Lord Selsdon
Main Page: Lord Selsdon (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Lord Selsdon (Con)
My Lords, I came into this debate realising how little I knew and wondering what the problem was. Then I suddenly thought, “It’s geographic”—we do not teach geography any more. Then I realised that the problem was tribalism. I went to the Library and tried to find out what tribes there were in the world. I started with Scythia in the ninth century BC. I realised that those who had tribes probably now have to look at history—which is not taught very well by anybody, and geography is not taught, and getting a map of the world is becoming extremely difficult—and the empires to realise who were the people who created these empires.
Listening to what I have heard today, I realised that we, the British, were the ones who created the greatest empire long after the Scythians and others in the ninth century BC, who were followed by others. Therefore we—partly because of the English language—have a greater responsibility than anyone else to try to put things right. Since we do not teach geography and history, our knowledge of other people’s territories—excepting that of the eminent people in the Foreign Office—is relatively limited, and we have forgotten that one of the reasons we went out into the world was because of the produce and minerals that could be produced which created that added value. At one time it was sugar, and now perhaps of equal importance is fresh, pure water.
My question to us all today is: what can this Government do to follow this up and which countries have historic relationships with their own area? I wanted to look up Scythia in the Library but we could not find out where it was; it was rather difficult. I looked out the histories of all the territories and frontiers. One of my favourite subjects is of course the coastal areas of the world and the sea, which is so productive. I have argued bitterly that we, the British, have the greatest control over the seas because of the 200-mile exclusion zone, and that if we got together with the French we would have 75%.
With which other countries can we help at this point in time to bring about a recovery in those countries that do not have enough to eat, do not have enough food and do not have pure water? We have all these skills within us here. The French have an interesting phrase, which I learnt when I worked with them in Africa and other territories: it is called “grenouiller”. I wondered what it was and was told that if you are confronted by something and you are a “grenouille”, you have the opportunity to “sauter”—to jump over it—or to go under it. I assumed that this was the origin of the phrase “frogging about”. But no: grenouiller means that you stir the pot when you are cooking a stew to see what comes to the top.
In a way, we have stirred the pot today. We know that it is not necessarily a defence of the realm issue, but it is an issue where we should be able to encourage those countries that were productive in the past, and were part of colonial empires, to be able to reproduce their food, their livestock and other things. It is not a big problem, but I hope that the Minister will tell us all what this Government are going to do to take the lead in bringing about a recovery. Because of our geographic position and for other reasons, I believe that we have a greater responsibility than any other nation.