Tunisia

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Monday 17th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I hope, as we must all hope, that the lessons will be learnt. They are fascinating lessons, and some very profound observations have been made. The emergence of the food shortage issue and its impact on political stability in certain societies is in itself a vast issue that relates to other aspects of crops for biological use, biofuel, and so on. That has all kinds of impacts on world food prices, which at the moment are rising very fast.

I am very grateful to the noble Lord, with his considerable experience of foreign affairs in the other place and here, for his kind words of congratulation. The Foreign Office to which I, as noble Lords will know, am relatively new, has demonstrated that in a situation of this kind, precise timing is always difficult to anticipate. However, the Foreign Office has acted with extreme speed, along with great help from ABTA and the commercial operators, who have done remarkably well in evacuating 3,000 tourists from the country at such enormous speed.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

Does my noble friend agree that although the formation of a more inclusive Government is to be welcomed, it is very limited in its inclusion? The Islamist parties, for better or for worse, have been left out of it, as have the liberals. Does he agree that in order to have a pluralistic framework, which is what the people want now, all parties should be invited to come on board? Can he assure the House that the EU will monitor those elections?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

It is early days to give a definite current on the last point, but that seems utterly sensible. As to the precise balance and formation of a new Government, the delicate, fragile gain for the moment is that a new Government are being formed and announced. Exactly what balance they should have and which parties should be included is a very difficult matter for those outside Tunisia to intervene on at the moment. All that we can do is offer our support and give them our good wishes and blessing as fast as we can, so that government rather than chaos emerges out of the present street violence and disorder.