Her Majesty the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee: Commonwealth

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My noble friend is right: the commitments were put forward, and many of them were adhered to, at the Perth meeting of the Heads of Government which I attended, while many others were remitted for further work. The next stage is a ministerial task force to carry those ideas forward. Ideas for strengthening the values and standards of the Commonwealth, as well as strengthening many of its other aspects, will be for the task force, and then later in the autumn the Foreign Ministers of the Commonwealth will meet to implement and carry those ideas forward. Not all of them are totally agreed—in any family there are bound to be some differences—but the broad thrust is to promote and uphold the Commonwealth standards in democracy, human rights, good governance and the rule of law.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords—

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

The short answer is yes, I am very happy to remind the UKBA and any other authority of those kinds of figures. I am sure that the noble Baroness will not overlook the fact that despite questions having been raised about visas, which I fully admit, there are thousands and thousands of overseas students in this country—an enormous number from non-Commonwealth as well as Commonwealth countries. So our role and performance is not all bad—in fact it is extremely good—but there is always more that can be done. I am very happy to join with those who point out the enormous benefits of getting more and more genuine students to visit this country and to return and benefit our promotion and reputation in the future.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, is it not now clear that we took the wrong road away from the Commonwealth in 1972, as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, has indicated in her Question, when we joined the project of European integration? Would we not have done better to lead the Commonwealth in free trade and friendly collaboration, and could we not still do so, thus benefiting from the markets of the future instead of being stuck on the “Costa Concordia” that the modern EU has become?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

These aspects of being a good member of the European Union and an effective member of a reinvigorated Commonwealth are by no means exclusive; on the contrary, they go together. We can ensure that although our trade may be handled mostly by the European Union, our investment, all our other links and our movements of capital are not so limited by the European Union, and it is through those links that we can maintain excellent contact. At the same time the rest of the Commonwealth is developing its own intra-Commonwealth trade at a fantastic rate, and all these developments benefit the United Kingdom.