G20

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness in her wisdom will know, concluding a war and bringing warring parties together is a very difficult and delicate matter, not all of which can be conducted in public. China certainly has a potentially important diplomatic role, and it has influence. Obviously, we will use our diplomatic influence with China and in other places to lead it in a direction that would help to secure peace. It was positive that the G20, including China, made the very clear declaration that nuclear war—and the threat of nuclear war—is absolutely inadmissible. That is a long way from where the noble Baroness wishes to get, but I assure her that we will continue to engage with all parties, including President Macron, in efforts to secure an end to this terrible conflict. In the interim, we will be unstinting in our support for Ukraine.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. Further to his answer to my noble friend, I say that summits are of course tremendously important, because you meet people—and that is particularly important for a Prime Minister who is new on the international scene. Yet, as I understand it, an unfortunate casualty of the incident involving the missile in Poland seems to have been a planned meeting between the Prime Minister and Xi Jinping that was not able to take place. Can the Minister confirm if that is the case? If it is, what arrangements might the UK be making to bring about a meeting between the Prime Minister and the President of China? After all, we are both members of the Security Council, and it is just as important for our Prime Minister to meet President Xi Jinping as it is for him to have met President Biden.

[Lord True (Con)]

The noble Viscount makes a fair point. It is a fact, as is attested, that the G20 summit was interrupted by the unfortunate events in Poland. Certainly, both President Xi and the Prime Minister were present at the discussions. The reality is that—as was implicit in what the noble Viscount said—none of the global challenges that faces us, whether the global economy, the impact of war in Ukraine on food and energy security that the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, reminded us of, climate change or global health can be addressed without co-ordinated action by all the world’s major economies, which include China. The noble Viscount is quite right to say that we are both permanent members of the UN Security Council; we need a frank and constructive relationship and we will go forward in that way. There has to be frankness about China’s failures, as well as encouragement about China’s positive impact.