Conflict Prevention

Lord Bellingham Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2011 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Henry Bellingham)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) for securing this important debate on the key issue of how we prevent conflict. I also congratulate him on the work that he has done with the all-party group on conflict issues, and I congratulate colleagues who have supported its work; it is one of the most important groups in Parliament.

Upstream engagement is essential to help us tackle the underlying causes of conflict before violent and costly flashpoints are reached. The Government have made their work on conflict prevention a key priority. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary’s announcement of the extension of our network of missions, particularly in Africa and central Asia, bears out our determination to increase our activity and widen our footprint in many areas.

Conflict does, of course, matter. More than 1.5 billion people live in fragile and conflict-affected states or in countries with high levels of criminal violence. Conflict and violence deprive millions of their basic rights to life and security. The economic consequences of conflict for poor countries are enormous: an average civil war—if there is ever such a thing—costs a developing country 30 years of GDP growth. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) said, nine of the 10 poorest countries in the world are fragile states. Not a single fragile or conflict-affected country has yet achieved a single millennium development goal.

Neighbouring countries and wider regions are often destabilised by the flow of small arms, light weapons, mercenary groups and displaced people that conflicts can produce. Five countries, all of which are in the midst of conflict, produced 60% of the world’s refugees in 2009. Crime and instability also provide fertile soil for radicalisation and a recruitment ground for terrorist groups.

Short-term lulls in violence can mask the root causes of conflict. Since 2000, nine out of 10 new conflicts have been relapses, as fragile countries have fallen back into war. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark made that point and referred to the recent World Bank report. Climate change and resource scarcity are also likely to increase the pressures on fragile countries, mainly in a band running from west Africa, through the Sahel and the horn of Africa and up to west and central Asia.

The hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) referred to some of the drivers of conflict. He pointed out poverty as being one of the obvious ones. He mentioned natural resources and the clamour and demand for those resources, and the pressure that that creates. I refer him to the work that we are doing with the Kimberley process on conflict diamonds, because now about 90% of all rough diamonds are within that process. We must go further, particularly in respect of Marange in Zimbabwe.

The hon. Member for Islington North also mentioned the pertinent point of lack of proper governance, which in turn leads to the lack of basic freedoms and rights. He referred, as indeed did the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Nor should we ignore the continuing risk of state-on-state conflict in some regions. The causes of such conflicts are often similar to those within states and similar support and interventions are often required by the international community. When seeking to prevent conflicts through early engagement upstream, we must make sure that we emphasise the need to protect innocent civilians from the effects of conflict, paying particular attention to the most vulnerable groups, such as women and children. We should remember that no lasting peace can be achieved after conflict unless the needs of women are met: not only justice for the victims of crimes of war, but their active involvement in creating a society in which their rights are respected and their voices heard.

We need to acknowledge that we will not always be able to prevent conflict. Episodes of political change are often sudden, turbulent, violent and contested, as we see today in north Africa and the middle east. They may generate risks for the UK, affecting our security and prosperity and our ability to promote British values. When such rapid change occurs, the UK needs to be able to take swift targeted action and build popular confidence in positive outcomes, as we are doing in Libya, and as we are working towards doing in other countries. The evidence shows that achieving lasting change takes time. We need to be prepared to stay engaged and help to build strong and legitimate institutions—the best defence against countries falling back into conflict—as we are doing in Afghanistan.

The national security strategy identified shaping a stable world as a core objective for the Government, to reduce the likelihood of threats affecting the UK or our direct interests overseas. The strategic defence and security review made a commitment that we would reduce such threats by tackling them at source. Our response to the Arab spring has demonstrated the Government’s commitment to engaging in places at risk of instability. However, we cannot achieve success on our own. We will work in partnership with others on prevention, with the same intensity as we do in response. That will require a greater investment of our diplomatic and influencing efforts, in particular with emerging global and regional powers such as Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and with influential Commonwealth partners—because the Commonwealth is incredibly important also.

Similarly, we will identify where and how we can work better through the EU, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and NATO on prevention and crisis management. Recent events, for example in Côte d'lvoire, have shown that the UN is willing, when appropriate, to take a more robust approach. We will actively engage with other regional groupings, such as the African Union. For example, we are exploring opportunities for investment in AU civilian capabilities to support South Sudan. We must also be realistic about the pace of change, providing predictable support over the long run, taking risks and accepting some failures in order to secure transformational results.

