Middle East and North Africa

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Friday 11th February 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved By

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

That this House takes note of recent developments in the Middle East and north Africa.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)]

My Lords, I know that many noble Lords take a close interest in the Middle East and north Africa. This was one reason—there are now, of course, many others—why the Government tabled a debate on recent developments in the region. We are living through and debating momentous times where much is changing. It is always difficult to achieve an effective focus in a debate when matters are not only far from settled but may change even during the course of what we are saying today. Nevertheless, I hope your Lordships will agree that, particularly in this Chamber, we have a role and a duty to stand back a little from the tumultuous broadcasts and the overload of news and information and try to make some sense of the jigsaw of the region on which we are focusing today. I suggest that we focus in particular on the interests of the United Kingdom in this heavily interdependent and highly globalised world.

If I may start with a generality, although obviously there are many details to come, we want to see a Middle East that is stable and outward facing, a region where the pace of growth and development matches the demands of a changing world and whose young and rapidly growing population is enabled, through education and reform, to participate freely and fully in economic and political life. We must never forget that half the population of almost the entire region is under 25. This is an important factor for the people of the region, and all the developments there are vital for our own future prosperity, security and national interest.

I turn to events in Egypt this morning and overnight. President Mubarak has indeed devolved powers, according to his statement, but it appears that, as he proposes things, every step in the transition to a new pattern requires his authorisation. Meanwhile, we have reports this morning that the protests are growing much stronger, there are more people in the centre of Cairo and the protests in other cities around the country are also growing. The army is the factor in the middle of all this and it faces grim options, which it appears to be debating now. One is the obvious one, that it could mount a military coup; we have seen that sort of thing in other countries. Another is that it could hope to control the crowds, who are far from appeased by what President Mubarak has announced. The third, and the one that we must pray against, is that there is the risk of a clash and that massive numbers of people seek to attack key institutions and places, such as the Parliament and the palace, that are heavily guarded. I hardly need to suggest to your Lordships what the result of that might be. We can make no predictions; not the closest expert, not the bravest reporter—the coverage has been conducted by some very brave people—can do that. All I can say is that in about an hour the people of Cairo will come out from their Friday prayers on to the streets, and we will have to see how matters develop from there.

As to the immediate concern that we all have for British nationals and tourists, the travel advice that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has provided still stands: in the big cities, as well as in Luxor and Alexandria, one should travel only if it is absolutely essential. The resorts remain calm and people are travelling to them. Obviously, the advice is to check with one’s tour operator, and there are constant updates and daily, even hourly, reports to Ministers. If things change there will be an adjustment but, so far, calmness prevails. That is the immediate report that I wanted to give your Lordships on Egypt. We have some more deliberative ideas to exchange, and I am looking forward to hearing many of them in the debate.

Events in Egypt, as well as in Tunisia and to some extent in other countries, which we will come to, have highlighted long-term grievances in all these places. They have shown that if these frustrations are not sensibly and calmly addressed they may turn into volatility and instability at amazing speed, with huge consequences across the whole region. Economic grievances, such as food costs, have been part of citizens’ discontent in Tunisia and particularly in Egypt, the two countries where the movement has been most visible so far.

Political and social frustrations rather than religious or ideological factors have played a significant part. People have been calling for an end to corruption, space for political participation, and equal access to justice and law. We are reminded by these events of the importance of underpinning economic development with sound political reform.

The age of informational technology has played its part. Admittedly, in Egypt the internet and mobiles were cut off at a certain point, but not before huge mobilisation had been achieved through e-enabled electronic media. All this means that the pattern of protest formation gets vastly speeded up and the organisation of protest greatly empowered.

We will recognise in this debate that each of the countries in the region that we are looking at faces quite different pressures. The UN said in the latest of its Arab Human Development Reports, which have been produced each year since 2002, that there are underlying issues of weak governance and limited political, economic and social participation right across the region. These vary enormously from country to country.

The Government’s view is that reform must be a home-grown process. Leadership must come from within the countries. The international community, which includes us, should play a positive role in helping to foster reform. This is not about imposing western democratic models and prescribing outcomes and templates, but about promoting the building blocks of more open societies in the regions. It is about working in partnership with the region, taking into account the unique situation in each country.

