Defence, Diplomacy and Development Policy — House of Lords, 2020-01-30
Topic: International Affairs
Jeremy Purvis (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, it is always a pleasure to listen to the noble Earl in these debates, with his thoughtful and experienced comments. A common thread in the debate, so well presented by the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, has been soft power, as ably defined by the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza. It has been a consistent feature in all the contributions, whether the focus has been on defence and security, development or diplomacy. At its heart, soft power is how the UK is perceived in the world, not how the UK perceives the world. The noble Earl said nice things about Scotland, where I live, and since I am speaking at a Burns supper tomorrow night in Inverness, I am reminded of the Bard: "O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us!" It is quite remarkable how the world does see us—we start from a good base and in many respects it is because of the point made by the noble Lord, Lord McInnes. Our foreign policy, our diplomacy and development policy are a creature of all four nations, not just one. All have made contributions. He was referring to the excellent maiden speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, and I was reflecting, as the baby of another Parliament when I sat in the Scottish Parliament, that the second Head of State, after Her Majesty, who spoke at the Scottish Parliament was Bakili Muluzi of Malawi. The Scottish links, historical and present, with development and supporting African nations are very strong indeed and I was so pleased to hear her refer to that. As a former baby myself, in a different place, I recall what Charles Kennedy once said to me: "Parliamentary babies and toddlers are to be seen and heard." I hope that we will hear very much more from the noble Baroness in the House I think it has been consistent across the debate that we welcome the review. It is right to reflect on what kind of global citizen we are and should be, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, indicated in referring, as others have, to the Foreign Secretary’s recent speech in another place, it is better to start with the direction in which we wish to head and then look at how we achieve that ambition. I hope it will be an open review and not just internal to the departments. We have seen references in the Foreign Secretary’s speech to global Britain—someone unkindly pointed out not long ago that it was a slogan in search of a strategy. If global Britain is to carry on through this review, it would be beneficial if it is not just about updating technology or the machinery of government but starts from the principal opportunities around the globe on which the UK can take leadership. It will fail if driven simply by how other departments can access DfID budgets As my noble friend Lord Chidgey indicated, another element to be cautious about is that the review will of course be led by the FCO and linked with DfID, the MoD and DIT working together. As other noble Lords indicated, the British Council and the BBC World Service are also of critical importance to the UK’s global presence. We were due to have the soft power strategy published; when the noble Lord, Lord Howell, ably led the International Relations and Defence Select Committee, on which I serve, we called for this to be published on a number of occasions. It would be helpful to know whether it is still intended to be published in advance of this review or whether it will be wrapped up within the review As my noble friend indicated, if we lose the single Department for International Development, with a Secretary of State, it would dramatically reduce our capacity in the world to be advocates for good. We are the only country in the G7 which has legislated to enshrine 0.7% on our statute book; we meet it and are a leader on it. If we do not have a Cabinet-level Minister to bang the drum around the world, that will diminish our ability to do so As the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Houghton, and others said in this debate, it is interesting to reflect that it is welcome to co-ordinate but not always preferable to integrate between departments. It is often good to be aligned, but often preferable not to be combined. Often our Ministers serve the UK best when they can come from a specific aspect of the UK’s position in the world rather than always believing that one HMG are good This leads me on to the development point. When the UK met its 0.7% target—which we have continued to do—I remarked in this House that, being in a broad cross-party coalition, as a Liberal I was very pleased because we had met the Liberal manifesto commitment. That commitment was given in 1970, and the assumption after the Pearson commission was that private sector and aid transfers would be met by 1975 and development would take track. It is because we are so far away from that that financing the global goals and other countries meeting their obligations are so important. That is why I was disappointed not to see any mention in the supporting materials of the Foreign Secretary’s speech or some of the background briefings that one of the core purposes of our review will be our contribution to meet the global goals and how we will work with other countries so that they can meet them The core element of our development budget has been reflected on by the Independent Commission for Aid Impact. In the autumn, it said in its review of UK aid from 2015 to 2019: "The government has clearly signalled its intention to use the aid programme to pursue direct UK national interests, in particular, by helping to position the UK as a key trade and investment partner with frontier economies. While the pursuit of mutual prosperity is not necessarily in conflict with good development practice, the focus needs to remain on building long-term opportunities, rather than securing short-term advantage." I hope that that thrust is to be a core element of the review While I am asking for clarification, the noble Lord, Lord Howell, asked a relevant question regarding the timing of other strategies. I mentioned the soft power strategy; we are led to believe that there is an Africa strategy, but that has not been published; and there is likely to be an updated national security strategy. It would be helpful to know how all these will be linked. On Africa, this is important because one of the signature elements of UK development with regard to that policy was announced in August 2018, when Theresa May indicated that the UK was to be the largest G7 investor in Africa by 2022. That was to set the stage for the UK-Africa Investment Summit, which took place last week. I have seen no reference to that target, either in the Prime Minister’s speech or from the Government. It would be helpful if the Minister could confirm whether that target is indeed still valid I had mixed emotions this morning with regard to the impact of tomorrow on us. I walked across Parliament Square and saw 10 still, rather limp union flags hanging from the flagpoles. It might be just because of the angle at which I saw them, but they looked as if they were at half-mast, and were set against a grey, dreich sky. I think this is meant to be a celebration. However, I was cheered up because my destination was Chatham House, where I and the members of the International Relations Committee received a superb briefing on Africa and the opportunities there. If we are to be successful in the review and if our strategy is also to be successful, it will probably be seen in our relationship with the most exciting, growing, innovative continent on earth, and UK-Africa could represent all the best that could come out of this review.