Libya

Lord Stone of Blackheath Excerpts

Friday 1st April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stone of Blackheath]

My Lords, as a follow-on to that, I propose to the House something which may seem too wide and long term for this debate, but it is a proposal that would give hope to civilians in the region if we begin to take it seriously now.

Since our previous debate on the Middle East, in which I spoke briefly about the work of Moon Valley in the West Bank, I have been approached, because of what I said but also because of the positive response from the Minister, by the Tunisian ambassador, the Government of Jordan, the Egyptian ambassador through the British Egyptian Society and Morocco as well as by Gaza through the quartet. They are all now asking for similar involvement in their countries. That in itself is remarkable. I know that the Lord Speaker and many other noble Lords have been working towards broadening the awareness of the work of this House, so we should pause and take note of the significant and wide attention paid to our debates and the positive effects that they can have on world events.

I realise that today's debate was called mainly for views on the immediate military, security, political and humanitarian situation. However, it is now recognised that the danger of large-scale aggressive interventions, however well meant, arises when no exit has been pre-planned and when the work of helping the people to rebuild a peaceful and prosperous future for the nation is not taken as seriously as resolving the conflict itself.

I suggest today to Her Majesty's Government, but also collectively to noble Lords, many of whom have experience and skills in retail, farming, philanthropy and international business, that on a larger scale than the project in the West Bank, we could now start to structure and organise help for the people in many of these reformed countries in north Africa and the Middle East to get back into sustainable and profitable employment.

Moon Valley, to remind noble Lords, is a social enterprise that, with the help of DfID, Oxfam, the Portland Trust, which is Sir Ronald Cohen's foundation, and Technoserve, which is an excellent American NGO, and with the encouragement and support of Sainsbury’s, Marks & Spencer, the Co-operative Group, Ottolenghi the restaurateur and others, are helping West Bank farmers to sell their goods to UK retailers and to Europe and North America.

The countries that contacted me are all, in their various ways and at different stages, committed to developing a system of government which is conducted with the consent of their people. They can produce some fabulous products—now I am on home ground and in my element. In north Africa and the Middle East, many of these countries provide herbs and exotic spices, succulent tomatoes and peppers, nutritious dates and nuts, olives and olive oil products using traditional methods from biblical times, long staple cottons and yarns and exquisite textiles and clothing.

In addition to the food and textile business, these countries possess another potential. There is scope to create non-oil energy from agricultural waste, including olive oil waste, to the benefit of the farmers. After the last, excellent debate of the noble Lord, Lord Howell, here, and then the subsequent discussion with people at the Saïd Business School in Oxford, they have asked to get their people into sustainable employment by helping them with market access; that is, connection to the retailers of food and clothing; training and skills in technology and agronomy, and the quality standards that come with them; and business mentoring in entrepreneurship and finance. In particular, however, they want to know how to develop responsible processes to ensure that their farmers and workers down the line—at least one-third of whom are women, who also want to be able to run their own countries—get the benefits of this trade.

This is what we are beginning to develop in the West Bank, and I think that it can eventually be extended to Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan, Egypt and, perhaps later, Sudan, Gaza and, whatever happens, eventually Libya. Today I am suggesting to the House and to Her Majesty's Government that we can help create for these countries a new organisation, a social enterprise that could provide specific, pragmatic help to the people in these countries that want to develop and grow. This social enterprise could eventually be run by Arab businesspeople, become self-financing, and allow all the people, particularly the farmers and traders who have a stake in the emergence of the Arab spring, to be involved.

We have therefore been in discussion with retailers in the EU and the USA—I was with Wholefoods USA here last week—and, in this country, with Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury's, the Co-operative Group, the mail-order N Brown Group, of which I am a non-executive director, and ASOS, through my noble friend Lord Ali. I also chair the Sindicatum Climate Change Foundation, which is a charity that works on sustainable energy in the region. All of these, I am pretty sure, would support such an enterprise and would even, I think, be willing to put some skills and resources into it. I am also speaking to representatives of the Governments of those countries and businesspeople within them.

We can foresee the formation of “Moon Crescent”, a special enterprise committed to working like Moon Valley in the West Bank but on a wider scale, helping any country in the MENA region that has decided to govern with the consent of its people by providing market access, transferring business and marketing skills with technical high-quality standards and ensuring fair trade so that the workers in those industries are well treated.

Will the Minister ask Her Majesty’s Government in what way they might support such an initiative, possibly together with the Arab League, the African Union, the quartet and the World Bank? I suggest that we might invite those interested in supporting such initiatives, together with people trying to build new forms of government in the region, to meet with us and discuss on a pragmatic basis how this concept may be put into practice.