were and where we have been is distinctly unhelpful. He was also absolutely right that, in order to maximise our power and influence at the moment, we need to build relationships, whether with EU colleagues, in the United Nations or in NATO. We will never achieve anything except by collaborating with other countries.

[Sir Nicholas Soames]

The hon. Lady is making an impressive speech, but may I disagree with her on one tiny point? Although it is important that we do not think that we are what we were, we do have this absolutely wonderful architecture and a brilliant inheritance of vast experience all over the world, in good times and bad times. Our values and everything we stand for are built on rock-firm footings. It is now our job to see that that legacy is expressed in contemporary terms, which requires a much more aggressive approach.

[Helen Goodman]

I will come to the soft power aspects and the institutions that contribute to that in a moment. First, I want to look at the numbers and the reductions that the Foreign Office budget has had since 2010 and is projected to have.