My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has been travelling for the past few days. He went first to Tunisia on Tuesday where he pledged the UK’s support for the democratic aspirations of the people of Tunis and their desire for greater economic development and a more open, political system. He announced the UK’s Arab Partnership long-term strategic initiative. That is supported by a new £5 million Arab Partnership Fund to help Governments with the building blocks of more open societies. Through it, we will offer support in areas of UK expertise and reputation: the rule of law, access to justice, freedom of expression, democratic institutions and civil society. That is just one part of broader UK efforts on these issues. It will supplement the already extensive work of DfID in the region, as well as other global Foreign Office programme spending which the Foreign Secretary announced on 1 February. This includes £24 million for FCO programmes to promote stable, open economies to help countries develop, and £58.5 million for the promotion of values, human rights and British diplomatic influence through strengthened bilateral relations.

As my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary said in Tunisia at the beginning of this week, this is a time of great opportunity for the Middle East. He praised the courage, dignity and sacrifice of ordinary Tunisians in pursuit of universal freedoms that we often take for granted here. As he highlighted, we are witnessing a remarkable transition in Tunisia. The Government have made encouraging progress in responding to the aspirations of the people. Now, of course, they must ensure that change is swift, comprehensive and irreversible. My right honourable friend also, as the House will know, visited Jordan, the Yemen and Bahrain. I shall have one or two comments to make on those in a moment.

It is for the Egyptian people to determine the leadership of their country and secure—if they can, against the outline of what I have already described to your Lordships—the rapid, orderly transition to a broad-based government with real, visible and meaningful change. It needs to start, if possible, now. The Prime Minister also made this clear in his Statement to Parliament on 7 February, which I repeated to your Lordships. He commended the European Council Declaration on Egypt and the Region of 4 February, which stressed that the transition we are calling for should involve the building blocks of free and open societies and democratic institutions, such as the freedom of assembly, the rule of law, freedom of speech and free and fair elections.

In our contacts with partners in the United States, Europe and the wider region, we have discussed how we can help Egypt through these perilous times and its transition. We welcome the European Council’s agreement to a new partnership involving more effective support to countries such as Egypt. The scale of European Union support should depend on the extent to which the Egyptian Government are prepared to stand by the commitments that they have already made and take further measures towards meaningful political reform. Frankly, however, in the light of the news now coming in, we will have to be realistic and wait to see how events turn out.

I turn briefly to some of the broader implications for the region, and the central issue, to my mind, of the United Kingdom’s interests in the outcomes in the area. First, the Middle East peace process is a concern that many of your Lordships have at the forefront of their minds. My right honourable friend is putting strongly to the Israeli Government and to Washington the point that, unless decisive leadership is shown and bold decisions taken, the two-state solution in the Middle East will get more difficult and may become impossible within a few years as facts on the ground change. That would leave us with decades of potential conflict and even deeper difficulties in the Middle East. Clearly, this is not in the interests of the Israelis themselves, or those of the Palestinians or the wider region. It is not in the UK’s interests either. We want to see stable, prosperous Middle East development with a sovereign and viable Palestinian state living in peace alongside a secure Israel at the heart of it.

At this moment, the Israelis are of course wondering about the border between Gaza and Egypt, and whether it stays protected. It appears to do so at the moment. They are also worrying about their peace agreement with Egypt, which has been part of their policy in the past. All of these things are now up for revision and are no doubt being re-examined at this moment.

Let me deal with further implications. First, it is often overlooked that this is not just a western problem. There is an eastern dimension to the whole of what is happening in the Middle East. Chinese influence and investment are everywhere. Chinese warships are in the Mediterranean for the first time in several hundred years. The influence of the rising powers of Asia on the Middle East is heavy and growing. Exports from the Middle East—we are looking immediately more at the oil-producing countries to the east of the region—are increasingly going to the east. Sixty-six per cent of all oil production from Saudi Arabia goes eastwards. A large proportion of China’s fossil fuel imports come from this region. This cannot be brushed aside; it is a decisive element in the unfolding pattern of Middle East reform.

