Sudan

Lord Jay of Ewelme Excerpts

Tuesday 9th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I was able yesterday during the Question for Short Debate from the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, in the Moses Room to put on record the fact that the Sudan unit has its resources carefully monitored. Whenever they need to be increased, they are. I gave a commitment that that careful monitoring and increase where necessary will be continued.

[Lord Jay of Ewelme (CB)]

My Lords, what efforts are we making to work with the Government of the Republic of China, who have a huge influence on both Khartoum and Juba, to bring pressure to bear on both Governments of Sudan in order to pave the way towards a degree of stability and economic development?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Jay, raises an important point. Because of our cultural and historic ties with the area we have been involved in negotiations through the troika, with the United States and Norway, and had leverage through the EU. I can assure the noble Lord that we have also made representations with the Republic of China and diplomatic relationships are under way with regard to how we might all work towards peace in Sudan.

European Union (Referendum) Bill

Lord Jay of Ewelme Excerpts

Friday 10th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jay of Ewelme (CB)]

My Lords, I say at the outset that I am strongly in favour of Britain’s membership of the European Union. As the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, said a little while ago, in this year of all years we should surely be conscious of the need for an effective, endurable network linking the member states of the European Union east and west, and removing the risk of conflict—as, indeed, the European Union provides. Is it perfect? Of course, it is not perfect. My noble friend Lord Turnbull explained very elegantly the defects that it has. However, the European Union entrenches democracy and the principles of a market economy in much of our continent and, in so doing, benefits this country, too. I will take just two examples.

Membership of the European Union enhances the projection of our foreign policy. What would be our influence on Iran, Syria or the Middle East if the Foreign Secretary were not engaged fully in EU councils, where Britain and France are by far the most influential countries in the European Union on foreign policy matters? Membership benefits our economy, too. Other noble Lords have made this point, but we should imagine the impact on jobs in Sunderland if Renault-Nissan were to stop investing or to switch its investment elsewhere—as it well might were we not a member of the European Union.

Therefore, our national interest surely lies in working with like-minded partners within the EU to ensure that the European Union is, indeed, an open, democratic Union, enhancing the security and prosperity of its members, as, in their rather different ways, Lady Thatcher and Sir John Major did so effectively when they were Prime Minister—at least in the 17 successive European Councils at which I had the pleasure and honour of accompanying them. I would infinitely prefer that we fight our corner in the European Union, using our undoubted influence to do so, in the way that they did rather than through the threat of renegotiation followed by referendum.

However, I accept that the mood of the country favours a referendum and that the Commons has voted by a large majority for the Bill—the noble Lord, Lord Owen, made those points very forcefully—so the question, it seems to me, is how to ensure that, if there is to be a referendum, it is properly prepared and thought through. To do otherwise on a subject of such profound importance for the United Kingdom would surely be wholly wrong.

That leaves me with two major concerns. The first is timing. The process and the outcome of the renegotiation are uncertain—but so, crucially, is its timing, which may well not fit with the timing proposed in the Bill for the referendum. The final decision on when to have a referendum must surely depend on the progress of the negotiations—something that we cannot possibly know now.

My second point relates to the view of the Electoral Commission, as other noble Lords have mentioned. It is unwise to go against the view of the commission on a matter as important as this. Those two questions—the question of the referendum itself and of the timing of the decision on when to hold it—will need to be considered further in Committee. That is the constitutional duty of this House as a revising Chamber.

Central African Republic and the Great Lakes Region

Lord Jay of Ewelme Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jay of Ewelme (CB)]

My Lords, I too welcome this short debate and congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, on securing it. I must declare an interest as chairman, at least until this summer, of the international medical aid charity, Merlin, which has been active in the Central African Republic since 2007 and in Goma and the eastern Congo since some years before that. It is now working closely throughout the world with Save the Children. I visited Goma and the eastern Congo a few years ago and the sense of insecurity there was palpable. Nowhere else in the world have I had to climb over sleeping soldiers with machine guns to get to the check-in desk in an airport.

