Commonwealth Day

Debate between Paul Beresford and Lord Haselhurst

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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.