Commonwealth

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, in this debate. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Luce, and congratulate him on securing this timely debate. I agree with him that for the Heads of Government convening in Colombo in November there is a significant history to be celebrated and a narrative that is redolent with optimistic potential, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Black of Brentwood, reminded us, as did my noble friend Lord Wills, there is also a narrative of challenge.

The latter is a familiar narrative for this part of the 21st century for organisations such as the Commonwealth. It is a narrative of challenge of reform and renewal, particularly a narrative of re-establishing trust among current Commonwealth countries and Governments in the credibility of the organisation, as well as rebuilding confidence in the delivery mechanisms of the secretariat, which involves dealing with institutional reform, developing leadership and showing a degree of resolve. The nature and scale of this challenge should not be underestimated despite the obvious achievement. For example, 70% of the Commonwealth secretariat’s budget is contributed by only three, possibly now only two, countries, and 30 out of 54 countries—or 53 as it is now—in the Commonwealth are in arrears in their contributions to it. There is a manifest north/south divide in the narratives of the Commonwealth. It was exemplified most recently by the differential narratives of the Canadian Government’s decision and the Gambian Government’s decision. This narrative is blocking relationships between countries. It is being exploited by others outside the Commonwealth, as the Library note makes clear in relation to China, and involves a significant deterioration in relationships. Polling shows that there is a lack of knowledge about the Commonwealth among the public of its member countries, and why would there not be when a majority of Governments do nothing to explain, promote or support the Commonwealth? None of this is new, and these challenges are not even comprehensive.

What is new is that part of the process of reform and renewal was to be the relaunch of the Commonwealth as a partnership of nations committed to upholding the Commonwealth values as set out in the new charter signed by Her Majesty in March. These values of democracy, human rights, the rule of law and good governance are all to be seen in a shared vision of bringing together better opportunities for people around the world. This is a challenging ambition in itself. Just how challenging has been exemplified by some of the references that have already been made to the varying views about the rights of citizens in the Commonwealth and by the evidence in pages 8 to 12 of the Library note, which make shocking reading, about the behaviour of some Governments in Commonwealth countries. The issues that frame this challenge for the Commonwealth are identified in the EPG’s report and recommendations. If we were to look for an agenda for the future of the Commonwealth, we could do worse than just to take that report and its recommendations as the agenda for the CHOGM.

How is that consistent with the question that has already been asked by convening this important relaunching of CHOGM in Sri Lanka at this time? How can we not be appalled by the idea of doing that, as the Canadian Government were? There is only one justification in being present there, and that is encapsulated in the Answer that the Prime Minister gave to a Question at Prime Minister’s Questions on 9 October. In response to a Question about attendance, he said:

“I think it is right for the British Prime Minister to go to the Commonwealth conference because we are big believers in the Commonwealth … but … we should not hold back from being very clear about those aspects of the human rights record in Sri Lanka that we are not happy with”.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/10/13; col. 160.]

The Prime Minister has set a challenging ambition for our attendance at that conference, and I invite the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, for whom I have enormous respect, to spell out in more detail exactly what our Government will do during the time that our senior representative, our Prime Minister, is there to live up to the challenge that he has set for himself.