Overseas Territories (Governance)

Debate between Thomas Docherty and Ian C. Lucas

Tuesday 11th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

Thank you, Dr McCrea, for calling me to speak. It is a real pleasure to appear under your chairmanship; I think I am doing so for the first time.

I welcome the new Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Mark Simmonds). I think that this is the first time we have had the opportunity to debate with each other; I suspect that the topic of today’s debate will not be the most controversial topic that we will address.

It has been a real pleasure to attend this debate, and I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst) for securing it. He has kept me in order on many occasions in the past and it is a pleasure to hear him on the other side of the fence, talking about this important issue. We have had a very interesting debate.

I am a great fan of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, which is a tremendous institution in Parliament. My own constituency of Wrexham has benefited massively from the CPA, because we have developed a very strong link with Lesotho in southern Africa as a direct result of a visit that I paid there in 2005. It led to very close links between schools in my constituency and in Lesotho, which is a developing country. As a direct result of the CPA visit that I made, Wrexham hosted the Lesotho Olympic team. That sort of link, which is between not only parliamentarians but constituencies and institutions within constituencies, is what we should be working to try to achieve with the overseas territories.

One of the real challenges of modern parliamentary life is that the focus of MPs is very much on their own constituencies or their own constituency work; sometimes that work does not extend beyond the borders of the constituency, let alone of the United Kingdom. We all know that the overseas territories are an intrinsic and central part of our history. That has been very evident in this debate—they are part of what makes the United Kingdom, and it is absolutely imperative that we recognise that and continue to have a strong and developing relationship with them.

We have heard today about how those links are carried forward through the CPA and, of course, through other avenues. However, it is also the case that, because of the disparate nature of the overseas territories and their geographical spread, it is very difficult for the overseas territories and those developing knowledge of democratic institutions to secure regular experience of elections of the type that we have. We have secured our experience in a country of 60 million people.

It is very important indeed that we work with the overseas territories to share our experience of elections. I think it was the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden who made the point that we can also learn from the overseas territories, and my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) made the same point. In an era of turnouts of 12% or 15% in some UK elections, we must not think that we are in a state of grace as far as dealing with elections is concerned. The enthusiasm of a novel election process, as we saw all those years ago in South Africa and as we see today in other places, tells us and the people of the UK that democracy is an important process, which needs to develop. We also need to bring that experience from other places to the UK.

What we as parliamentarians can offer is the benefit of our experience, and I strongly agree with my hon. Friend’s point about electoral registration officers. In an era when communication is becoming easier because of the development of the internet, it is possible to maintain relations that might not have been possible 40 years ago. When the right hon. Gentleman visited St Helena, the prospect of maintaining contact with individuals there was so remote as to have been virtually impossible, but that is now possible once a connection is made. I would like relations to be extended to not only parliamentarians but the communities they represent in the UK, so that we can pool our resources and secure the relationships that are so necessary to building good governance and democracy in the overseas territories.

It is important that parliamentarians should be involved. Increasingly, under the European Union, electoral observation tends to focus on European institutions rather than Parliament. One theme I want to pursue with the Minister is that I would like more parliamentarians to take part in electoral observation missions to Commonwealth countries and the overseas territories. Elected politicians bring a substantial benefit to the observation process, and it is essential in a multi-party democracy that they play a role, although not an exclusive one, in electoral observation missions. It is unfortunate that that role has diminished in recent years, and while civil servants from a particular institution often go on missions, politicians are sometimes excluded.

[Thomas Docherty]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one key advantage politicians have is not only that we can talk candidly, face to face, with fellow politicians, but that we have extensive experience as campaign workers before we are elected and during the process of being elected? We can therefore see what the wider political party is looking for from a process.

[Ian Lucas]

That is absolutely right. Elections in a democracy are about competition between parties. Campaigning is incredibly important, and politicians are much more familiar with that skill than even the most experienced electoral registration officer. It is therefore important that communication takes place, although the far-flung nature of the overseas territories makes it difficult for them to have the interactions that we have developed over the years. We should build strongly on our experience in that respect.

The other relevant issue—to be slightly more controversial —is financial transparency; I was pleased that it played an important part in the Foreign Office White Paper “The Overseas Territories: Security, Success and Sustainability”. The Government were clear about the importance of financial transparency, which is of great importance at present to my constituents and others across the country.

As democracy develops in the overseas territories, we must ensure that the transparency that goes with a well functioning democracy is also evident in their financial and taxation affairs. When we work with the overseas territories, and the British taxpayer makes a contribution to assist them, we cannot have a situation in which businesses and individual UK citizens might use them to avoid paying tax. We need to work with them to ensure that international principles on fair dealing in taxation matters are a central part of their developing democracy.

It is hugely important that the connection that the CPA has developed through visits over a number of years should continue. We should try to encourage more Members of Parliament to take part in such visits. There are many new Members, some of whom have arrived here only in the past month or so, and they need to know the importance of engaging with the overseas territories and with other countries beyond the UK and the important role that parliamentarians play in ensuring that good governance is spread across the world.

I pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend for their hard work, for which they are not thanked often enough. There is huge respect abroad for the work of the CPA and the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and our colleagues abroad value the commitment of this Parliament—the mother of Parliaments—to developing institutions in countries that are building a level of democracy that we want to encourage.

I am pleased to support the thrust of the White Paper, which was published earlier this year. Clearly, it builds on the 1999 White Paper published by the then Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, under the previous Government. The Opposition have noted the commitments made to the overseas territories, and we strongly support applying the principle of self-determination to them. We want to ensure that they have a close link with this country, but we also want, in an age of devolution, to ensure that they have sufficient autonomy to deal with their individual circumstances and to build a democratic system appropriate to them.

[Ian Lucas]

That is certainly the case. That work is often unseen; it is demanding and difficult and involves much discussion and thought. Much assistance is given to overseas territories, which have the difficult task of designing government—something that has taken 1,000 years in this place. It is hugely important to share our experience.

[Thomas Docherty]

My hon. Friend is setting out a compelling argument. Does he agree that lending our expertise to promote local development is about not just political expertise but civil service expertise? I am thinking, for example, of the work the Department of Energy and Climate Change can do to help the Falkland Islands as they prepare for hydrocarbon exploration, and the work the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs can do to help protect the fisheries and the natural environment in the Caribbean.