British Overseas Territories

Lord Selsdon Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Selsdon]

My Lords, at the time of the Statute of Westminster in 1931, before I was born, if I recall it right, one-quarter of the land mass of the world was British. More than that, I believe that we controlled perhaps half of the oceans of the world, having the best and most effective Navy.

I suffer from several weaknesses. I am an islander at heart. I love islands; I love the sea. There are about 70,000 islands in the world, and every territory that we are discussing today is an island. Beyond that, we look at the resources of the sea. I have raised the point in your Lordships' House before that the Commonwealth has the longest coastline in the world at about 44,000 kilometres. I have to declare certain past interests; in my banking days, the bank that employed me was the main correspondent bank in London to the British Dependent Territories. We were always concerned about their future.

When I have my noble friend Lady Hooper, the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery, the noble Lord, Lord Luce, and others together, I know that these are the professionals in this world. I am only the amateur, and a very gifted one at that, but I love this subject. Therefore, I thought that I might advance a little into the world to make certain suggestions. If what I say is true—that we are still, with the Commonwealth, the most effective and impressive land mass of friends, and have the sea—it is our duty to take initiatives at certain times.

I was brought up to believe that you did not read in your Lordships' House, even with electronic devices, and that you could not even have visual aids, but today, as a bit of support for what I have to say, I have two pieces of paper. One shows little red spots where the territories are. Strategically, they are most extraordinarily presented. If our ancestors planned, as I am sure they did, they would have put points here and said, “This is where we need British representation to the future of the world”.

They were also wise in some ways in making sure that those who wanted to support their initiatives followed certain cultural relationships. For example, if you wish to know which countries have claims in Antarctica, all you need to do is say “rugby”. All countries that play rugby—Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Argentina—have claims in the Falklands, the biggest single land mass. Then you would ask about the origins of these territories. My family mottos are “Per mare, per terras” and “God will provide”, although God is sometimes not as generous as I would have hoped.

On this paper, you see the remarkable name of Bermuda, whose motto is “Whither the Fates carry”. We are being a bit unkind about Bermuda in many ways because we use the phrase “tax havens”. We are coming up to the feast day of St Giuseppe—St Joseph—the patron saint of work. If I recall correctly, the Pope normally at this time delivers an address to one of the Vatican towns on the lines of “man works to live; he does not live to work”.

We have to look at each of these territories and ask where their economic future is. In some way or another, they have carved out a financial services future. Given the comments that have been made about our own financial services sectors in recent years and the losses that have been incurred, I do not think that we should lecture others.

Let us take the simple example of Bermuda, which is the base for most insurance companies. Is there anything wrong in setting up a corporation in a place that has tax advantages, which are of course within the control of the governing body of that country? I am not sure that there is, but I have certain views. Surely, if a nation is overtaxed, it will not be valiant and glorious—I do not know who said that. At one level, we have Bermuda with its significant financial services business, which perhaps is under attack. Other smaller islands with relatively little alternative economies are also classified as tax havens. Perhaps they could be offshore financial centres. Surely, if the majority of these countries are British Dependent Territories, it would not be beyond the realms of possibility for the Government to introduce certain codes of conduct and behaviour, which could be supervised by the Bank of England and could effectively restore confidence.

The right reverend Prelate referred to the Cayman Islands, which has the motto “For he has founded it upon the seas”. However, the only sea business that Cayman can do apart from tourism lies in the turtle sector, but those turtles are now relatively rare. A ban was introduced on, I think, Lusty, that it could no longer produce turtle soup. In all these areas we have to look for alternative uses. I will try to explain to your Lordships that if 70 per cent of the surface of the earth is sea, and we by chance have bits of land stuck in important places and could declare a 1,000-mile exclusion zone or protection zone around all those, we might be able to introduce quite a lot of new business and activities.

We know that the United States has a difficulty when it wishes to go off on military exercises. It does not have many places to land. It is often forbidden from overflying, which is why I have never been supportive of exclusion zones because they are difficult to enforce. Here we have territories, bits of land, located in strategic places. When we look at global warming, we are looking at all sorts of activities for which these bases could be developed for surveillance, for monitoring and even for do-gooding, as it is called. When I chaired a body for sport and recreation for a previous Government, it was suggested to me that, instead of trying to reintroduce national service, we should gather together groups of young men and women and send them off to the dependent territories to do some research and studying. The mottos of some of the territories relate to research and development.

As I speak today I have a certain sense of optimism, but I wonder what the British Government can do. It is not really a question of providing grant aid to many of these places. Under the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, the one thing that these places have is British citizenship, which should never be taken away. There could or should be some form of collective plan, which I suggest might be advanced under Commonwealth supervision. We know that to this can be added the bailiwicks of Her Majesty’s realms. The dominance of the British culture in the world is demonstrated perhaps by the fact that one-third of all people speak English as their first or second language, or they are learning it. We have certain communication advantages.

I hope that this debate has created certain thoughts and ideas. I am always most grateful to my noble friend Lady Hooper, who has a habit of popping up in most unusual places. When she takes up a cause, those who oppose her should be very careful indeed.