Commonwealth Day

Paul Beresford Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2014 Westminster Hall

[Sir Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bayley, and more so because of your deep knowledge and experience of Commonwealth matters, on which we have occasionally been conjoined. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate because I have been trying to press the idea that, on or around Commonwealth day, all members of the Commonwealth should be encouraged to hold a debate on either general or particular matters affecting it. Such debates are an occasion to celebrate the anniversary of the Commonwealth on the designated Commonwealth day and to raise the Commonwealth’s profile by highlighting why it is a body to be nurtured and encouraged as a forum for frank discussion.

It is too easy for the Commonwealth to be taken for granted. We recently celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, but I suspect that if we went out on to the streets of London, and possibly the streets of many other parts of the country, and asked the first 10 people we met what they understood of the Commonwealth, the answers would be rather meagre.

[Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)]

I suspect it depends on the street. The response on Earls Court road might be different.

[Sir Alan Haselhurst]

I take my hon. Friend’s point. The British would probably have to fight for recognition in that part of London.

I ask myself how we should respond to the public’s general lack of recognition of what the Commonwealth is and does. I tend to think of the Commonwealth as a work in progress: developing networks, exchanging information, exploring potential, making friends and doing business. The word “family” is often used in connection with the Commonwealth, and I do not think that is entirely inappropriate because the occasional quarrel is not unknown in families. The fact that we do not all think alike on every subject all the time is not a reason for abandoning or decrying the project. I make a risky comparison with the European Union, which is also a work in progress. For all those who may despair of where the EU is going, how fast it is going and what it is doing, we can look back now and realise how much the situation in Europe has changed. We are commemorating a great war of terrible privations, and we have moved on a long way from that after 2,000 years of strife. One does not expect countries from five or six continents, however they are described, suddenly to find accord on every single subject and to find themselves walking in step on economic matters at all times.

My point is that continuing to strive to achieve common objectives within the Commonwealth is emphatically worth while, even if sometimes progress seems imperceptible. The Commonwealth is a voluntary body. Countries do not have to be a member, yet it is significant and encouraging that more countries are prepared to join, including countries that were not part of the former British empire. That is a good indicator that the Commonwealth has moved on and still has meaning for many other countries. The Commonwealth would be a strange body, however, if it did not contain members or possess friends willing it to improve its functioning, raise its standards and develop its potential. The weighty report two years ago from the eminent persons group was brimming with ideas, but not all of those ideas received universal acclaim from those for whom the report was intended. There is no lack of advice on what one might try to do to give the Commonwealth greater focus and meaning.

The Commonwealth’s anchor in the political sphere is probably our charter of fundamental values, which was endorsed and launched by Her Majesty the Queen a year ago. It would be idle to pretend that all those fundamental values are burning bright in every member country, yet any perceived deficiency is not necessarily of one kind or in one place. None of us is perfect in the eyes of some of our friends and colleagues. Without a degree of caution and moderation of language, we can all find ourselves submerging in a sea of recrimination, but we also cannot simply push to one side the challenging issues that undoubtedly exist within our ranks.

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[Sir Alan Haselhurst]

I am grateful to the Minister for making it clear that it was a mundane reason, rather than one of high policy. It covers my blushes in being unable to answer my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell).

I draw attention to the stand-out event in 2014 of the Commonwealth games in Glasgow. They are often described as “the friendly games”. While sport may be about rivalries, these gatherings can help to spread friendship and understanding in their own way.

[Sir Paul Beresford]

On a similar theme of friendliness, does my right hon. Friend recognise from his visits to Commonwealth countries and from talking to people from the Commonwealth that there is a feeling over the past few years, and under the previous Labour Government in particular, that there has been a tightening in the visas and opportunities for people from Commonwealth countries, including young people, to come to this country to work and to contribute? That is particularly felt as they arrive at Gatwick or such places and see that they are aliens.

[Sir Alan Haselhurst]

Sometimes when I arrive at terminal 5, I feel like an alien, but that is to do with whether we have sufficient capacity arrangements at our airports. I had a discussion recently with the high commissioner for India, where there are particular feelings that our attempts to clamp down on bogus students are starting to deter legitimate students from coming here. There has also been some retrenchment on Commonwealth scholarships. I have also discussed that subject with the high commissioner for Canada, because Canada has taken a more restrictive attitude. It is terribly important that we find ways of encouraging people from Commonwealth countries to visit here. Young people are, on the whole, more mobile than they have perhaps ever been, and that is an encouraging factor. My hon. Friend makes an important point.

