Foreign and Commonwealth Office: Funding

Lord Marland Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marland (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Luce, for his excellent résumé. I also declare interests as chairman of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council and as the Prime Minister’s former trade envoy. In the limited time available—which is shameful really; three minutes to talk about such an important subject—I will pose two questions to my noble friend and hope that he will respond either here or in writing.

We all agree with the noble Lord, Lord Luce, who put it beautifully, that resources in the Foreign Office are extremely limited and, much more importantly, unevenly spread. My first question is: how many people work on the European desk and how many work on the Commonwealth desk? I will give a rough answer: it is probably 10 to 15 on the Commonwealth desk and 100 on the European desk. The Commonwealth, incidentally, comprises one-third of the world’s population and 53 countries which all speak the same language. It is probably our oldest trading relationship, on which a small group of people in the Foreign Office work tirelessly to try to maintain the lights, under the spectacular leadership of a Minister, Hugo Swire.

My second question is about Africa. We have lost our pre-eminence. China is now overrunning Africa with its investment and its new set of rules, which are not necessarily conducive to our rules of engagement. When I was a Minister, I invited the Foreign Office to produce a report on how it should reallocate resources for Africa and redistribute personnel to reflect the differing and emerging countries. So my second question is: how has that report gone? Has it been enacted? Have steps been taken to make it happen? From the outside, it does not look so. I was with the Cameroon high commissioner yesterday. He was bemoaning the fact that no Cabinet Minister has ever visited Cameroon in its history. I think we could say the same for Angola, Mozambique and for a lot of African countries. This is shameful, given the resources and wealth that are now happening in these countries.

The Foreign Office is an excellent institution, but it is spread too thinly. It needs our support and it needs greater resources. It is up to us to put pressure on the Government—our own party—to ensure that resources are created for it.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Courtown]

On that issue, I will have to write to my noble friend. On the same topic, the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Tillyorn, asked about the teaching of hard languages and how many students come out of the excellent FCO language centre, which opened in 2013. It accommodates approximately 1,000 students per year, including those from other government departments.

The noble Lord, Lord Luce, suggested—as did other noble Lords—that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is under-resourced to address the myriad challenges that we face. While protection of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s departmental resources is an important signal of the Government’s commitment to maintaining our global role, I acknowledge that it is not likely to be sufficient in an increasingly challenging international context. I am therefore pleased to confirm that spending on the Government’s international priorities will increase, with a larger Conflict, Stability and Security Fund, a new Prosperity Fund and more funding for the British Council and BBC World Service. I noted what the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, had to say but I will have to write to him on the details. This is intended to increase the impact of the United Kingdom’s soft power assets, as mentioned by other noble Lords.

The Conflict, Stability and Security Fund, through which the Foreign and Commonwealth Office funds much of its conflict prevention work, will grow by 19% in real terms by 2019-20, to a total of £1.5 billion per year. This will strengthen the UK’s ability to support stabilisation in countries including Syria, Ukraine, Somalia and Pakistan. It will increase the United Kingdom’s response to serious transnational threats, including extremism, serious and organised crime and illegal migration.

As I have already mentioned, a new Prosperity Fund, worth £1.3 billion over the next five years, will be used to support global growth, trade and stability. This will reduce poverty in emerging and developing countries, and open up new markets and opportunities to the United Kingdom. Funding for the British Council will also be protected in real terms. In addition, the council will be able to bid for up to £700 million from a cross-government fund to improve links with emerging economies, help tackle extremism globally, and support good governance.

The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, gave me prior notice of a couple of questions that he wished me to answer. I will answer them, but if there is anything more I can add later, I will. Basically, he was asking me what Her Majesty’s Government are doing to prevent the largest share of food aid going to Assad-controlled areas. All UK-funded assistance is distributed on the basis of need to ensure that civilians are not discriminated against on the grounds of race, religion or ethnicity. The Department for International Development continues to work with the United Nations and the international community to ensure that all minorities’ rights are protected and our aid reaches those in greatest need.

We recognise that the Syrian Kurds are in the midst of the continuing civil war, and their fight against Daesh. However, we do not recognise calls by the PYD for an autonomous Kurdish area. We continue to use our contact with Kurdish groups to encourage commitment to pluralism, respect for the other political forces within the Kurdish areas and co-operation with the rest of the Syrian opposition to work towards a political solution to the conflict.

Lastly, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will be provided with a flat cash settlement of £98 million capital funding per year to invest in its real estate. This will fund new embassy buildings in Abuja and Budapest and provide further investment across the Foreign and Commonwealth Office estate to keep people safe while they are working for the UK abroad.

[Lord Marland]

At the risk of being a Commonwealth bore, the Minister made the point that the UK will be president of Europe for six months. It will also be chairman of the Commonwealth for two years. The Minister has been at great pains to refer to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, but he has not said at any point what the Government intend to do there; I would like him to write to me.

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, of course I will. With the time allowed, I was unable to extend my remarks to all issues.

This Government’s investment in our foreign policy capability delivers results on many fronts: whether the key role we played in the Iran nuclear negotiations, or our leadership in tackling the Ebola crisis. Meanwhile, our commitment to protect the Foreign and Commonwealth Office budget and to provide additional funds for cross-government activity internationally will ensure the UK continues to play a pivotal role in tackling the most important global challenges in the years to come.