Britain in the World

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Andrew Rosindell

Monday 13th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

I remember that my maiden speech was rather quicker—about four minutes—so I am glad you have given us a little bit longer, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I would like to start with some condolences. Not only do the people of Ukraine and Iran deserve our condolences, but the people of Oman. Sultan Qaboos was a great friend of the UK. His partnership with our country has enabled a peace process in the region to go on for years, very quietly and very sensitively. He has been an enormous friend. I look forward to our Government working with Sultan Haitham in the years to come.

The past two years in Parliament have, for me, been shaped by chairing the Foreign Affairs Committee. It was a huge pleasure to have had that chance. We published some 23 reports and 24 special reports. We had amazing help from the most fantastic Clerks in Parliament. I would like, if I may, to name three Clerks of the Committee—Chris Stanton, Tom Goldsmith and Chris Shaw—and thank them for their amazing work. I would also like to pay tribute to the former Member for Fife, Stephen Gethins, who was a very dear friend of ours, and to Ann Clwyd, who sat with us and was absolutely inspirational in many different moments.

The overarching area that we covered was not the academic exercise of foreign ideas; it was how we best promote the interests of the British people. How do we ensure the prosperity and happiness of these islands? What should we aim for? Who should we work with and how? We looked for solutions to the problems we face and sat patiently through hours of testimony, listening carefully to witnesses to find ideas that would help us to change the world for the better for all of us. I hope that as a Committee we served this House and our country well.

Many ideas came out of our inquiries and some, I am glad to say, have been adopted. Others are enduring and could still be adopted, should the Minister wish to do so. The top five areas of work for me were defending democracy against autocracies such as China and Russia; building bridges with partners such as India and Japan; growing businesses in new markets such as South America; our own organisation and the skills we need in our own Department to succeed; and, of course, starting afresh in Europe. We addressed the dangers to democracy in many reports, but none more so than our two reports entitled “Moscow’s Gold”, about the price of Russian money, and “A Cautious Embrace”, about the way in which some autocracies prey on our educational and cultural institutions. We argued each time that the Government must stand up for the values that make us stronger.

Those values define others, too. I am very glad that the Prime Minister is keen on bridge building, because there is a bridge that we would like him to build on: the living bridge that Prime Minister Modi speaks about—that link between peoples and between diasporas. The Home Secretary, who was an important contributor to that report, now has the power to put in place some of the recommendations she herself wrote: on simplifying the visa system; on making it easier for students, businesses and skilled workers to come to the UK from countries such as India; and on using technology to make things faster and cheaper. We must also look at new friends. Our report on South America did just that, calling for the trade commissioner’s team to be boosted and looking at how our great companies, such as JCB and Diageo, were already embedded in the continent and how much further we could go. When we look at the law, we see a platform that is being built on in those countries and could be built on elsewhere.

Closer to home, our new relationship with the European Union, and separately with the 27 sovereign nations that make it up, will be built on co-operation and friendship. I hear what the hon. Member for Stirling (Alyn Smith) says, but we must hope for the continuation of that good will and co-operation. I know that we are asking a lot of our partners. We are asking them to change when they did not choose to, but the truth is change is coming to Europe anyway. We know that there are changes within the European Union and between European states already. The world has changed, so it is hardly surprising that we must look to change with it.

The transformation that Britain is about to undergo internationally will define much of the work of this Government. Despite that, the Committee found, sadly, that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was too often unable to bring policy together. Sadly, it is not even paying diplomats as much as other civil servants. If we are to deliver a global Britain, we need a clear direction and high morale to attract those who will shape our place in the world. That means a clear focus on the task ahead. We have an opportunity and a Government ready to set a course for ourselves and, I hope, for the world, with the kind of foreign policy that will be exciting and ambitious, and which I believe can be done.

Why am I so confident? The mandarin who was quoted in The Sunday Times last week, saying that this Administration do not care about foreign policy, is clearly wrong. The handling of the Iran crisis, leaving pressure to mount on the dictators in Tehran and not giving them an easy escape, has shown a deftness that we have been lacking for too long. Last month, the Government won the ability to deliver, and for the first time in almost a decade, we have a British Government that can decide a policy, shape it and make it happen. That will change the calculations of others, and while our partners may struggle, our Prime Minister is for the moment unchallenged at home. That gives confidence to friends and focuses the minds of enemies. The word of No. 10, the Foreign Secretary and the Defence Secretary is now real and deliverable and can be relied on, so now is the moment to build new partnerships.

I was privileged as Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee to welcome delegations from around the world, and one thing that struck me was, as the hon. Member for Stirling put it, how we are seen ourselves—[Interruption.] Forgive me for waking him from his reverie. When I met groups from South Korea, Japan, Colombia and many others, I heard from them that we are a partner that they seek to join. That is important, because they see not just our departure from the European Union, but our co-operation in networks such as the UN, NATO and the Commonwealth, which my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) champions so frequently, and many more besides—many of them born out of the imagination of British diplomats over many years.

[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)]

I am proud to serve under my hon. Friend’s chairmanship of the Foreign Affairs Committee, on which I have served for the last 10 years. He would not want to end his remarks without referring to our reports on the British overseas territories and our success in persuading the Foreign Office at last to allow territories and dependencies the right to lay a wreath on Remembrance Sunday to remember those from the overseas territories and Crown dependencies who fought and died. It has taken years for that to happen and, because of our report, it has finally occurred.

[Tom Tugendhat]

I would love to claim credit for that, but the truth is that it is my hon. Friend’s work. He has championed that over a decade and has made a difference not just to the high commissioners, ambassadors and premiers who come to London, but to the hundreds of veterans and thousands of their families who are watching from around the world, seeing this home of remembrance every year.

The British Government should recognise that we have two pretty simple aims that we can, and should, go for: the happiness and the prosperity of the British people—no more than that. That is the strategic goal of any British Administration, and the question now is how we should deliver that. I think that we can build on three areas. We want an open world where the rule of law, freedom of navigation and freedom of trade, alongside the protection of our climate and human rights, work together by defending international treaties, by creating common practice and sometimes by independent action. This is what shaped our past, and although we should not try to go back there, we should certainly learn from it.

Fractures with Europe over history have seen us sail to the East and West Indies developing trading networks in ways that we would never replicate today, but that reminds of us a wider world. Today, partnering with new independent trading nations as equals, we have a new opportunity: to bring the new Indies together.

Over the past 70 years, we have heard one mantra constantly: alignment—alignment with everyone, alignment around the world. Whether it is with the European Union or others, it has seemed that the only way to get ahead is to replicate, and we must look to change that. More than ever, we need a world that dares to experiment and innovate, to get the best ideas and solutions for the challenges that we face. That requires an independence of mind. Not being part of the three great continental trading blocs—China, the European Union and the United States—this new group could focus on recognition, rather than alignment, and new ways of working together: a less rigid partnership, more Commonwealth, perhaps, than common purpose. That may be the better starting point. Many of my friends may be surprised to hear me say this, because I remain a passionate European— I would have to be with a wife who is French, and I remain still afeard of her. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) put it, Britain is and will remain in Europe, but of course, Europe is not Brussels.

Europe is 450 million people. Its cultures are as diverse as the people in northern Finland and southern Italy. It is what has given us and the world amazing art and culture, science and innovation. That came not from common alignment, but from competition and experimentation that led to the natural selection of ideas. Europe’s fractured land mass allowed ideas to take root and allowed experiments to find different solutions to the problems we face. Co-operation, not unanimity, should be what we aim for, and not just with Europe. The new Indies—the new partnerships—will be a way to build that.