I agree with the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby: the British Council has an important role to play, as indeed do the BBC World Service and the Westminster Foundation for Democracy. I would like the British Council to be more flexible, and to be able to surge its activities. A good example is that it has large operations in countries such as Sierra Leone, Ghana and Nigeria, but nothing at the moment in Côte d'lvoire. That is a country that has come out of appalling civil war, but is now moving promisingly towards peace-building and stability. There could well be an important role for the British Council.

Our response to the challenges is threefold. First, we need to increase our investment in upstream conflict prevention, to tackle the root causes of conflict to build longer-term and more sustainable peace. I support the idea put forward by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) of a ministerial seminar with all the parties; it makes sense. The prevention of conflict is helped significantly in countries with inclusive political settlements and strong legitimate institutions that provide civilians with security, justice, economic opportunity and jobs. Conversely, countries with weak government, inequality, social exclusion, uncertain rule of law, and poor control of corruption are significantly more likely to fall into civil war.

In line with the SDSR the Government will invest more in conflict prevention. We have announced an increase in the conflict pool’s programme resources over the course of the next spending review period from £229 million in the last financial year to £309 million by 2014-15. As part of that, we will refocus the Stabilisation Unit to do more work upstream. Also, by 2014-15 we will increase to 30% the proportion of UK overseas development assistance that supports conflict and fragile states.

As to early warning and early response, no one predicted the current crisis in the middle east, or that it would start in Tunisia. It is unlikely that anyone could have done, but we must become better at systematically spotting which states are at risk, for example as a result of unemployment or political exclusion, and where shocks, such as food and fuel price hikes or unrest elsewhere in the region, may generate instability. The middle east and north Africa conflict pool programme supports a number of key projects. Priority countries will include Iraq, the occupied Palestinian territories, Lebanon and Yemen.

I want to say something about Sudan and South Sudan, because as the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby pointed out, we have put great emphasis on it in the past few months. Indeed, my right hon. Friends the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for International Development will hopefully be going to Juba on 9 July to witness the birth of a new country. However, I share the dismay and great fear of the hon. Gentleman about what has been happening in Abyei, South Kordofan and the Blue Nile State, and the attacks on south Unity State. Time is obviously running out fast. With less than a month until the secession of South Sudan, we urge both north and south to resolve the outstanding issues under the comprehensive peace agreement—particularly the status of Abyei, but also border demarcation and the sharing of oil revenue. I welcome yesterday’s important announcement that the parties have signed up to the Abyei interim agreement. There is obviously a long way to go in rebuilding trust and good will, but it is essential that that good will and the determination to make the CPA work should be established in the next few days and weeks.

I want quickly to answer the questions of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark. Do we have a strategy? We do indeed. Are we going to learn lessons? Yes, we certainly will. Are we going to look at the idea of the United States Institute for Peace, in Washington? We currently do the same things with a different number of structures—using Government operational staff, policy writers, lesson learners, planners and different think-tanks. The right hon. Gentleman also asked how much we spent on conflict prevention last year. We spent more than £600 million on peacekeeping and conflict prevention through the tri-departmental conflict pool. Our approach to conflict accepts that defence capability and conflict prevention work hand in hand together.

My right hon. Friend asked about monitoring on the ground, and we will certainly make sure that that happens. As to the lessons of the Arab spring, we will of course learn them. The Arab partnership works with those in the region who want to put the building blocks of democracy in place, underpinned by vibrant economies. The right hon. Gentleman also asked whether the Ministry of Defence—which of course was once the War Office—could become the Peace Department. He ought to take that up with the MOD, but I note his ideas on that.

On the matter of the arms trade, several hon. Members, including, I think, the hon. Members for Hayes and Harlington and for Liverpool, West Derby, talked about the arms trade treaty. I assure right hon. and hon. Members that we are working with the EU in helping to develop and deliver member states’ objectives for a series of EU-sponsored ATT seminars. Indeed, we take review and revocation of arms export licences very seriously.

We have a long way to go, but across Government we are establishing co-ordination. We do not want to be just one of the world leaders: we want to be the world leader in making an impact in this vital area.