Having said that an awful lot of good things are going on—some below the radar. We still cannot ignore the family difficulties and they cannot just be somehow wished away. I suspect that if we locked the Heads of Government in a room for a month and left them to talk in private, they would not be able to overcome some of the difficulties that are very much known to us all. That brings me to the role of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, on which I intend to focus this afternoon. If the Commonwealth charter, in Her Majesty’s words,

“sets out the values and principles which guide and motivate us”,

the establishment of good governance throughout Commonwealth countries surely provides the essential foundation for the practical implementation of those values and principles. The major aim of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association is parliamentary strengthening. That is done in a number of ways, such as election observance missions and post-election seminars.

We have to take note of the churn rate of elected politicians—it should send a chill down all our spines—which is pretty big. Electorates of various places, small and large, have been known to sweep out large numbers of the incumbents. Consequently, there is a flow of new people to Parliaments and they can benefit from the type of courses put on by the CPA. Specialist courses have been developed in the field of public accounts and on the encouragement of women parliamentarians. Name the parliamentary activity and it is possible to provide an instructional seminar that can help with it and with which Members and Clerks are ready to engage. There is a constant cross-fertilisation of ideas and expertise. We can assemble in this Chamber because of an idea first developed in the Australian Parliament to enable us to provide parallel opportunities for debates to take place and to improve the possibilities of Back-Bench participation in particular, as well as increasing scrutiny of Select Committee reports and the like.

The kind of activities that I mentioned require not only financial resources, but time. Elected Members well know that taking so much as one step out of their own jurisdiction is likely to bring the coals of press criticism descending on their heads. It is important to recognise that MPs across the Commonwealth—and not just young people in a different context—can inform one another. That amounts to what we might describe as soft diplomacy: creating understanding by constant discussion in a friendly and informal way, which enables some of the differences to be worn away over time.

Stronger Parliaments lead to better governance and build confidence in the validity of democratic systems. While the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association has the potential to bolster parliamentary democracy and underpin human rights, it lacks the capacity to do so as well as it might. The CPA has not achieved the extent of Commonwealth-wide recognition that it should have. Also, there is a blurred understanding of the exact role of the Commonwealth secretariat. Those positions have not been as well defined as it would be helpful for them to be. The situation is complicated by other organisations in the landscape, such as the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, the Commonwealth Foundation, the Royal Commonwealth Society and the Commonwealth Local Government Forum. Many of us are nibbling at the same apple, and there is insufficient co-ordination to ensure—if we believe that we have a purpose to fulfil—that we do it on a much greater and more effective scale.

For the reasons I have given, I believe that parliamentarians should be to the fore, together with their local government equivalents. The CPA has not taken the helm, or, possibly, has not been helped to take the helm. Sometimes Speakers or Presiding Officers in particular Parliaments do not engage to ensure that the CPA branches in their country and the provinces of their country are actively engaged in a beneficial way. The special value of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association is that it is not just about 53 countries.

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[Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)]

I am delighted to serve under your surveillance, Mr Bayley. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst) on securing this debate and setting the broad scene. That enables me to be a little more focused on what is called the old Commonwealth, which is the backbone of the Commonwealth with the United Kingdom at the head. There is a feeling among the old Commonwealth nations that the door that was open is slowly closing, and that that was happening particularly under the last Government.

I have been speaking for about 10 seconds, and everyone is aware from my accent that I come from one of the Commonwealth countries. I cannot get away from that, but my accent is not Australian. I have dual nationality and I carry a British passport and a New Zealand one, which creates difficulties sometimes when there is a small battle at Twickenham. I assure all hon. Members that I cheer for England, although I put my money on the All Blacks.

As I said during an intervention, when I arrive at Gatwick, having dual nationality gives me the opportunity to survey which is the longest queue and which has more people serving it. I sometimes join the alien queue because it is quicker.

[Andrew Percy]

Does my hon. Friend share my opinion that it is terrible that Canadian, Australian and New Zealand nationals, who share the same monarch as us, are treated as complete foreigners when people from 26 other foreign countries can just walk through as though they were British citizens? That is completely unacceptable.

[Sir Paul Beresford]

I thank my hon. Friend, who fired the shot for me without my accent, which was helpful.

