City-to-city Diplomacy

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Dundee for initiating this debate. My experience, which I shall draw on over the next few minutes, relates to Newcastle upon Tyne, where I was a council leader for a number of years. Newcastle has had a number of twinning relationships, particularly in the post-war period, which had, and still have, a very important role because they bring people together. They include sports club exchanges, cultural events, choirs, church group visits, youth groups and school exchanges, as well as the more formal city-led exchanges.

However, the world changes and new possibilities open up. It is not just about twinning, as my noble friend Lord Dundee said. I have concluded that there are three levels to successful city-to-city diplomacy. I mean the wider sub-region by “city”. The three levels are people to people, institution to institution and city leadership to city leadership, which includes business. In this context, I have always been struck by the words of Professor Michael Parkinson, who was founder and former director of the European Institute for Urban Affairs at Liverpool John Moores University. He said:

“A significant feature of successful continental cities is the importance they attach to internationalisation and having city ‘foreign policies’”,

investing time and,

“effort in international networking to raise their profile, gain new allies, expand market share, influence decision-makers and learn new strategies and practices”.

I find that a very useful rationale for developing city-to-city diplomacy.

When we began to rearticulate Newcastle’s approach a few years ago, it was based on those principles. It focused on networks, connections and projects with cities and city regions that have similar characteristics or special links, and where there is economic benefit for business, trade or innovation. The advantages are in sharing learning and best practice, in collective access to funding—particularly European funding, supporting key institutions, such as our universities— and scope for projects that promote language—learning and culture.

In Europe, Newcastle’s twin cities are Gelsenkirchen in Germany, Nancy in France, Groningen in the Netherlands and Bergen in Norway. They have all seen very positive outcomes in recent years—in cultural links, school twinning, shared provision in higher education and in public policy. What can be done by universities? For example, an innovative, dual award programme provides an opportunity to study for a master’s degree in advanced international business management from Newcastle University, and at the same time an MSc in international business and management from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. At undergraduate level for a BSc honours in economics and finance, which includes international financial management, there is an optional study-year abroad at the University of Groningen to provide an international perspective. Those derive from our existing twinning relationship with the city of Groningen.

Finally, I want to draw attention to the potential of honorary consul networks in building bridges between the diplomatic establishment and local businesses and academia. In Newcastle, the honorary consulates of France and Germany have a shared facility in the civic centre. It is the first shared facility in Europe and it is an approved commitment by the city council, too. The honorary consuls help to lead the organisation of the annual North East in Europe conference, now an established and valued event. However, we can extend into new areas. Developing connectivity between the north-east of England and Sweden has been particularly impressive with a consul-led UKTI trip to Sweden for 22 new exporters and several other outward and inward- bound missions, not least in the environmental sector. That is based on a growing new relationship with the city of Malmö and the existence of a Swedish consul in Newcastle. There is enormous potential for the Government to assist and I hope that they will help to spread good practice.