Commonwealth and Commonwealth Charter

Lord Selsdon Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Selsdon]

My Lords, I should declare that I suppose I am, by accident, what might be defined as a child of the Commonwealth. When I first came back with my sister from Canada, where we were left during the war, we were introduced to our family, my mother in particular. Most of her family were called Williams, a lovely patronymic surname that I have always admired. More than that, for family bonding we went on holiday for the first time, which was quite difficult when there was no petrol around, to Mumbles. I therefore have a great affection for the current position of—I must get this right, because my noble friend Lord Howell, got it wrong—the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Williams. That was my most difficult research before speaking today. I am most grateful to him for a debate that he introduced some time ago on the importance and effect of religion in the Middle East, which touched me deeply.

As a child of the Commonwealth, and knowing that there is so little time left, one must always have a theme. I will take the theme of a minute. A minute is, as noble Lords know, one nautical mile upon the surface of the earth. Therefore, when I look down from heaven or up from wherever it might be, what do I see? Seventy per cent of the earth is ocean or sea. The land is only a very small percentage. It is spread far and wide, and you either look down on it from above the Antarctic, the Arctic or the equator, but, in general, when you look down upon it, the map that you see has Greenwich, which is in the United Kingdom, in the centre, as it should be, due to the technology of the Harrison chronometer. It matters not, but technology was what enabled us to go out into the world.

This degree and this 70% water become important to me because, by some strange calculation, it seems that the United Kingdom, its British territories and the other main Commonwealth countries are the most dominant with their economic exclusion zones of 200 nautical miles controlling the oceans of the world, where there are 22,000 shipping vessels and others. In comparison, the United States has 6.2 million square kilometres against our 27 million square kilometres. The rest of NATO has 4.5 million square kilometres, but the French territories become quite important with 7.7 million square kilometres. Does this mean anything? Possibly it does not, but it can do strategically and if we look at such issues as global warming or trade. If we say that 90% of all trade goes by sea, of the 100,000 vessels upon the face of the earth, 20% are Commonwealth and 20% are fishing vessels. This may be utterly irrelevant to this debate, but to me it is relevant because I want to move on to look at climate change.

I had the privilege to go to a presentation the other day about the Arctic and I got something of a shock. With global warming before very long the north-west passage will be open, which means that the great ships of the world will be moving there in five days rather than eight, with enormous fuel savings. It means that the whole structure of Europe and the United Kingdom may change, and perhaps even Scapa Flow will come back into being.

On the impact of that change and the changes that are taking place in the southern hemisphere, we can talk about Antarctica, which, as a result of the Bill introduced by my noble friend Lord Montgomery, is well protected and does not belong to anyone, although the greatest claimants are, as your Lordships know, always those who play rugby—I do not know about Papua New Guinea. I do not know what that link is, but it is there. Let us suppose global warning continues. At the presentation I went to, some eminent government scientists pointed out that flooding as a result of climate change could have a major impact on India and many other Commonwealth countries, and that we should be aware that it is not that far away. This is all way beyond my pay grade, but as secretary and treasurer of the House of Lords Yacht Club, it gives me great pleasure to know that floating upon the face of the earth are more British vessels than vessels of any other country, and they are Commonwealth-flagged. We must therefore ask: what is the Commonwealth flag and what does it stand for? Even in today’s debate, we have different opinions. I believe that trade is the bearer of all wealth, knowledge and understanding.