The Commonwealth is a unique organisation. It is a worldwide family with a mixture of races, religions, languages and creeds based around the United Kingdom and the Queen. As I said, I come from New Zealand, which is a huge supporter of the Commonwealth and the Queen. If the New Zealand magazine, Women’s Weekly, does not have six pictures of the Queen and the royal family, there has been a misprint along the line.

New Zealand has slight republican moments, and I understand that it is considering a slight variation of the flag, but we will see. It will be amusing because Women’s Weekly will battle to keep the flag and I suspect that elderly New Zealand ladies will rally to the cause.

Next door to New Zealand is another Commonwealth nation—a little island called Australia. It has a few republican problems and, if asked, any New Zealander would explain that being Australian is in itself a difficulty, but it seems to overcome that, particularly in the cricket field.

Those two old Commonwealth nations have a huge rivalry, which can be seen on the rugby field. The insults and jokes between them are phenomenal and racist, but every joke can be turned round the other way, so anything a New Zealander says about Australia can be returned the other way round. However, they work extremely closely with the British Commonwealth, particularly when the United Kingdom is under deep threat. With Canada and South Africa, they are the old Commonwealth. They have a Commonwealth link, reinforced by kith and kin, and a two-way flow of tourism and migration going back two centuries, although that is being stemmed now.

My direct knowledge is obviously predominately of New Zealand, although I have lived in the UK longer than I lived there. I occasionally return there for a refresher course in the accent and attitudes. A touch of history may be helpful. New Zealand’s biggest influx of immigration over the past couple of centuries involved people who went there by choice—I am sure I will receive letters from Australians about this—and were not transported there. That can be seen when wandering around New Zealand, because the place names are a mixture of Maori, English, Scottish and Irish, and there are even a few Welsh names. The people there drive on the left. They predominantly speak English or a version of it, and the parliamentary system, although it has only one House, is much the same as that here. In fact, it mimics it even to the building. It is not quite as spectacular and not anywhere near as old, but it does mimic it.

My parents’ and grandparents’ generations talked of the United Kingdom as home and of “going back”. They still do. What intrigued me was that many of them had never been here, but they still talked about going back. They all have close links with this country and they display that in their houses. My parents’ and grandparents’ generations in particular would have on the coffee table in the sitting room—it was a sitting room, not a withdrawing room or drawing room—a fantastic book or two. Those fantastic books are full of photographs, which are dramatic for two reasons. First, they feature the United Kingdom and its beautiful scenery. The second and even more amazing thing is that the photographs were taken on sunny days. How the photographers managed to get 50, 60 or a couple of hundred sunny days to take fantastic photos beggars belief, especially after the last few months.

The close rapport between the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia is perhaps emphasised most in the farming communities. There are very close links, including educational links, both ways between the farmers, but perhaps it is more educational for the farmers from this country. One of my colleagues in this place asked me whether I could find a farm—he was thinking of a farm in this country, as I belong to the National Farmers Union—for his daughter to spend her gap year on before going to veterinary school. She needed a very good and unusual entry—a star entry—on farming on her CV to get into vet school. I ignored the thought that the farm would be here and rang New Zealand. I spoke to one of the high-country farmers I know there. They said, “Yes, we’d love to take her here—kith and kin etc.” She was over the moon, until she arrived and suddenly realised what she had taken on. The farm has barley, lucerne hay and so on, 1,000 head of cattle, 1,000 head of deer and 23,000 lambing ewes, so when they have lambed—this is the farm I came from—there are 50,000 woolly beasts running around the place. That my colleague’s daughter went there was an example of kith and kin. She had a hard time for the first couple of weeks and then settled into it and came back really educated. She staggered the people who interviewed her for veterinary school, and walked straight in.

Of course, the biggest example of kith and kin is seen at times of conflict. We have the first world war commemoration coming up. In that war, there was the battle of Gallipoli, which led to Anzac day. Here, Remembrance day is important. It is covered on television. Anzac day in Australia and New Zealand is the same. Interestingly, the young people in Australia and New Zealand now go to the remembrance celebration there. They used not to do that in the past. The people of those countries remember the soldiers, sailors and airmen who fought for the United Kingdom as part of the Commonwealth.

I found this hard to understand as a child. My little village—it was a little village, in the north of the south island—had a war memorial. In typical New Zealand style, people were pragmatic about it. It was a superb memorial, but of course they had public toilets underneath it, because they had to use the space there for something useful. The walls of the memorial—one can see this at any of the memorials in Australia and New Zealand, but particularly at the war memorial in Canberra—were covered with the names of the soldiers who had died, and there were hundreds upon hundreds from that little village.

