Commonwealth Day

Lord Swire Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Hugo Swire)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst) on securing this debate, whether timely or otherwise. I thank other hon. Members for their contributions.

I pay tribute to the work of my right hon. Friend and of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, which, as he has outlined so eloquently, has done so much to forge ties and strengthen democracy across the Commonwealth. I associate myself with his warm words about the founding father of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew. My right hon. Friend’s commitment to the CPA was much in evidence at its recent conference on human rights in the modern-day Commonwealth, at which I spoke. He may have come to the end of his tenure as chair of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, but I, like other Ministers across Government and Back Benchers on both sides of the House, have always valued his immense contribution. I hope we will continue to benefit from his insight and experience on Commonwealth matters—I am sure we will.

I also congratulate and welcome the incoming chair, Dr Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury, Speaker of the Bangladesh Parliament, whom I met earlier this month. I wish her well and hope she has great success in her new role. I trust that, as her predecessor, my right hon. Friend will feel able to share with her his clear and well argued vision for the association’s future. I am certain she will continue to enjoy the full support of the excellent CPA secretariat.

I share my right hon. Friend’s deep respect and admiration for the Commonwealth. Indeed, the Government have made no secret of our strong support for that unique organisation. Since my appointment as Minister for the Commonwealth, I have worked to uphold our pledge to put the C back into the FCO, not least because, as my ministerial travels have reminded me, we owe our friends in the Commonwealth an enormous debt of gratitude. I have made it a habit to pay my respects where possible at the many memorials across the world that commemorate the names of the 1.7 million men and women of the Commonwealth forces who died in the two world wars, fighting to defend the freedoms we enjoy today. I pay tribute to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which has so beautifully maintained those memorials.

The Commonwealth today is about much more than its past, however. It is a global network of 53 equal partners, which offers a wealth of opportunities to work together on trade and on issues such as climate change. The hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) spoke passionately about extending the network by one member. I will refrain from commenting on that matter, other than to say that it is not a new idea.

To make the most of the opportunities the Commonwealth offers, while never forgetting the shared history that brought us all together in the first place, we must spend more time looking to the future. My hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson) pointed out that 60% of the Commonwealth’s population is under the age of 30. This year’s Commonwealth day on 9 March rightly celebrated that, with the theme “A Young Commonwealth”. At the Commonwealth day observance at Westminster abbey, I was delighted to see our Commonwealth envoy sitting among the high commissioners. For obvious reasons we do not have a British high commissioner in London, and for too long that has meant that we have not been represented at a senior level at Commonwealth meetings. The new post of envoy ensures, for the first time, that we have a dedicated envoy to represent our views at the Commonwealth. That important institutional change will, I believe, make clear to all the value we attach to our membership of the organisation.

After a successful Commonwealth day, our thoughts now turn to the next Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Malta, where the theme will be “adding global value”. I am delighted that Her Majesty the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh will attend. A future CHOGM is planned to take place in Vanuatu; our thoughts are with all those affected by Cyclone Pam. I have been to Vanuatu, and have been watching with horror the devastation that has been wreaked upon it. I am pleased to say that the United Kingdom is providing £2 million of immediate support to the people of Vanuatu through funding to non-governmental organisations and the United Nations.

I am pleased that, at the next CHOGM, Prime Minister Muscat plans to focus on securing practical outcomes that address the issues that matter most to our members and that look at the challenges we share, rather than the points on which we disagree. We have worked closely with Malta to develop a set of institutional changes to make the Heads of Government meeting more effective. We will also elect a new secretary-general, the successor to His Excellency Kamalesh Sharma, whom I warmly congratulate on all he has achieved within the secretariat. We want to ensure that the best candidate is selected for the role, no matter where they are from. Whoever it may be, those at CHOGM will have an opportunity to give them a clear, focused mandate and a realistic set of priorities upon which to focus in the years ahead.