Thankfully, there has been an improvement since then. The M23 armed group has been defeated—militarily at least—by government forces. However, given the history of the region, it would be naive to think that sustained peace will now break out, and that human rights violations and suffering will now end. So I hope that the Government will continue to put pressure on the Government of the DRC and on surrounding countries, notably Rwanda, to persist with the peace process and to prevent human rights abuses. The Government have influence—bilaterally and multilaterally—through the European Union, through the United Nations and through the African Union, which is an imperfect but increasingly effective and important organisation, and through human rights organisations. I hope that the Minister will confirm that the Government will continue to use their influence to put pressure on those organisations.

We speak less often in this House about the Central African Republic. As the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, has said, it is a desperate country. It suffers from chronic instability, with coups, followed by widespread violence, anarchy and displacement. It is in the bottom 10 on the Global Peace Index. One noble Lord said that life expectancy is 48; I have heard that it is nearly 50. There is a one in 10 chance of dying in infancy or childbirth. There must be few more despairing places in the world in which to be born.

Does the Central African Republic matter to us? It does not matter hugely, either politically or economically, though instability anywhere in the world is dangerous to us all. However, poverty and deprivation and hunger and the fear of disaster matter to the British people, wherever they occur. We saw that some years ago in Ethiopia, and we are seeing it now with the response to the typhoon in the Philippines. So it is right that DfID should have a programme in the Central African Republic, and it is right that it should be to fund NGOs, such as Merlin and others, who can make a real difference to the lives of people who have very little hope and very little help. It is right, too, that aid should be offered with the flexibility that recognises that a hospital one day can be an empty shell the next, with the doctors, the patients and the nurses dispersed or working in the most primitive conditions but still needing the outside help that NGOs can provide. I commend DfID for the help that it is giving the Central African Republic at the moment.

Before I end, perhaps I may make some slightly broader points, and one or two which, I know, go slightly beyond the subject of tonight’s debate. First, we are debating some of the poorest and most conflict-prone countries in Africa. However, that is less and less typical of the continent as a whole. There are many examples of political stability and economic progress in Africa: South Africa, Nigeria—almost, anyway—Zambia, Ghana and others. We need to recognise that Africa is changing to respond to humanitarian disasters and conflicts when they occur but also to encourage economic growth in other countries.

Secondly, I want to stress the role that Britain has to play, as I have said, in the Great Lakes, in the Central African Republic and in other zones of conflict, zones of humanitarian disaster and zones of human rights abuse. This is, in the jargon, soft power at work. However, what matters here is our engagement and involvement where we can make a difference. Many noble Lords have spoken tonight about making a difference in the Great Lakes and about making a difference in the Central African Republic, and we can. Going a little more widely, as I said this afternoon in this House, in my view it was right for the Prime Minister to go to Sri Lanka and to highlight the human rights abuses there.

In my view, it would have been right, too, to send a representative to President Rouhani’s inauguration in Iran. It would be right now to reopen an embassy in Tehran rather than duck the difficult issues that the world faces or stay away from them. It would be better by far to engage with and confront the world’s problems, however difficult, and to use our still considerable influence, working bilaterally and through the international organisations to which we belong, to help to solve them in the Great Lakes region, in the Central African Republic or elsewhere.

EU: UK Isolation

Lord Jay of Ewelme Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Jay of Ewelme]

My Lords, it is perhaps worth remembering that the EU has three great achievements to its credit: it brought cohesion to western Europe after World War 2; it provided east and central Europe with a democratic home after the collapse of the Soviet Union; and it has created an almost but not yet complete single market of some 500 million people. All those greatly benefit Britain and the rest of the EU. The second and third of those owe a great deal to the influence exerted by successive British Prime Ministers and Governments, including on enlargement, and here I differ slightly from the view of the noble Lord, Lord Dykes and of Lady Thatcher.

The EU now has no such great forward-looking project. Indeed, in creating the euro, it has created huge, although not—and I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine—insurmountable problems for itself, brought on and exacerbated by the financial crisis. I believe we were right not to join the euro, but we also benefit hugely from the single market of 27 member states. Therefore, our interest as a nation surely lies in the maintenance of a coherent European Union of 27 or 28, with the euro at its core and the single market intact. That is easy to say but it is not a straightforward goal to achieve. There are strains between the eurozone and the rest, and within the eurozone, not least at present between Germany and France. Achieving that goal, crucial to our interest, will require patience, determination, tough negotiations and compromise, because negotiations always do require that. It will, above all, require maximising our influence, which we should never underestimate.