On Remembrance day in this country, I go to the villages in my area, and they read out the names. That is desperately important—it is desperately important that the names are remembered—but people cannot read out the names in the little village that I come from, because that would take up the whole time for the service.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very powerful point. May I share this with him? Recently, my daughter did a first world war project, which involved researching the names on the war memorial in our village. We found that a significant number of them were people who had emigrated before the first world war to New Zealand and who came back to fight for their country and die for their country, their country being both New Zealand and the UK.

[Sir Paul Beresford]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention.

This is one of the latest examples of what I am discussing. Some of us will remember that in Afghanistan there was a Mumbai-style attack on the Intercontinental hotel in Kabul. Two vehicles rolled up. Six guys got out, charged in, dealt with the terrorists and came out unscathed. They did look as though they had come out of a Rambo movie, but they were the New Zealand SAS, who had just been called up on spec to go in and deal with the situation. They did that, calmly, and got out. They are dangerous people, those New Zealand SAS.

Some years ago, I visited Monte Cassino, the scene of the battle for Rome in world war two. Between 17 January and 18 May 1944, four battles were fought there. The soldiers involved on our side were called allied troops. There were Polish troops, but the only others were from Commonwealth countries. A total of 54,000 men from Britain, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India and Canada were lost, as well as a number of Gurkhas.

The horrible reality of what happened came home to me during my visit. There were separate cemeteries for the various nations, with thousands and thousands of tombstones, but what really struck me was the ages of the troops buried there. Most of them—these are troops from the Commonwealth countries—were in their late 20s or in their 30s or 40s. Almost all of them would have been married and had families. Those families had no father, because they were over here, fighting for a United Kingdom war. That explains why, when I was a kid, I noticed that in my village there were a lot of single-parent families and a lot of ladies who remained single. That was simply because there were no men.

After the war, shoals of people from New Zealand and Australia came to the United Kingdom on six-week boat trips. Nowadays they fly. Many if not all are skilled. They are doctors, dentists, nurses, farmers, accountants, lawyers and experts in banking, finance or construction. Some stay; others move on to other parts of the world; and some go back. But they all contribute to this country. For decades, university graduates have been among New Zealand’s biggest exports. In the main, they used to come here. However, the United Kingdom has become progressively less receptive in the past few years. Entry is becoming more difficult, and to stay to contribute is becoming more difficult. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will look at that.

People from New Zealand, Australia, Canada and South Africa are exactly the type of immigrants this country needs. In general, they have high skills, earn high net incomes and pay a lot of tax. They are almost invisible to social services, because they never use them. They integrate well into British society. After all, most of them have parents, grandparents or even great-grandparents who came, either directly or indirectly, from the UK. They share the culture. They share the language, mostly. They share the heritage. And they tend to play slightly better rugby, but they blend in and add value to the United Kingdom. Their ability to blend in was recognised at one of the recent grand slam games—I am talking about rugby, ladies. The coach of one of the most successful Welsh national rugby teams has a very strong New Zealand accent.

Distressingly, the United Kingdom, as I have said, seems to be closing the door on Commonwealth immigration. It is losing expertise in medicine, dentistry, accounting, physiotherapy, the law and so on. I find that extraordinary. Highly trained professional people who come to the United Kingdom are being required to sit extra exams so that they can work here, whereas they are welcome in some other nations. The quality of their degrees is every bit as good as—and, dare I say it in hushed tones, perhaps sometimes better than—what is achieved here. If degrees from the United Kingdom are acceptable in those countries—and they are—that should be reciprocated, especially as a disproportionate number of the medical, dental and legal teaching staff in universities here are from those old Commonwealth nations. The same applies to the United States and Canada, but without the same difficulties.

Lord Rutherford began the process. It has continued; and I hope that, with a bit of freedom and a bit of relaxation, it will still continue. I receive many complaints from United Kingdom businesses and from Australians and New Zealanders that they are able to work here for only a very few years—generally two. Perhaps the Government could positively review that aspect of immigration policy.

The Commonwealth is very special for its people. In these difficult days, the United Kingdom needs to build on that family of nations and not destroy the willingness and desire to be in harmony with the United Kingdom in the Commonwealth.