As far as we are concerned, there are some energy implications, to which we should not be blind. Egypt itself is not a major energy producer but it has some oil and quite a lot of gas, which it exports through the Arab peace pipeline to Jordan, Syria and Israel. Extraordinarily—perhaps this is often overlooked—Israel relies on Egypt for between 30 per cent and 40 per cent of its daily gas supplies. The continuation of that pipeline is an extremely important element in the situation. All over the region new gas pipelines are being developed, such as the so-called Islamic gas pipeline between Iran, Iraq and Syria. We have to understand that a new pattern of energy transportation and production is emerging in the area.

I will say a little on troubles to the south of Egypt, which should not be ignored. The piracy in the Gulf of Aden and to the south of Somalia gets worse by the day. My right honourable and honourable friends and other Governments are working harder and harder to create a strong focus to deal with what is now a dangerous and threatening problem for world trade and transportation and security.

The countries either side of Egypt and Tunisia and those mentioned by my right honourable friend are all watching this matter closely. Algeria is an area where there could be dangers; it is a vast energy producer and troubles there would have a direct effect on our security and welfare. My right honourable friend visited President Saleh in Yemen and discussed the situation with him. He visited Jordan and talked to the King. He did not have a chance to visit Lebanon this time. He was in Syria two weeks ago. Lebanon’s situation is different. In a very delicate and fragile situation the new Prime Minister, Mr Makati, seeks to form a new Government that somehow has the backing of the former 14 March and 8 March alliances, Hezbollah and the Maronite, Christian and Sunni elements. It is a very difficult situation and one with which we should sympathise during these struggles to stabilise.

I could say more on Sudan, where good things happened in recent days. We welcome the result of the referendum on south Sudan and the statement that the Government of Sudan will respect the choice of the people and the commitments of the Sudanese leaders in the south. This has so far been a major success story for British policy and that of other countries, including the United States, in an area where we have provided a colossal amount of aid. We make an annual development payment to Sudan of £140 million. We have a very strong team in Juba. Our staff there have performed quite brilliantly. That is all I want to say on Sudan at the moment for simple time limitation reasons.

Part of the reason that we need to work in partnership with the region is to protect our own vital interests. This is not just a broad concern; this is to do with our national interests. We want to promote an environment in which the UK’s trade and investment can flourish, including through shared standards and a proper level playing field for business, and encourage economic participation by all members of society. There is an opportunity, as my right honourable friend has emphasised, for countries in the region to tackle problems of corruption and transparency in the way that we have been calling for over many years, and to lay the foundations for balanced democratic development, which will provide them with their own agenda, respect and freedoms. They will have the powers not to be pushed around by the influences of Iran and the outside pressures that they sometimes resent, and to have their own dignity and freedom.

We want to promote opportunity through education and learning and the growth in the activity and capacity of civil society. Our education system, which is highly respected in the region, stands to gain significantly as education in the region opens up. We want to promote fairness through the spread of universal rights and freedoms, which will make countries in the region more reliable and less fragile trading partners for us. Promotion of these reforms is firmly in our national interest. In all of this, we must aim for what is practical, realistic and achievable, and work with international partners, including the European Union, the United States, the G8, the G20, the broader Middle East and north African peace process and international financial institutions. We need to ensure that we complement, rather than compete with, all these existing efforts. In doing so, we will respect the cultural differences of societies where these exist within a framework of international rights.

I have spoken at perhaps more length than I intended in opening this debate but I thought your Lordships would like to know how we see the very latest situation, and on what we should now focus to ensure our interests and the stability and peace of a dangerous and turbulent region. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My Lords, this has been a superb debate, as most of us expected, because your Lordships' House is very well placed to put perspective on to the rapidly changing events that we are debating. I congratulate all those who have taken part, and particularly reserve warm congratulations for the contribution that followed mine at the beginning, from the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, who as we know is deeply involved, in opposition as she was in government, in the affairs of many of the countries that we are discussing. Her contributions are extremely valuable. Of course, although she gave general support, as did practically everybody, to the line that Her Majesty's Government are taking, she rightly and properly had points of criticism. I might as well bite the bullet and take up those points of criticism right at the beginning and keep the better news for later on.