I do not believe that the noble Lord, Lord Birt, and I can be alone in hearing from business colleagues and others in Paris and elsewhere in the EU that Britain’s traditions of a liberal market economy, an international outlook and democratic strength are really needed in the EU, and the more the EU is in difficulty, the more, frankly, those qualities are needed. I fear, however, that we are also not alone in sensing that some at least in the EU seem increasingly to have given up on us, sensing that there is no longer a commitment in Britain to the European Union at a time when our contribution in our own interest, as well as in the interest of the European Union, is so important. That conclusion is wrong but I understand why they have come to it.

I end by looking on the bright side. I was delighted to see the Prime Minister and family spending time with Chancellor Merkel. I am delighted to see too that the Chancellor of the Exchequer played down the rhetoric of his opposition to the financial transaction tax, focusing instead on the British interest in opposing it. That, surely, is the way to promote our influence and our interests: state clearly our commitment to an EU of 27; establish close links, including at a personal level, with the key member states; and in that framework fight hard for British interests. As it is sometimes said, if you are not at the table, you tend to be on the menu. I know which I would rather be.

Sudan and South Sudan: EUC Report

Lord Jay of Ewelme Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Jay of Ewelme]

My Lords, it is difficult to follow the right reverend Prelate the Archbishop of York, but I shall do my best. I join other noble Lords in welcoming the Minister to her job. It is very good that she is in the Foreign Office and that the ministerial team in the Foreign Office is no longer 100% male. Perhaps the noble Baronesses, Lady Kinnock and Lady Chalker, will join me in saying that.

I feel a slight frustration that in this House, when we discuss Africa, we tend to move from crisis to crisis. I hope that I will be forgiven if I say a few words about Africa more generally before moving on to Sudan. The broader context is changing rapidly. We have come a long way from the day 10 years ago when the economists described Africa as the hopeless continent. There are positive developments. There has been strong growth in sub-Saharan Africa. It was nearly 5% last year and considerably more in some sub-Saharan African countries. Investment and labour productivity are growing.

There are also some startling statistics. Between 2010 and 2050, the population of Africa is expected to double, which means that by 2050 one in every four people in the world will be African. These changes of course provide opportunities and I shall give just a couple more statistics. British exports of goods and services to Africa last year were about the same as those to China and India combined. When I first read that statistic, I blinked slightly and checked it. But I am told that it is true, and African exports to Britain have now doubled since 2000.

With that good news, as always, comes the need for caution. To comment on another part of Africa, something that looks good one year can look pretty ropey the next. Mali was a success story until the takeover in the north and the coup in the south. We now have in the north of Mali, an al-Qaeda/Boko Haram/radical Tuareg state which threatens our interests in the region and across the Mediterranean seaboard. I find it profoundly depressing that just as the desperate scenario in Somalia begins to get better, we risk having a quasi-terrorist state further west. Therefore, there is all the more reason to ensure that the tensions elsewhere in the continent, such as in Sudan, are well handled.

As others have said, the recent agreement between north and south on restarting the oil pipeline is positive, even if it is still fragile. However, that agreement did not touch other flashpoints. It did not touch Abyei, South Kordofan or the Blue Nile, and horror stories in Darfur remain. I feel that there is a slight risk that with the focus on the north and south, we forget about Darfur. We still need to remember that there are atrocities in Darfur which, if they were the only thing in Sudan that attracted our attention, really would attract our attention. I urge that we do not forget that.

While these tensions remain, particularly those between north and south, there remains too the risk of miscalculations leading to renewed and serious conflict. That includes the south overplaying its hand in the expectation that international support will always be there, and the north committing atrocities in the border areas and intervening in the south to a degree that causes the south’s neighbours, perhaps Uganda, to intervene or attempt to intervene to protect it.

