Foreign Policy

Baroness Taylor of Bolton Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton]

My Lords, I must join in congratulating the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, on his debate today, particularly, as has been mentioned, for its significant timing. I am sure that he was mightily relieved by the tone of the Foreign Secretary’s speech, which was somewhat different from the tone that we heard just a few weeks ago. I hope that that new realism will be maintained, but we will need to see other signs of it—including, perhaps, a movement away from some of the so-called allies that the Conservative Party has found in the EU.

On the EU, there was one thing about that speech this morning; I thought that there was an implicit criticism of some of the UK representatives there. Having worked with them quite closely for the past year or two, I did not take that well. We should be talking about how we increase engagement, not suggesting that we need new big hitters in Brussels in order to extend our influence. I have one other word about Europe, which is to welcome what has just been said about Turkish membership of the EU. I noticed that the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, also mentioned Turkey, which has a pivotal role and is a secular state. It is not a perfect society but then, what is? We would be foolish to turn our backs on Turkey and I seek reassurances in that respect.

I appreciate that many people in this House have a lifetime of experience in foreign affairs. I think that most of us come to these debates with a certain degree of hesitancy. For the past few years, I have worked closely in the Ministry of Defence with the Foreign Office and, previous to that, when I was chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, I got some overview of foreign affairs.

I start by reminding the House of the Green Paper that was published by the Ministry of Defence earlier this year—Adaptability and Partnership. That sets out the global trends that are being talked about and which my noble friend Lord Desai began with earlier, such as the rise of Asia Pacific, the challenges of globalisation, climate change and the inequalities in the world. It goes on to discuss threats to our national interests as well as to this country. That document is as good a backdrop for debates about foreign affairs as it is for debates on defence. There are a few points that I would like to raise in response to the challenges that we face.

First, I echo what the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, said about international institutions. Many of us grew up—perhaps slightly naively, thinking back to the 1960s—with great hopes for institutions such as the United Nations, which we thought would make a significant difference. Those international institutions have, as has been said, been very slow to respond to a rapidly changing world. We need to continue to press for reform in that area, as the previous Labour Government did.

Secondly, we need to re-evaluate and impress on people the scope and importance of what has been called soft power. My noble friend Lord Desai said that we need hard power as well, but the two go together. If you get soft power right, you will need to exercise less hard power. Foreign Office and defence diplomacy have not been appreciated enough in recent years—perhaps over a long time. When such issues as the Five Power Defence Arrangements—which involve the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore—come up, many people think that such agreements no longer matter because they hark back to the past. In fact, they give us an entrée to an area which will be pivotal in the future, as we have heard today.

Much of the MoD’s work through training and advisory groups makes sure that people who do not normally talk to each other work in the same area. In the military training on peacekeeping that we do in the Czech Republic, we have had people from Azerbaijan sitting next to Armenians. We are breaking new ground there. In the long term, this can put us in a very strong position, not least because all that teaching and work is conducted in English.

Something has been said today about resources and about DfID. I would like to bring the two together. It seems that we all now support the aim of spending 0.7 per cent of GDP on aid. That is good and something that we should support. It is an achievement of the Labour Government, the spending of the past few years and DfID itself that I am very proud of. However, it is right to question—as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, did—some of the ways and projects on which that money has been spent. Some has been spent on consultants and the like. This may seem like heresy to some but I wonder if the concentration on DfID has taken too much away from the Foreign Office and other areas. The noble Lord, Lord Butler, suggested that there should be a merging of some of these budgets. One small step has been taken with the Stabilisation Unit, but we need to do more to make sure that spending on influence now does not neglect long-term investment at this critical time. The noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones, mentioned some of the very interesting figures. I said in this House a few weeks ago that when I was in the MoD, I thought that if there were sufficient noughts at the end of a project it was much safer than if it had a tiny budget, which could somehow slip through and disappear.

I welcome the debate. We need more talk about how we exercise influence. The noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones, asked if we should have global diplomacy. My answer to that would be yes, but we have to invest enough in soft power. That is the key to avoiding the need for the use of hard power in the future.