King’s Speech

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, I warmly welcome our new Government Front Bench. We have just had a general election; normally, foreign affairs do not play a leading part in elections, with the exception this year of Gaza, which perhaps reflects the new diversity of our country.

Looking at the manifestos and the conduct of the Government, at the moment there is a relative continuity of policy towards what has happened over the past year—certainly towards Gaza and Ukraine, where there may be broad consensus between the parties. However, there are differences between them which will become manifest in the tone of policy, humanitarian and development policy and, above all, our relationship with Europe and what the new Foreign Secretary calls a progressive realism or pragmatism.

I see a post-Brexit Government who seek to connect and reconnect with their allies and avoid the nostalgia of “global Britain”. I noticed the headline in today’s Telegraph: even the moderate Mr Tugendhat says he is ready to leave the European Convention on Human Rights. Well, membership of the convention is necessary to be a member of the Council of Europe. How can it add to global Britain to leave the Council of Europe, in which we played a leading part?

We welcome the new defence review and the inspired appointment of my noble friend Lord Robertson as its leader. There has been a general consensus among speakers in the Chamber on the importance of his appointment. The 2022 refresh was of course an improvement on its predecessors but still included a tilt to the Indo-Pacific, which perhaps now needs to be moderated, and underlay the development of the two carriers when recent evidence increasingly points to the turbulence in our own backyard of Europe.

During the review, policies in the United States may develop. If a Trump-Vance duo is elected and leads US policy, this will clearly have major repercussions on NATO and on defence policies in Europe, which would stimulate Europe to make greater provision for its own defence and affect mightily the defence relationship between the UK and the European Union.

Any incoming Prime Minister wishes to focus mainly on domestic policy, but our own Prime Minister was speedily diverted by both the 75th anniversary of NATO and by the EPC in Blenheim. How do the Government see the EPC developing? It may be like the WEU. I was in the Foreign Office in the early 1960s, when we used the WEU as a linkage between us and the European Union, as it has become. Will there be a more structured development for the EPC with, for example, a secretariat? Does it have growth potential? Europe is littered with bodies which have not properly adapted and should perhaps be abolished or at least modified. I am thinking of the OSCE, formed after the Helsinki Accords, and even of the Council of Europe, which should concentrate more on core human rights. Like the Western European Union, the EPC is certainly a forum for relations between us and our European partners.

Finally, there will be a major change, in my judgment, on Europe. I recall that the old Fabians saw an advance to socialism, brick by brick, in the same way we advance to Europe, with youth exchanges, Erasmus, veterinary policies, energy policies and so on. These are the bricks which one day may approach the ultimate goal, and I speak as a very convinced European. We have many national assets which we shall draw upon, and now we have a new Government with a new spirit. Above all, we are in a turbulent world. One thing the new Government bring, which is of immense importance, is stability to our foreign and defence policies.