Just as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, there is a key role for the international community to work with both Sudans to ensure that those sorts of miscalculations do not happen, and to help with the humanitarian and development needs, particularly in Darfur and the south. There is a need first just to keep Sudan at the top of the international agenda. Good news or relatively good news, such as that over the oil pipeline, is not a reason for shifting our attention elsewhere but for ensuring that there is no backsliding. I hope that the Minister can give us an assurance that Sudan will remain a key part of the Government’s priorities. Despite the difficulties, there is a real need, too, for closer co-operation between the EU, the African Union and, as we said in our report, China, which has a real interest in the north and the south.

There is also a need for new and improved mechanisms for aid funding to meet the huge needs of South Sudan in particular. I declare an interest as chair of the international medical charity, Merlin, which operates in South Sudan and Darfur. A few years ago when I was in Juba, much play was made by donors, bilateral donors and the World Bank of new interim donor co-ordination measures that had been put in place and how they would provide some assurance of continuity. However, three years later, they are still interim measures and there has not really been the improvement in donor co-ordination which will make a real difference to people in South Sudan. I hope that there, too, the Minister can give us an assurance that we will do all we can to ensure that donor co-ordination is improved.

As well as keeping Sudan and South Sudan firmly in the headlights, and ensuring that western countries, the EU and China work together to prevent potential disastrous political miscalculations, we need also—perhaps above all—to strengthen our donor mechanisms and continue to focus on the real humanitarian needs in much of South Sudan and Darfur.

British Council: Funding

Lord Jay of Ewelme Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jay of Ewelme]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bach, on securing this debate, and I agree with every word that the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, said. I must declare an interest: as Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office, I was a trustee of the British Council, serving on the board under—I often used to think that that was the right word exactly—the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock. I also worked closely with the British Council as ambassador in France, where I saw clearly the contribution that the council can and does make even in an advanced, developed country. It contributed to English language teaching, to handling subjects such as racism in sport, which are more easily handled at arm’s length, and to sponsoring avant-garde British culture. I well remember at least one play the title of which I do not think that I can decently mention in your Lordships’ House.

I am therefore very glad that, despite its funding problems, the British Council is determined to maintain its global reach. As other noble Lords said, the role of the council in establishing and developing links between peoples, between cultural, educational and social institutions, and between different religions and languages, particularly in a complex, unpredictable and changing world, really is important. That is not something which you can just turn on and off at will.

That the British Council was in Burma in the difficult days will give it real strength when things get better. The same is true of Russia where, of course, things are still difficult. It is also true of China, where the desire to learn English is huge and the role of the council is equally important. I stress that it is equally important that the British learn Mandarin and other foreign languages. It is something at which we as a nation are not good. We tend to think of the council’s role as spreading English and English culture abroad. But its role in encouraging, through its language assistance schemes, for example, in British schools, the teaching of foreign languages here, is just as important in my view as the work it does in getting others to speak our language.

However, the expansion and spread of the council’s activities comes at a cost, and, as we know, funds are scarce. As I understand it, the FCO grant to the council is to be more than halved in the 10 years between 2004 and 2014. That is pretty brutal even by today’s standards. I commend the way in which the council has responded by taking tough and radical reforming measures, by cutting UK staff, by outsourcing to India and by developing partnerships with others. However, these planned reductions—for example, of staff in London—must surely be reaching their limit. Can the Minister assure us in his response to the debate that the Government will not cut the council’s grant so far that it cannot perform its vital functions?

Furthermore—this is, perhaps, in parentheses—I note that whereas in 2008, 22% of the Government’s grant was classified as overseas development assistance, and therefore, presumably, came from DfID’s budget rather than that of the Foreign Office, the figure rises to 66% in 2014-15. I congratulate the Foreign Office on this rather clever wheeze, and I rather wish I had thought of it myself when I was responsible for the Foreign Office budget. However, could the Minister assure us that this shift from the FCO’s budget to DfID’s is a consequence of decisions taken by the British Council to focus more on the developing world—which is indeed a sensible thing to do—and is not a desire to shift funding from the Foreign Office budget to the DfID budget, which is distorting the allocation of British Council funds?

Finally, the maintenance of the British Council’s charitable status is key to its financial well-being. Could the Minister assure us, too, that the increase in revenue-earning activities and partnerships with private companies does not in any way jeopardise the continuation of that charitable status?