The noble Baroness as well as several other noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Hannay, Lord Judd and Lord Triesman, concentrated with considerable knowledge and pinpoint accuracy on this question of soft power and why at this time there were proposed cuts in certain services from the BBC World Service. I can tell noble Lords now that we are discussing the implications with the World Service of the package that was announced and are in close contact with it. The Foreign Secretary has mentioned the possibility of additional funding and we are discussing the options with the World Service. That is the position now. I hope that that at least gives some indication of a less than totally negative response to these concerns. I would add that what was to be cut—or proposed to be cut, anyway—was the shortwave service. The technological facts are that the shortwave service is being less listened to, because the world is now dominated by online services and a multiplicity of television services, including the BBC world television services and Arabic services. That is how things are going. I am not in any way suggesting that the age of radio is finished; in many ways, it is more important than ever. But there is a different pattern emerging. Quite aside from austerity and budget cut requirements, which are undeniable—it would be silly to pretend that they were not taking place—there is a change in the technological pattern of communication. Our soft power programmes must adjust to that as well. I thought that I would get that over at the beginning, because that is the position that we are in now.

I shall try to comment on almost all the very good points made in a reasonable time but, if I miss anything out, noble Lords can accost me afterwards and we can cover it in discussion and letters.

After the excellent opening by the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, my noble friend Lady Falkner of Margravine spoke with great knowledge about the situation in the area. She rightly spoke about the Muslim Brotherhood and of how one should have a calibrated attitude to it. That must be right. Obviously, in the goings-on in Cairo at the moment and in the move of the Egyptian Government, the Muslim Brotherhood has now been bought into the discussions and is, in a sense, accepted. She and others, such as the noble Lord, Lord Desai, are quite right that the Muslim Brotherhood should not be judged as just one lump, or one group of people with more extreme views. We have to try and disengage slightly from the historical record of the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo, which at times was extreme. Today’s Muslim Brotherhood is obviously of a different pattern and the senior people in it have a position that should be understood and discussed. That is certainly the position of this Government as well, so I hope that meets that point.

The noble Lord, Lord Luce, then spoke with great experience on the history both of his family and of his own role in the area, which has been considerable. He also mentioned the Commonwealth. Someone outside the Chamber said that it was rather odd for me to be making a speech and not mentioning the Commonwealth, so for a minute I was thinking how it might come in. The noble Lord, Lord Luce, brought it in and reminded me that I have noticed that one of the early requests from Juba—this new nation which is about to be born in south Sudan—is that it should join the Commonwealth. Whether that actually happens is of course not up to the UK but a matter for the 54 members. Whether it works is another issue but the fact that this brand new nation considers it a club worth joining is, to me, rather interesting and encouraging. There is also the point that the Gulf Co-operation Council states have expressed, at quite high level and more than once, an interest in being observers in the Commonwealth system. I will not talk further on that now, but that is where the Commonwealth comes into this story.

The noble Lord, Lord Luce, said that Ministers should visit the Gulf more often and he is absolutely right. I plan to go there in May and my honourable and right honourable friends are visiting constantly. Certainly, the Under-Secretary, Alistair Burt, has been there very recently, as has the Foreign Secretary more than once, both last week and a few weeks ago.

Finally, the noble Lord mentioned Somaliland and the problems to the south, with the piracy issue, which I mentioned in my opening remarks. I do not want, for any moment, to underestimate the extreme seriousness of what is developing. We are now getting to the point where it is not merely the Gulf of Aden and Somali waters that are dangerous but the entire east coast of Africa. Even those ships seeking to go round the Cape of Good Hope are now being picked off. This is beginning to create a vast no-go area throughout the whole world trading system. It is a serious issue and the Government here in London are taking it extremely seriously, co-ordinating work with the contact group that operates from Bahrain, but our strong view is that it is clear that still more co-ordination and a much more sustained international effort is needed.

My noble friend Lord Trimble made an interesting speech and raised a theme that has come through many speeches today: of the central requirement of a two-state solution, which runs up against the ugly reality that that solution is being undermined by the settlements, as noble Lords such as the noble Lord, Lord Wright, have reminded us again and again. Many of us feel, as many of your Lordships have said, that here is an opportunity which has been sliding away when it is absolutely vital that there is a positive and responsible policy on the settlements, before the whole two-state solution becomes even more remote than it is. That is what we have to work for and what my right honourable friend has been arguing for in the past 24 or 48 hours, while on his travels. That is what we have to take a grip on, before the idea is destroyed.

