Foreign Affairs: Global Role, Emerging Powers and New Markets

Lord Soley Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Soley]

In endorsing the comments about the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Howell, to this House, I would simply add that he is a great loss to the Government’s Front Bench. I also thank him for the way that he introduced the debate. However, following his description of the “repositioning”, as he called it, of the world, I have had to reposition my speech very slightly and adjust it accordingly. The essence of what he said is that whereas we used to live in a unipolar world, and prior to that a bipolar world, we now live in a multipolar world—and that will last for a long time. He linked that to the emerging powers and new markets. It is about that issue that I want to say a few words.

When the phrase “British Empire” is used—it has been used only a couple of times today—we then talk, quite rightly and with some pride, about the Commonwealth. However, I sometimes think that the phrase “British Commonwealth” holds up a distorting mirror to Britain’s past. It was of course an empire but it was actually the world’s first power that, because of the industrial revolution, had a global reach. It is that which makes the difference. It was that global reach that resulted in the English language being the world’s premier language. It is that, together with a whole range of other things—including education, rule of law and the BBC; I could name them all—that forms the basis of our influence today. Notwithstanding the insightful comments of the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, about the nature of soft power and how it trips over into hard power, we have to build on what we have here, because it is important.

I want to talk about how we link up these things in relation to the “new markets”, which is the other phrase that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, used in introducing this debate. It is an area in which I have recent personal experience. I had great help from the noble Lord when he was a Minister, and I continue to get such help. I hope that I will continue to get it, not only from his successor in the department but from the Minister who will answer this debate, because it relates to this issue. I felt some time ago that Britain had an enormous contribution to make in terms of soft power. It was not just the BBC, education and so on; it was also that this country is seen as important in terms of the rule of law and good governance.

I must declare an interest because I set up the Good Governance Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation—which is just as well because it does not look like it will make a profit at any time soon—which is designed to use our experience and knowledge with emerging countries, which is the other issue that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, put in the title of his debate. As the result of an argument that I had with the authorities in Abu Dhabi about the treatment of a Palestinian family in 2010, I said to those authorities, “If you do not do something about the rule of law you will have big problems”. To my surprise and, I must say, my pleasure, they asked whether we could help in some way. The result, as some noble Lords know—the noble Lord, Lord Howell, certainly knows of my work there—is probably the first postgraduate course of law at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi. I was over there the other weekend and was introduced to probably the first two female judges in the Middle East. I was suitably impressed by their confidence, ability and training. I have yet to check whether any other Middle Eastern country has a female judge, but I have not heard of any yet.

In May this year I gave the first annual Sheikh Zayed Memorial Lecture on the rule of law. Initially I proposed setting up the annual lectures to promote the idea of the rule of law but I was then also asked to give the lecture, and I did. We hope that, as a result, the late Lord Bingham’s book on the rule of law will be published in Arabic. It is in this sort of area where we are able to do far more. I have now talked to about half a dozen other countries about this sort of approach.

The Minister may know—the noble Lord, Lord Howell, certainly knows, because he has been helpful on this—of the work that I am currently doing with Burma, which is sometimes known as Myanmar. There is an argument within Burma as to which name to use, but I will use Burma for the moment. We are now talking to Burma about similar options on the rule of law. The opportunities are therefore great. We in this House underestimate our strength which we can use in conjunction with such efforts. I am currently trying to arrange for people with suitable experience to go to Burma to help form good governance because, too often, that country receives visits from people from all over the world who will look at what the Burmese need and then go back to their own country and talk to other people there. We need a more in-depth and continuing involvement.

We have in this House people who have run the Civil Service, others who know about the relationship between a Secretary of State for Defence and the armed forces and police force, and, above all, people who know about the rule of law. We have many ex-Lord Chancellors in this House and, indeed, more lawyers than I can count. I hasten to add that I am not a lawyer. However, the depth of the contribution that we can make is far greater than we envisage, and we should have a structure to do it. That is what I am trying to do, particularly in Burma. Zayed University in Abu Dhabi is already involving us in more areas, and I want to continue and expand that process. We rightly talk of our use of soft power, but many of the emerging nations mentioned in the title of the debate also represent a vast opportunity as new markets—because the new market is for good governance. However you dress it up, good governance is a very wide phrase. It is not just the law or the relationship between the armed forces and a government; it is also education, health and a host of other areas where people are willing to learn from what we have done. It is not a case, nor should it be a case, of us telling them what to do. It is a matter of us working with them to deliver that change. I hope the Minister will address that in his comments.