Queen’s Speech

Viscount Waverley Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Waverley (CB)]

My Lords, given the hour, I shall be brief. No matter the outcome of the negotiations, which we await with keen anticipation, the complexity of political hoops still needs to be overcome. I hope that shortly we can move on, but it must be right to do so only when the time is right.

The UK is embarking into uncharted waters. Britain’s institutions have been, and will continue to be, tested to the limit. Regardless of the outcome, a new approach to the implementation of our foreign policy output is paramount. My attending the Speakers of Eurasian Countries’ Parliaments conference on Greater Eurasia in Kazakhstan last week, made up of 41 countries, was testament to that, given that I was the only person from the UK in attendance. That is wrong. Engagement is everything.

Our withdrawal from an interconnected world now demands to be reversed by a strategy of constant engagement. The role of parliaments must increase. I will encourage mechanisms in this new Session to enable more outward-looking mechanisms to assist us in embracing, defending or challenging our persona around the world. We have reconciled ourselves to the fact that Britain now needs to recalibrate its approach to one that fully accounts for a world of new realities if we are to neutralise the economic impact of Brexit.

However, let us gather fortitude in the knowledge that when the going gets tough, we need to, and can, get going. We will make a success of this. Decades will pass before the true results can be fully gauged. It is, after all, the gift of Governments of the day to tailor policy to suit the occasion.

Trade deals will have to be forged at breakneck speed, but not at the risk of cutting corners and forgetting what we stand for as a nation. I identify with the positive nature of the Minister’s opening remarks on trade but would counsel on the creation of partnership that it should be not just with Commonwealth members, for example, to which he referred, but internally in this country, recognising that the role of government is to create the environment in which our private sector-driven economy can thrive. Much more of a working relationship should be worked on between the public and private sectors in this country. I will press for the release of the trade commissioners’ assessments of the opportunities within their regions, together with their plans. I have attempted to do this on multiple occasions, with no success, but I really would encourage a degree of transparency—working together as a team with our civil servants to get this right in the national interest.

The concern is that the rules-based order as we know it is under threat in certain quarters. Threats to the nation’s security are no longer the sole domain of state players. Increased connectivity has exposed the vulnerabilities of critical national infrastructure. It should be remembered that, just a short while ago, China, France, the United States, Russia and the United Kingdom forged a programme.

In the years ahead, Britain has an important global role to play, with our influence being enhanced by the necessity of politics not just of confrontation but of constructive engagement. Our time will shortly be upon us, but we could do well to reflect also that a new set of nations are on the climb and that to be a global player in this interconnected world is to listen and to strive for positive engagement.