One just hopes that the events in Egypt, their inevitable impact on the Israel-Egypt peace agreement and events elsewhere around Israel in the whole Middle East may involve the rethinking among Israeli government leaders necessary for them to begin realising that we must move forward. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Wright, made that point. There must be progress in this area before progress not only turns to halt and to status quo, which is unacceptable enough, but turns to regress and a backward slide into worse horrors and more poisoning of the entire Middle Eastern situation.

My noble friend Lord Alderdice also mentioned the Muslim Brotherhood and the falsity of the polarised argument that somehow one has to choose between Muslim intensity, even jihadism, on the one hand and sticking to the status quo on the other. That is not the situation at all. We, and all responsible observers, want to see a responsible and stable evolution of patterns of government in the area, including in Egypt where the storm has now broken.

My noble friend Lord Fowler spoke intensively and knowledgeably about the Gaza situation. I would love to be able to speculate in detail about what might happen if Egyptian policy changes slightly or if we could persuade the present stand-off, or difficulty, between Israel and Gaza to be modified in favour of more construction materials going in and so on.

Again, a number of noble Lords rightly pointed out that there is Hamas and Hamas; there are those who would like to move forward and engage in discussion, and those who would like to carry on firing rockets day after day into Israel, hurting, maiming and killing innocent people and treating their own people in a very primitive way. Somehow we have to find a way through this. The Government’s view is that when and if the Hamas leadership conforms to the requirements of the quartet, by both its behaviour and policy statements, that is the moment when we could go forward. Until then, we cannot. That is the position that I have to report to your Lordships.

The noble Lord, Lord Judd, made some kind remarks about me and mentioned the question of resources; of course, he is right. He also mentioned the World Service issue, which I have dealt with, and talked about the techniques of negotiation. One can of course kill any negotiation in advance with too many preconditions. He also made the very good point that if we are going to talk about some groups accepting Israel before talks begin, we must have a clear recognition that there is acceptance on the other side of Palestine as the new state with its own existence and legitimacy.

The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, talked knowledgeably about economic needs. One of the important contributions that we can make even now, at this moment of agony for some of the countries concerned, is to show that we can restore both confidence and the incentives to continue investing in and trading with these countries, and to help provide their business, which, in the case of Egypt, is just about at rock bottom at the moment. I am encouraged by the news of non-governmental organisations and trade associations like, for instance, those dealing with Tunis; they should take early steps to mount trade delegations to restore the confidence without which there will be no economic recovery.

The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, spoke about visas. We want to encourage genuine students from the Middle East to choose the UK for their studies. “Genuine” is an important word in that context; the reform that we are proposing, on which there is a consultation that has just closed, is not about closing our doors but is about a more selective approach in the interests of Britain. A huge number of responses to the consultation were received—30,000—and before any changes to the system are proposed they will be carefully considered. His fears are perfectly fair to air, but I think they can be reasonably met. He also mentioned the World Service.

My noble friend Lady Morris spoke knowledgably about Jordan, which she knows extremely well. Have we cut Jordan’s aid? HMG of the day stopped aid to Jordan in 2005. Jordan is regarded as a middle-income country, so it is not a UK aid target, but we pay quite a big chunk of the EU Neighbourhood Partnership Initiative Fund; 17 per cent, in fact. Jordan has been due to get €223 million in the past two years from that fund. My noble friend asked, as did the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, about the Westminster Foundation for Democracy. I was puzzled to hear their concern about it being cut. Of course, it was cut last year and the year before. For this year, however, there is a 3 per cent increase, the very opposite of what seemed to be implied, meaning £3.5 million. That increase is secure for 2011; I cannot give any guarantees beyond that. However, that is the position, and rightly so because it is a very valuable instrument and it should be supported.

The noble Lord, Lord Wright, spoke with his customary eloquence about the settlement issue, and made us all wonder whether there is not, at this moment—because of the turmoil in Egypt and Tunis, the riots in the streets and the signs that a wind of change is sweeping through the area—an opportunity for Israel to offer some constructive thoughts to our American friends about how they can make their policy move forward, and how we can see the quartet conditions fulfilled. He also asked about upgrading the Palestine delegation in London. That is important, and a matter to which we are giving some thought in the context of wanting to back more softly the move towards a Palestinian state. I cannot make any firm guarantees as to how that process will go, or the timing, but it is certainly in our minds.

