Soft Power and the UK’s Influence (Select Committee Report)

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been an excellent debate, led by an outstanding contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Howell, as chairman of the committee, covering the content of a very comprehensive and timely report. At a time when our world is increasingly dangerous and uncertain, it is right that we reflect on these issues in your Lordships’ House and that we take time to think not just about our power and influence but about our responsibility in this world.

I regret very much that I was too late in contacting my Whips’ Office to secure a place on the committee. I would very much have enjoyed being part of its deliberations. I also regret that it appears that the Scottish Government, unlike the Welsh Government, did not take the opportunity to give evidence to the committee. A number of other Scottish institutions which could have contributed to the work of the committee did not take that opportunity either. I want to try to correct that a little bit today by speaking about my time as First Minister of Scotland.

Before I do so I want strongly to endorse many of the recommendations and points made in the report. It is undoubtedly the case that the UK has more widespread opportunities to influence than any other nation in the world. It is not just that we are more networked in international institutions, in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, described, than any other country in the world, it is also that, through our language, our science base, our culture and our cultural activities, we have more impact in the world than any other nation of our size.

The report makes a number of very timely recommendations and very important points. It stresses the importance of the foreign service and our embassies. I would add to that the importance of critical analysis in our foreign service, which has perhaps been diminished over recent times and needs fresh energy and investment in the complex world that we live in today. I wholly endorse the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Janvrin, about the importance of blue skies thinking in this area. Investment and analysis might be a critical part of that endeavour if we are to produce a vision for the 21st century and a role for Britain in the world that meets the purpose.

I endorse strongly the points made about the visa system and the way that it is damaging our relations around the world and the impression of this country in the eyes of young people across the world. The language about immigration that is used makes us look insular and negative. I also strongly endorse the points made about education and scholarships, as well as the importance of the European External Action Service and our international development aid. I hope that the passing of the Bill yesterday concerning the 0.7% aid target gives us a chance to move on from a debate about the quantity of aid to one about the quality of aid and how we can best use that overseas development assistance not just to change the world but to influence it too.

In relation to Scotland, I want to go back to 1999. Something that I have said very often, both as First Minister and since, is that the Foreign Office has been, by a long way, the best government department in responding to devolution as it has occurred within the United Kingdom. I felt that the Foreign Office, perhaps because it was led at the time by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, and also by the late Robin Cook, responded well to devolution. It understood that devolution provided an opportunity to improve UK influence overseas and not diminish it. I travelled around the world to promote Scotland, initially as external affairs Minister in the early years of the Scottish Government and then as First Minister, and I used UK embassies to help me do that, I am absolutely certain that they used me just as much to open doors and to use British influence in different ways. Where perhaps relations with UK Ministers were not as good at any given point in one country, a devolved Minister might open a door instead. In Brussels, devolved Ministers were used to increase British influence with commissioners and decision-makers. It was done very cleverly by Sir Stephen Wall and others back in those days.

I know that the committee did not necessarily look at this issue in its deliberations but I hope that, as we go forward, we can use the diversity of layers of government and representatives in the UK system to be more than the sum of our parts as we try to exert influence internationally. The diversity of the UK—not just the cultural diversity of the UK but the national diversities of the UK—can be a strength in our international relations and one that we could make more of. The diversity of the great historic institutions in Scotland and elsewhere—of law, education and the churches, for example—can be part of that and they should not feel that it is delegated to those based in London or just in England and Wales. I hope that that point is a helpful addition to the recommendations made by the report and one that can be part of our deliberations in the future.

I do not want to repeat what others have said during the debate but I wholly endorse the incredible speech made by my noble friend Lord Judd. To some extent the next point I wish to make moves in the same direction as some of the points that he made. What is really important here is why we are engaged. What is our influence for, what are we are trying to persuade people to do and what battles of ideas are we trying to win—or at least be on the winning side of? Of course, there is always an issue for the British Government to promote Britain overseas—British interests, British business and British institutions. But, because of our colonial history, our role as an economic power in the world and our position in the UN Security Council and in the leading nations of the European Union and elsewhere, we also have a responsibility to give something back and to be part of the solution, as well as to look after our own particular British interests. That is partly because being part of the global solution is in our own British interests just as much as those particular concerns about British business, British institutions and so on.

Therefore, as we exercise our power and influence around the world, we need to believe strongly that we can contribute in particular to conflict resolution, to peace-building, to conflict prevention and to post-conflict reconstruction. We may have made mistakes—sometimes big mistakes—in foreign policy and military endeavours down through the decades, but we are still today more trusted and seen as more honest, more reliable and more faithful to our values partners than most nations elsewhere. When we engage—not just inside the Commonwealth but in other parts of the world as well —we engage as a trusted partner.

I have just come back from south-east Asia. I was there five years ago as the special representative for the UK on peace-building when ASEAN was just trying to make the early moves towards having a role in peace and security in that region, the neighbourhood helping itself in the way that so many of the African continent’s regions had begun to do over previous years. In February, in Jakarta, the UK—Wilton Park—organised a conference, with five south-east Asian nations, and some of the rebel groups of those nations, coming together to discuss sustainable peaceful settlements that might be part of their future. Probably only the UK could organise such a conference, in a part of the world where we do not have very much interest or influence directly from our past. People there were trusting Wilton Park—the British FCO—to be part of that discussion and to help them along the right road. It is that influence for good that Britain can contribute to the world. When we exercise power and persuasion in the modern world, I hope that we take our responsibilities as seriously as we take our opportunities.