To conclude, the role of the British Council really is crucial, and as the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, said, not at all well enough understood in this country. It would be a huge mistake if that role were to be jeopardised by funding cuts.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Jay of Ewelme Excerpts

Thursday 17th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jay of Ewelme]

My Lords, I start by congratulating the Prime Minister on his appointment by the UN Secretary-General to chair, along with President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and President Yudhoyono of Indonesia, the high-level panel on what should follow the millennium development goals. I hope that he will find the time among many commitments and occasional distractions to focus on that task because it matters, as does meeting the present millennium development goals. In that context I, like my noble friend Lord Sandwich and the noble Lords, Lord Sheikh and Lord German, am glad that in the Queen’s Speech the Government reiterated their intention to meet the target of spending 0.7% of gross national income on official development assistance. I am less concerned that that target may not be enshrined in legislation. I regard it as a policy rather than a legal issue, and I share the view expressed in the House a couple of days ago by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, that we have a bit too much legislation before us.

Meeting the 0.7% target matters, just as meeting the millennium development goals matters. To take one example, a recent article in the Lancet showed that in 2010 over 5 million children died before the age of five from infections and largely preventable diseases, with pneumonia the leading cause of death. Half of those deaths were in Africa. As the noble Lord, Lord Howell, said, there has been huge progress in Africa, but there is also huge need. Reducing that toll of childhood death requires consistent and concentrated action and consistent and concentrated funding. Britain under both recent Governments has built up a justifiably strong international reputation for its commitment to aid. Despite the understandable pressures to renege on that commitment, I sincerely urge the Government to stick to it.

Having praised the Prime Minister and the Government, perhaps I may, as is perhaps proper for a Cross-Bencher, balance that by coming a little closer to home and saying that it was surely a mistake for the Prime Minister not to see soon-to-be-President Hollande when he was in London before the recent French election. Whatever one thinks will happen to the eurozone or about the future of the European Union, the position of France will be crucial. In foreign policy and defence, relations between France and Britain, within the EU and NATO and bilaterally, will be crucial. It is therefore wholly in Britain’s interest to get to know and to talk to serious French presidential candidates. For some months before the election, it was pretty clear to French policy watchers that it was at least possible—to many of us, probable—that Monsieur Hollande would become President of France.

If I may for one moment sink into my anecdotage, I remember that when I was ambassador in France, Tony Blair, as leader of the Opposition, came to see President Chirac and Prime Minister Juppé, both leaders of the French right, just before the 1997 election. At the end of the meeting with Prime Minister Juppé, at which Mr Blair had expounded British prospective economic policy, Prime Minister Juppé replied, I thought rather wistfully, that he feared that such a policy would be far too right wing for France. I do not for a moment suggest that if Monsieur Hollande had expounded his economic policy to the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister would have responded in the same way; none the less meetings of that kind are important and useful. I hope that in future the Prime Minister will see his way to meeting prospective French Presidents or, indeed, prospective German Chancellors if, as may often be the case, they are passing through London.

Finally, on our own embassies around the world, when I look back to the run-up to the war in Iraq and its aftermath, I find it hard to avoid the conclusion that we suffered from having no embassy in Baghdad between 1991 and 2003. We did not have that feeling and understanding for the country, its rulers and its people which comes from day-to-day contact with even the most detestable of regimes. We were, as a consequence, less well able than we might have been to judge the likely consequences of our actions. I therefore find it worrying that we currently have no diplomatic staff in either Tehran or Damascus, in two countries at the very heart of our foreign policy, or in Bamako in Mali, a country which, as the noble Lord, Lord King, said earlier in the debate, is at the heart of instability following the conflict in Libya.

I entirely understand and support the need to put the safety of our staff first. Particularly in Tehran, after the invasion of the embassy compounds, evacuation was the only course open to us. The question now is how we can get our staff back securely to Tehran, Damascus and Bamako in order to report, influence, protect and promote our interests. There are ways in which that can be done, step by step. I hope that the Minister will be able to assure us at the end of the debate that it is indeed the intention that our staff should return. I hope also that it will be the aim of the Government to preserve our staff securely in other difficult and sometimes dangerous places such as Kabul, Khartoum and Juba. Their presence will continue to be essential to protect and promote our interests and, in particular, to meet the objectives set out by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, in his speech at the beginning of this debate of responding to crises, focusing on poverty reduction and increasing our interests in Africa.

