Queen’s Speech

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, for introducing today’s wide-ranging debate on the Queen’s Speech. I enjoyed the maiden speech by the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister. He has developed something of a reputation for bringing order out of chaos. I am sure that we will benefit from that. Skills like that are always needed. As ever, this debate shows the huge range and depth on defence and international affairs in your Lordships’ House.

My noble friend Lady Smith of Newnham has covered defence, so I will not expand on that here, except to note that noble Lords welcomed extra spending on defence, but expressed concern at the cuts in the Armed Forces—of course, as ever, there were not enough frigates for the noble Lord, Lord West—and the extraordinary decision to increase the number of our nuclear warheads at the same time as we are urging others to decrease theirs, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, pointed out.

My noble friends Lord Alderdice and Lady Ludford point out that now we are out of the EU, our relations with the bloc—for example, in relation to Northern Ireland—count as foreign affairs. There is a huge EU- shaped hole in the Queen’s Speech—our closest neighbours. The EU appears to be invisible, like an embarrassing relative, as it also was in the integrated review. At least, finally, we have recognised the EU ambassador.

The Queen’s Speech mentions trade with the Indo-Pacific, the Gulf and Africa. Of course, being in the EU never stopped trade with any of these regions. Leaving does not necessarily open up more opportunities. We hear that even exports of chicken to southern Africa are adversely affected. We rolled over the EU agreement, so we get no additional advantage. Because the Government will not confirm EU standards, the southern African bloc is saying that it will put huge tariffs on UK imports. In this, it seems we go backwards. My noble friend Lord Chidgey makes clear that we do not help things by cutting bilateral assistance to so many African countries.

The Queen’s Speech states that the Government will implement the integrated review. The most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury has given us a wonderful aim that should underpin that review—“pre-emptive reconciliation”. It is not in there and it needs to be. Of course, as we have heard, the Speech says that we,

“will continue to provide aid where it has the greatest impact on reducing poverty and alleviating human suffering.”

That of course is a supreme irony and double-speak. A number of noble Lords referred to this, and my noble friend Lord Purvis drew a powerful contrast between what the Government say are their values and what they are actually doing. We are even cutting funding for landmine clearance, as my noble friend Lord Campbell pointed out. Here we are, pulling out of Afghanistan, saying that we are not abandoning the people there—yet we cut landmine clearance. The noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, pointed to this in Africa. We have made cuts to those who are starving in Yemen, as the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, noted. We are cutting our contribution on family planning by 85%, while we say we are upholding the rights of women and girls, as the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, noted.

We also hear in the Queen’s Speech that the Government

“will take forward a global effort to get 40 million girls across the world into school.”

That is great, but the Foreign Secretary has admitted that they have cut their contribution to girls’ education by 40% since 2019.

We have cut our contribution to the eradication of polio by 95%. This is only the second disease where the world has got close to eradication. How could we do this?

The Queen’s Speech says:

“My Government will build on the success of the vaccination programme to lead the world in life sciences.”


But the vaccine programme drew on ODA money to the Jenner Institute for the Ebola vaccine, which then laid the foundations for the vaccine programme now. Yet we are cutting that funding. Can the Minister confirm how large the ODA cut to R&D is and whether the Government have made an assessment of the impact on our universities, if nothing else? I recall, from when I was in DfID, the programmes we supported to prevent diseases crossing species in Asia. The noble Lord, Lord Trees, has told us clearly what has happened to those programmes.

We hear in the Queen’s Speech:

“My Government will uphold human rights and democracy across the world.”


Yet we are hearing of cuts to the programmes in just these areas. The noble Lord is Human Rights Minister. Can he clarify how deep these cuts are? I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Herbert, as LGBT envoy, but I ask the Minister: has the budget here been cut? Do the Government think it does not matter whether what you say matches what you actually do? The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds put this so well: we need to interrogate the language and measure rhetoric against observed behaviour.

Can the Minister tell us when the FCDO will be transparent about what it is doing and publish the details, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, my noble friend Lord Purvis and others have asked? Many noble Lords have asked exactly when the Government will deliver again on 0.7% of GNI for aid. As the most revered Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury so rightly said, it does indeed sound like St Augustine on chastity.

The cuts make the integrated review ring hollow. We had a debate about this, and it is clear to me that the Government wrote the integrated review before they knew those cuts were going into place. It drives horses and carts through the whole of the integrated review. The integrated review talks about the UK as an aid superpower and a soft power superpower, a phrase the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, repeated. It said that we are world-leading in our soft power. But, as I say, these cuts blow a hole through that.

The Speech refers to the G7, with the focus being to

“lead the global effort to secure a robust economic recovery from the pandemic.”

Does the Minister agree that the world’s economy will not recover until all are vaccinated, and will he explain how the UK can lead the world in ramping this up? The noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, points out that we have not given the vaccines required, and my noble friend Lady Sheehan has asked why the UK has blocked efforts of the WTO to allow a temporary TRIPS waiver. We can so easily see the continuing pandemic effect on us, if nobody else. Despite our own vaccination programme, the devastation in India is already having its effect on our economy and society.

I welcome—I am sure noble Lords will be pleased to know—the statement in the Queen’s Speech on COP 26, but can the Minister explain how each government department will be addressing climate change? For example, can he tell me whether UKEF will now fully stop supporting fossil fuel development and what DIT’s role might be?

Noble Lords have ranged across the world in their contributions. We face so many challenges globally: Cyprus, flagged by my noble friend Lord Sharkey; human rights in China, flagged by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and others; our reduced engagement in the Balkans, flagged by the noble Baroness, Lady Helic; many conflicts in Africa, flagged by my noble friend Lord Chidgey, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and others; Ukraine and Belarus, addressed in the moving speech of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes; Iran, Russia and Armenia. The noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, is surely right that Afghanistan will be a test of whether we really are supporting women, peace and security. The noble Baroness, Lady Hooper—wonderfully, as ever—reminded us of Latin America. In this year of COP 26, we must be aware of how vital it is to engage in this region.

A number of noble Lords, including my noble friends Lord Alderdice, Lord Palmer, Lady Ludford, Lord Hussain and Lady Sheehan, spoke about the terrible conflict in Israel/Palestine. The noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, and my noble friend Lord Alderdice warned us that we know and we therefore cannot hide. All urged the Government to be more proactive in taking forward a cessation of violence. Can the Minister clearly confirm that we regard settlement activity as illegal and that Israel is an occupying power in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and has duties as a result which do not include removing people from their homes? Will he confirm that we will not move our embassy to Jerusalem and that Jerusalem needs to be the shared capital of Israel and the Palestinian state? Will he acknowledge that there is an inequality of power between occupied peoples and a state and that the world must be far more proactive in seeking a solution in the interests of both the Palestinians and the Israelis? The intercommunal conflict in Israel is a chilling warning and I would like the Minister to say at last that the UK accepts that it is now the right time to recognise Palestine, as almost 140 other countries now do. I think we will hear the tired old formulation “When the time is right”—and it never is.

There is a huge gulf between what the integrated review and now the Queen’s Speech say and what the Government are actually doing. I have never seen such a gulf before. This has been a very wide-ranging debate and I really look forward to the Minister’s response.