Queen's Speech

Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne]

It is an honour to participate in this important debate and I pay tribute immediately to the new Ministers on their appointments on foreign affairs, European affairs, international development and defence. Special tribute must be paid to the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, whose wise guidance and leadership on many foreign affairs issues I have always studied and often followed. I pay special tribute also to the noble Lord, Lord Astor of Hever, whose experience on international development is widely known. I also pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, whose special work on sub-Saharan Africa and development issues in the European Parliament I was often given the opportunity to support.

The electorate have given both Houses a unique and unexpected opportunity. The Conservative election manifesto promised to deliver a “liberal Conservative foreign policy”. The accident of coalition government has given the possibility for a Liberal Democrat-Conservative foreign policy to be achieved. I welcome this new and enhanced focus on Britain’s foreign policy. The new Government’s commitment to fundamental values, democracy and the rule of law in all of the UK’s overseas activities is well reflected in the declaration in the gracious Speech of anticipating the building of richer and fuller partnerships with our fellow democracies. A stronger and leading role in the European Union, a more powerful partnership with the Republic of India and a firm and steady continuance of our historic and close partnership with the United States of America are very welcome developments.

The UK must aspire—and we have the capacity —to become a more capable, more coherent and more strategically effective international power than we are today. Clear co-ordination of foreign policy with other departments, including the Department for International Development, UKTI as well as the MoD, is surely the key. Your Lordships’ House has immense potential to help to achieve the new Government’s foreign policy goals. This House contains a deep well of extraordinary foreign policy experience and of experience in all related fields. Your Lordships’ knowledge is unmatched on an historic and continuing basis elsewhere in our UK institutions and globally. Might it be right now to create a foreign affairs committee, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has already mentioned? What better forum on foreign policy can we offer the British people than such a committee here in our House—impartial, trusted and probing in a constructive manner as this House always does? For there is much to do, and yet, without a committee of this nature, your Lordships’ House is seriously restricted to gracious Speech interventions, to Questions and to short debates. Surely we have much more to offer.

Your Lordships have, too, a matchless parliamentary record on EU matters through the exceptional work of the EU Select Committee. Continued challenge for the EU Committee lies ahead. EU expenditure is rapidly expanding. The European External Action Service, while I hope that it will bring a more co-ordinated foreign policy, will drive up expenditure. Lisbon, for all its many faults, is offering the European Union a legal identity. That gives immense new horizons to the European Union. Britain should and, I hope, will, play the fullest possible part in all this growth. Will the Government confirm that we will take a very powerful stance on all these issues?

There is widespread corruption in some member states of the European Union. This will soon need European Union intervention, which must be backed strongly by key member states, including Germany, the UK and France, if it is to succeed. I cannot help but wonder whether our new Government would be strengthened by the return of the UK Conservative Party to the group of the European People’s Party. I noted with pleasure that a good relationship developed immediately between our new Prime Minister and Mrs Merkel. I had an excellent letter this week from President Buzek, President of the European Parliament. I know how much the European People’s Party would welcome the return of British Conservative parliamentary colleagues to their fold.

European enlargement is not over, but is an ongoing process with key European countries such as Turkey or Moldova left outside the Union. I believe strongly that countries such as Turkey and Moldova are very important strategically both for the European Union and for the UK. We should work there to promote the values that this Government have endorsed. I have seen the wonderful work of British embassies here and in other nations and I, too, rue the decrease in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office budget, which was sharply felt and bitterly regretted in all our embassies around the globe.

I also seek from this Government a more active foreign policy in Iraq. The gains of liberty have now been underpinned by three elections and equally regular changes of government and members of parliament. The gracious Speech gave a firm commitment that Her Majesty's Government will,

“fully support our courageous armed forces”.

The extraordinary and heroic efforts of the UK’s Armed Forces in Iraq, which included nation-building of an exceptional kind, are well recognised and honoured by the Iraqi people. I was asked recently to deliver a message from Prime Minister Maliki and his office and Cabinet of enormous and continuing gratitude to the British people for the great sacrifices and the noble work of the UK’s Armed Forces, as well as its politicians and diplomats, in gaining freedom for the Iraqi people.

Surely those gains must now be consolidated by business development and capacity-building. The previous Government overlooked that despite the obvious and free-market imperative of British business and industry’s early return to Iraq. I have an honorary position in chairing the Iraq-Britain Business Council. I see there the immense difficulties that businessmen have in gaining visas to come to the UK and the even worse problem that Iraq has not been a priority country for the UK. Yet Iraq is the largest global untapped market. It is a former British protectorate; English is the second language there; and Iraqi businesses and Government, as well as the people, express strong preference for working with UK partners on every level. Iraq remains a high defence and security issue. Her neighbourhood is highly volatile; her stability is keenly linked to our own and to the future stability of our fellow member states in the EU and of the world’s democracies. Iraq provides a good example of the need for much closer co-operation between DfID, FCO, MoD and UKTI, with the pre-eminent requirement for the foreign policy of the British Government to be in the lead.

As the “liberal Conservative foreign policy” set out in the Conservative Party’s manifesto stated:

“We have great national assets and advantages … We will engage positively with the world to deepen alliances and build new partnerships”.

I fully support those sentiments. With the full participation of both Houses, the coalition Government can achieve them.