EU: Recent Developments

Lord Jay of Ewelme Excerpts

Thursday 16th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jay of Ewelme]

My Lords, last week was the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Maastricht treaty, which came shortly after the negotiations in Maastricht in December 1991. I had the honour of attending those negotiations with, among others, my noble friend Lord Kerr and the noble Lord, Lord Lamont. The day after those negotiations in Maastricht, an editorial in the Daily Telegraph lauded the Prime Minister, John Major, and had a few words of compliment for the Foreign Office—which I have treasured because it was, I think, unique.

I was reminded of this when the Prime Minister returned from Brussels just before Christmas and again faced a laudatory and rather triumphalist press. However, it was the start of rather a painful reappraisal, which draws me to the conclusion that there are no easy wins for the United Kingdom in the European Union, any more than there are in other areas of policy. EU negotiations are a hard slog to protect and advance British interests, faced with often intransigent member states and an often sceptical British public.

There is much emphasis on the eurozone at the moment, but that is not the whole European Union. It is worth remembering that the European Union has had two real achievements over the years, both of which are very much in the United Kingdom’s interest. First, there was the coming together of western Europe after the Second World War and after the end of fascism in Spain, Portugal and Greece. Secondly, there was the provision of a democratic, liberal market home for the countries of eastern and central Europe and the Baltic states after the collapse of communism.

It is worth remembering, too, the advantages that the European Union brings to Britain today. First, as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, mentioned, it provides a single-market economic zone, which is substantial although not yet complete, with a total GDP of around €11 trillion—larger than those of the USA and Japan combined—and which takes more than 50 per cent of British exports in goods and services. We export those goods and services to a zone with a common set of rules so that business does not have to comply with 27 different sets of regulations.

Secondly, the EU provides a developing and increasingly flexible common foreign and security policy that can give Britain greater clout; for example, as part of the group that keeps constant pressure on Iran over its nuclear ambitions, and as part of the response to what is going on in Syria. Then there is Britain’s part in Operation Atalanta to counter piracy off the coast of Somalia, which threatens sea routes across the Indian Ocean and into the Red Sea. I also mention, since it has not been mentioned so far, an economic aid programme of some €12 billion—larger than that of the World Bank—which operates in parts of the world such as west Africa, where needs are huge and DfID barely operates. Thanks to constant British pressure from Governments of all parties, the quality of that aid is far better now than it was before.

There are other areas, too. In the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, perhaps I can mention climate change as being one where EU policy, influenced by UK policy, enhances our own influence around the world and advances our national interest. I mention all this because there is often rather a British tendency to focus on only those things that go wrong, and not on those from which we profit. Of course there are things that go wrong. In retrospect, the eurozone was a flawed and risky project. Britain was absolutely right to stay out of it and it is extremely hard to see circumstances in which the United Kingdom—or, topically, Scotland—would sensibly want to join.

The concept of using economic and monetary union as a means of creating political union, rather than seeing them as an expression of political union once created, was risky, as we now see. I also have serious doubts about the viability of the fiscal compact, with its legal obligation, among other things, to keep budgets to a certain level. Nor do I know whether Greece will ultimately default or leave the eurozone and, if it does, whether that will have a knock-on effect on other eurozone economies. However, we should not underestimate the determination of the eurozone countries to keep it together. Nor should we regard its breaking up as having anything other than a profoundly disruptive effect on our own economy at a very difficult time.

Therefore, the United Kingdom’s aim must surely be to work with our EU partners, in and out of the eurozone, to keep it together and, crucially, to ensure that measures taken to achieve this do not adversely affect the single market of all 27 EU countries. To go back to where I started, that is surely where the hard-headed British interest lies. Nothing in that approach prevents, at the same time, our doing all we can and should to expand our trading relations with the fast-growing economies of China, India, Brazil, Indonesia and others; or strengthening the Commonwealth, which is rightly dear to the heart of the noble Lord, Lord Howell. That approach, of being engaged with both the European Union and the world’s fast-growing economies, will surely be appreciated by the United States. With its focus increasingly on its west and its south, it will want its strongest European relationships to be with those countries that have the strongest European influence. I hope that that will continue to include the United Kingdom.

