Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting

Lord Marland Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marland (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Luce, who has kept the Commonwealth flame alive for so long for his kind words towards me and the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council, which I chair, and other noble Lords who have referenced us.

I declare my interests. As I have already said, I am chairman of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council, I chair the Commonwealth Business Forum and I am president of the Commonwealth Youth Orchestra, which has not yet been mentioned.

At the beginning of the Commonwealth Business Forum I asked all the delegates the question: why are we here? It was a good question at the time because to many of us the Commonwealth was in inertia. However, by the end of our three days of conference, there was a clear answer. We had the leadership of the Minister of State, Hugo Swire, who I am delighted to see is attending this debate. We had my noble friend Lord Howell, with his energy for a man of his age, if I may say so, constantly at the forefront of our initiatives. We also had the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, with his health initiative making incredible strides. Put with that the energy of our new chairman, the Prime Minister of Malta, Joseph Muscat, who at 42 has excellent drive, along with His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, who is now engaged fully in the initiatives. The appointment of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, has already been referred to, which is great news for us all, while of course the rock of this foundation is Her Majesty the Queen, who has kept the show on the road. There is now an opportunity for renewed optimism and enthusiasm.

In the Business Forum alone, where else could you get 1,200 people from 70 countries, including 25 Ministers, 15 Heads of State, the Lord Mayor of London and the Prince of Wales attending an event on the small island of Malta? That in itself is incredibly powerful for people in the business community. In three minutes I cannot tell noble Lords all about what our organisation is up to on anti-corruption and on developing and helping SMEs, but I am available to Members of the House, and indeed to anyone for that matter, for private meetings to describe what we do.

The key initiative to come out of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting was the $1 billion Commonwealth Green Finance Facility. This is the most ambitious thing the Commonwealth has done for a long time. It is being led by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and Prime Minister Muscat, and is supported by the Governments of Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Nigeria, Malaysia and Canada; in other words, the big Commonwealth countries are supporting the island states in their green and blue economies, which is vital. I had the honour to co-chair the facility with the head of the Prince of Wales’s International Sustainability Unit, Justin Mundy. It is going to be a real focus for us over the next 18 months, about which I hope to report more to the House in due course.