The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, spoke with knowledge about a number of issues. He raised the thought, which many of us have shared, of whether Egypt might emerge, we hope peaceably and without further bloodshed, in a sort of Turkey pattern: a country rightly asserting its own agenda and foreign policy and finding its way in the new Middle East—indeed, global—landscape but not necessarily aligned with the extremism of Tehran or subservient on every issue to the western powers. Could that be the case? Of course, Turkey has a very different pattern within from Egypt. It is a different kind of society. The religious elements have a slightly different place. But it is an interesting thought and maybe that is how things could go, and in which we should work to encourage them to go if we are skilled and lucky.

My noble friend Lord Ahmad spoke with force and splendid optimism about the possibilities. As he rightly said, this is not a straight clash of ideologies, faiths and civilisations. There are quite different forces at work. Out of them might come some good developments in line with what I have no doubt was in my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary’s mind when he spoke about the moment of opportunity.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, I thought the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Stone, was absolutely terrific. It was very positive. It just shows what can be achieved and is being achieved if one gets down to practical business measures. One has only to visit Ramallah or hear about what is going on there to see that business is booming. All kinds of fascinating new relationships, trade links and investments are opening up. As the noble Lord, Lord Stone, went on to talk about the details of the food possibilities, he began to make me feel quite hungry and that it was well past our lunchtime. This is practical stuff and exactly what we should have worked for all along and should work for in the future. I could not be more congratulatory on what the noble Lord is achieving with the project he described.

The noble Lord, Lord Triesman, rightly majored on education and aid programmes. I think I have said enough to indicate what we aim to do. It is our place to stand up for universal human rights, strong representative institutions and democratic values, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and the rule of law. I agree with those who have warned that there is no single model. Each of these countries has a different history, different concerns and different tensions. We do not have a blueprint for reform—that would be arrogant.

In Egypt, the UK wants to work with Arab leaders to produce an irrevocable transition to a broader-based Government, with the Egyptian people deciding on the leadership of their country. They may be doing so at this very moment. In Tunisia we welcome the remarkable transition that is under way and we will support the new Government there. In Jordan, we welcome recent moves to open up the political space. Jordan is a strong proponent of reform. In Yemen, we welcome, as did my right honourable friend the other day, President Saleh’s commitment that he will not seek re-election, in line with the Yemeni constitution, and will re-engage with opposition parties. There are dangers there but also some positive forces. In all of this I reiterate the Government’s intention to intensify Britain’s historic relations with the Middle East, particularly with the GCC states as well as the countries we have focused on today. To protect the security of the UK and advance our prosperity, the Government will work closely with partners in the region on their own reform and renewal, and continue to work closely with those who seek peace and stability in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

The Arab Partnership, which I mentioned in opening the debate, is just one of the broader UK efforts on these issues. It will supplement the work of DfID in the region as well as other Foreign Office programme spending, which the Foreign Secretary announced only the other day. It goes hand in hand with the training, mentoring and support work carried out by the UK Armed Forces across the region, including their work in maritime security in the Gulf, which is of growing importance. It reinforces the trade and investment between British business and commercial partners across the Middle East and north Africa. That means not just trade in the physical sense but the exchange of services, knowledge and education, all of which add up to an enhanced soft power capacity for this country.

We have a crucial stake in the stability and prosperity of the region, which includes vital work on UK interests such as countering radicalisation, securing energy supplies and ensuring open and accessible markets. It also includes working to promote an environment in which trade and investment can flourish through shared standards and a level playing field for business, and encouraging participation by all members of society.

I end by re-emphasising that we are in a new international landscape. Power has shifted in this world. Influence has shifted and is shifting even now. In the centre of all this my right honourable friend has spoken of a “distinctive British foreign policy”. What does that mean? It means that we continue to be good Europeans. Europe is our neighbourhood and we want to be positive in the reform of the European Union, building on its past success but meeting the challenges of the 21st century. We remain good Atlanticists and close allies of our friend the United States in many aspects. However, we have our own role to play. It is just possible that, rather than talking of shrinkage and decline, the role of this nation, with its history, talents and experience, will be more significant and bring more opportunities than ever before.

Motion agreed.