I conclude by saying that, despite the difficulties, a full engagement with the European Union and its development is fully in Britain’s economic and political interest.

Syria

Lord Jay of Ewelme Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My Lords, my noble friend makes two points. First, he drew attention to something that we are inclined sometimes to forget, with the tumult of pictures on the television and so on—the staggering courage of people who are prepared to go into the streets, knowing that bullets will be flying, knowing that murder and mayhem will take place. That staggering courage is something that we should all salute and brings hope that the Syrian people—as opposed to the regime that is oppressing them—have got a strength and endurance which will see them through in the end. It is indeed a remarkable thing.

As to the Russian agenda, Mr Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, is going to Damascus, I think either late today or tomorrow, and he is going to see Bashar al-Assad. He is going with his secret service chief, I see. There appears to be a view in Moscow that they have their agenda and their own path that they want to pursue for bringing some amelioration to this horrific situation. I think that they are mistaken. I think that that is a complete misjudgment, but that is what they are doing and my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary will be speaking to Mr Lavrov as soon as he returns from Damascus.

[Lord Jay of Ewelme]

My Lords, I join others in paying tribute to our ambassador and his staff and their families in Damascus who are doing an extraordinarily good job in very difficult circumstances. In that context, will the Minister confirm that our ambassador has been withdrawn only for consultations and will soon be back in Damascus? It has always struck me as a curious diplomatic convention to withdraw ambassadors from post when situations get bad, which is precisely the moment when they can be the most use.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I fully share the noble Lord’s remarks about Simon Collis, our excellent ambassador. He is recalled here for consultation. We are not closing the embassy at this stage. Obviously it is a matter under complete review, as is the question of the security of embassy staff and everyone concerned. I can confirm what my right honourable friend said in his Statement—that the ambassador has been recalled for consultation. We are not closing the embassy at this stage.

Egypt

Lord Jay of Ewelme Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I thank my noble friend. Foreign Office Ministers, particularly junior ones, have to be quite careful when it comes to taking out a crystal ball and making bold forecasts, because this is a particularly fluid situation. My noble friend has done a pretty good job himself in raising certain crystal-ball issues, and these are very much in my mind and that of my noble and honourable friends and their advisers in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He is absolutely right that we now have to look at implications and try to be one step ahead of the unfolding scene. Gaza and the Israel-Palestine situation, oil and energy supplies throughout the region, and the now increasingly unfashionable pattern of nepotism—which seemed to cause so much anger in Tunis and was clearly a feature in the riots in Cairo, and which was a feature in other contexts as well—all need to be looked at, together with the position of other countries all around the region.

Even in Lebanon we have a fragile situation, with a new Prime Minister who will we hope command sufficient support all round to achieve a delicate balance there. There are issues of potential turbulence in many other regions as well. This means not only that we are already in a new international landscape but that we now, as a result of what has been happening for the last few weeks, have to have a further reassessment. I can therefore assure my noble friend that every effort will be made to peer into the future—it sometimes seems very dark indeed—and to make proper provision for the interests of this country in a new and changing world.

[Lord Jay of Ewelme]

I thank the Minister for his Statement and join others in expressing sympathy for British citizens caught up in unrest and our admiration for the consular staff, both in Egypt and sent from London, who are helping.

I understand the pressure on the Foreign Office budget at the moment, including the consular budget, but will the Minister say whether the Foreign Office is considering developing the concept of rapid reaction forces to provide greater flexibility in the management of consular staff and increasing the chances of having the right number of people available in the alas increasing number of emergencies for which British citizens will quite rightly expect and deserve support from our consular services?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I am sure this is in the mind of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, about which the noble Lord knows a great deal. He probably knows a great deal more than I do; he has spent more time there than I have. This is an age that requires agility, adaptability and rapid deployment as never before in handling international affairs, securing stability and peace, and protecting and promoting our interests, so this kind of design will be increasingly required alongside the stable institutions of Whitehall and the hierarchies of government that have prevailed in the past. We have to have some new thoughts on how to deal with the instant conflagrations and instant fires that can spring up in this globalised total communication, totally informational world.