Commonwealth in 2020 — House of Commons, 2020-03-09
Topic: International Affairs
Richard Michael John Ogilvie Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a great pleasure to be here today on Commonwealth Day and the day of the Commonwealth service, when all 53 flags are flying in Parliament Square—a day when the Birmingham Commonwealth Games Bill was brought before Parliament and the Minister has arranged for us to have a Commonwealth debate I think I arranged the first such debate in 2012 as the founding chair of the all-party group on the Commonwealth and, at that stage, Parliamentary Private Secretary to the first of two Ministers for the Commonwealth. It is a great treat to be here with him—the comeback kid of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He puts the "C" firmly back into the FCO: three times returned to the FCO to keep that C flag flying. If he has been to only 18 out of the 19 Commonwealth countries in Africa, surely his officials have an opportunity to arrange a trip to the 19th—we could even have a sweepstake on which one he has not been to It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford), the living symbol of UK-New Zealand partnership in this Chamber. His speech followed two maiden speeches of great distinction. My hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) typifies the concept of service before self, having moved seamlessly from the Army to Parliament, where I know he will put his constituents first. I shall return to one of his Commonwealth themes later We also heard a passionate speech from the hon. Member for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe). I have no doubt that everyone who lives in the Nevis Islands will celebrate her speech and her presence in the Chamber. She shared with us all a vivid talent for focusing on some of the crimes of the past, while perhaps skating lightly over some of the more recent scandals. We welcome her to the House. The Commonwealth is part of her, but it is also part of me, because I am a child of the Commonwealth. I was brought up in Kenya, and the atrocities in Hola to which she alluded were part of my childhood. In the Chamber, although many of its Benches are empty at this late stage of the evening, people from all over the Commonwealth are celebrating today and what it means. This is a moment for congratulations, but also for us to reflect, each year, on what the Commonwealth means and how it is progressing. I must say that I do not share the intrinsic gloom of the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle), who was ashamed of the past, apologetic for the present, and gloomy about the future. That, I am afraid, is my summary of his lengthy speech. He described finding "glimmers of hope" in the Commonwealth, but I think we can do better than that Let me give just one example of the symbol of the success of the modern Commonwealth and the countries within it. The whole business of being able to conduct financial transactions over a mobile telephone was not invented in some rich western country, or even by state-sponsored technology innovation programmes in China; it was invented and formed in Kenya. It is possible to travel over large chunks of that most lovely country and find Masai herdsmen nestling a spear in one hand while looking out over their goats and, with the other hand, transacting their business over their mobile telephones, often returning in the evening to their huts where the telephones can be recharged by a miniature solar panel. There is much to be proud of in all parts of the Commonwealth: there is innovation, and much more than "glimmers of hope" There has been huge progress on eliminating malaria and reducing blindness, and on the Prime Minister’s campaign in promoting 12 years of education across the Commonwealth and, indeed, across the world, supported by the Department for International Development. I believe that, in future, this country in particular will be able to offer considerable expertise to help other parts of the Commonwealth to thrive. Cyber-security is incredibly important to us all, and, as we know from what happened in the headquarters of the African Union in Addis Ababa, there are all sorts of reasons why it should be strengthened—not just across that continent, but in other parts of the Commonwealth, including the parts where I spend some of my time nowadays as the Prime Minister’s trade envoy in the far east: Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore, three nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which are members of the Commonwealth.