It was with some passion that my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) spoke about LGBT issues. Respect for the values set out in the Commonwealth charter, which was signed by Her Majesty the Queen two years ago this month, is regrettably not consistent across the Commonwealth. Despite the work we have done to promote the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender citizens of the Commonwealth, many, as we have heard, continue to suffer persecution. I actively raised our concerns at the last Heads of Government meeting, and was disappointed that we were one of only a few countries to do so. However, we will not cease from actively promoting the issue and raising it with our Commonwealth partners.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke, as he often does, about religious belief and freedom from persecution. It is worth pointing out that the Commonwealth has members of every major world religion, including 800 million Hindus, 500 million Muslims and 400 million Christians. We believe that tolerance, respect and understanding are Commonwealth values that are set out in the charter.

When discussing religion and LGBT rights, it is perhaps worth reminding all of what the charter says clearly:

“We are implacably opposed to all forms of discrimination, whether rooted in gender, race, colour, creed, political belief or other grounds.”

We urge our Commonwealth partners to reread what they signed and to act, in due course, upon it.

We have concerns about political freedoms, too. The right hon. Member for Warley (Mr Spellar) raised the issue of the Maldives. I met a group of Maldivian parliamentarians only last week. If he has followed the FCO website and my tweets, he will know that I was the first Minister anywhere in the world to comment on the arrest of President Nasheed. We continue to monitor the situation extremely closely, just as we do the ongoing violence and disruption in Bangladesh.

We also have Sri Lanka, whose newly elected Government have re-embraced their place in the Commonwealth, for which we applaud them. They have committed to work with the United Nations to address the alleged human rights abuses of the past.

We cannot force a change in attitudes, and we understand that implementing the charter will take time—it is a marathon, not a sprint. However, we have made it clear repeatedly not only that member states have a moral obligation to uphold and promote what we agreed in 2012, but that it is in their national self-interest to do so. Human rights, democratic values, and safe and just societies are the building blocks of successful nations, and certainly Commonwealth nations. I do not, therefore, accept the widely held view that the Commonwealth should focus on human rights and democratic institutions or on trade, but not on both.

Hon. Members mentioned the movement of Commonwealth citizens and called for us to ease the ability of businesses and students to operate across the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth secretariat is looking particularly at the latter question, and we are working closely with member states on it. Despite the fact that the Commonwealth has a young, dynamic population of more than 2 billion people—they are spread across every inhabited continent, and the majority are united by a common language and common legal systems—there remains much that we can, and must, do to boost trade and investment between us. That is why the Prime Minister led a high-profile trade delegation to a number of Commonwealth countries, including India and Malaysia.

The shadow Minister mentioned the arrest of Anwar. I was in Malaysia last month, and I made very clear our concerns. We continue to monitor the situation extremely closely.

However, let me return to trade, which is the reason why we organised the Commonwealth Games business conference in July 2014. It is also why the work of my noble Friend Lord Marland’s Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council, and of the Commonwealth business forum at the Heads of Government meeting, is so important, and I warmly applaud the connection with the City of London, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden alluded. The close involvement of those bodies with businesses is generating innovative ideas to realise the Commonwealth’s vast yet largely untapped potential for trade, which the hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson) rightly mentioned. We must continue to make the most of such opportunities.

Let me restate that the Government remain deeply committed to the Commonwealth. However, in a world where taxpayers rightly expect to know why institutions exist and what they achieve, and where competing bodies and organisations cover every area of international activity, Commonwealth members share a duty to work together to ensure that this great organisation is ready and fit to tackle the challenges, and seize the opportunities, of the 21st century.

I thank my right hon. Friend for the opportunity to debate these issues. I also thank him for everything he has done for the CPA—for his continuing involvement in it and for his guidance, which I am sure his successor will come to rely on in the years ahead. This is possibly the last debate on this subject in this Parliament, so let me also thank all hon. and right hon. Members who have shown an interest in, and a passion for, the Commonwealth, which is in good shape to meet the demands of an ever-changing, complicated and, at times, extremely dangerous world.