King’s Speech

Lord Swire Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords, I join the general congratulations to the Labour team, the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Collins, and the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson; they will do an excellent job. I suspect, knowing the portfolio they have inherited, that the honeymoon period feels as if it is almost over, but they certainly are in a good position to face the challenging times which many have articulated so well this afternoon. I also add my congratulations to the appointment of the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen. The fact that he is a former Chancellor and Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George is good enough qualification for me, but he is just the right man to conduct the strategic defence review, as he enjoys the confidence and respect of all sides of this House.

It is a very great privilege to speak, albeit very quickly in the remaining minutes—I shall try to sum up my views on international affairs in about three and a half minutes, as others have already spoken about them—and it is a privilege to be able to contribute to the debate on the gracious Speech, in which I found much to applaud. I congratulate the Government on their sure-footed start in this particular area of government.

I listened very carefully, as you might expect, to the debates on the issue of Gaza and Israel, and particularly closely to my noble friend Lord Soames, who gave what I thought was a powerful and excellent speech. I congratulate the Government on resuming the funding of UNRWA. I never understood why my Government withdrew it, frankly, and I agree that we should do much more to stop the illegal settlements, which are illegal in their violation of international law. We must throw our weight behind a two-state solution. Over the past five to 10 years, I have had my doubts about a two-state solution, but I have now come back to the conclusion that it is the only viable way forward—a two-state solution guaranteeing the safety of the State of Israel. Equally, we must redouble all our efforts as part of that to bring home the hostages as quickly as we can.

A couple of days ago, I read in the Library a book called Beyond Britannia by the noble Lord, Lord McDonald, who was PUS at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and it includes some extremely interesting points. I will raise two of them very quickly. One is that he asks which countries actually need a foreign policy, which is a bit that is worth reading. Do we need our own unilateral foreign policy? Another bit, with which I slightly disagree, is that he thinks that the UK could diverge away from the US in the case of the US taking military action over Taiwan. He thinks that relationship could survive were we not to; I am not so sure.

I remember that it is very difficult planning a foreign policy because so much of it is reactive. Many of us in this House will remember when Robin Cook came in as the Foreign Secretary and talked about having an ethical dimension; it is a rather difficult thing because that ethical dimension ended up with us being dragged into the Iraq War. But a Foreign Office needs to be practical; for that to be able to happen, it is absolutely vital that all the apparatus of state—in other words, the Foreign Office and our security and intelligence services—are properly funded around the world, and I hope that this Government will commit to do that in a way that others have perhaps not done so well in the past.

The situation with NATO remains the same. We want to keep America in, keep Russia down and keep China out. The relationship with Donald Trump is going to be absolutely critical if he gets in. Even if he does not, the House is going to be a Republican House; we are going to be dealing with the Republican Party, so we should stop making unwise comments about President Trump, which some, now in high positions of power, have done rather unwisely in in the past.

We have heard about AUKUS and I will talk briefly about it and the Commonwealth. The noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, was right, and I declare my interest as deputy chairman of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council. There is a coalition or coincidence of interests in that the forthcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in October will be in Samoa in the Pacific. What a wonderful opportunity this will be for our new Prime Minister to meet the other 55 Heads of State, on the global stage, to discuss matters that relate to the Pacific and the Indo-Pacific tilt. The leaders of Australia, New Zealand, Canada and others will be there. It is a fantastic opportunity for the UK to articulate its vision.

What a wonderful and underused vehicle the Commonwealth is. Home to 2.5 billion people, 60% of whom are under the age of 30, the Commonwealth had a GDP of $13 trillion in 2021, set to increase to $19 trillion in 2027. It contains half of the world’s top 20 emerging global cities—New Delhi, Mumbai, Nairobi, Kuala Lumpur, Bangalore, Johannesburg, Kolkata, Cape Town, Chennai and Dhaka. It has a huge military force; India has the second largest army in the world, and, of course, Canada and Australia are key to our relations within AUKUS.

CHOGM in October is a huge opportunity. I hope not only that the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary go but that they take the Defence Secretary with them as well to reinforce how important AUKUS and that part of the world are to us.