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Commonwealth

My Lords, I too am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, for securing this very timely debate and for providing us with an opportunity to debate the UK’s relations with the Commonwealth, as the Commonwealth leaders gather for next week’s summit in Malta. I enthusiastically support what the noble Lord has said and I want to underline the three areas where action was indicated. At the outset, I declare my interest in and my wholehearted commitment to the Commonwealth. In an age of multiple identities, a unifying factor for me has been the Commonwealth. More particularly, I have been a member of the Royal Commonwealth Society and since 2002 a trustee and its chairman. Therefore, my contribution will be mainly about the role of non-governmental organisations or civil society in the Commonwealth. I start where eyes are set and that is Malta, where the opening of the Commonwealth People’s Forum will precede the start of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting at the end of the week. The capacity of non-governmental organisations for connection and for consensus building has always been a particular Commonwealth strength and I very much look forward to being there and seeing it fully utilised in Malta. The first area where the Commonwealth can provide movement and partnership is in building on the work of the G8 summit and the recent UN Millennium Summit in reviewing and achieving the millennium development goals and giving fresh impetus to poverty and the development agenda. As has already been said, it is also vital that the Commonwealth prepares to use its significant membership of the WTO because in 1999, Commonwealth leaders meeting in Durban made an important contribution to the world trade agenda and in the same way Malta can provide an effective input into the Hong Kong trade talks due in December this year. In doing so, I hope that they will listen to what comes out of the people’s forum. Secondly, the previous Commonwealth summit in Abuja in Nigeria was dominated by debate about Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe may have left the Commonwealth but the people of Zimbabwe have not. Commonwealth links endure in a myriad ways, through doctors, journalists, lawyers, academics and so on. Those connections to the people in Zimbabwe continue and we should work for them so that the people of Zimbabwe, in time, can resume their rightful place in the Commonwealth. That brings me to the role of Commonwealth NGOs. As I said earlier, next week will provide a unique opportunity for 53 sovereign nations from all parts of the globe, representing a quarter of the world’s people, to make a mark on global issues. It will also be a great demonstration of the power and the reach of a Commonwealth civil society. The Commonwealth People’s Forum, which will be organised by the Commonwealth Foundation, which I shall be joining next week, is a great gathering of that other dimension of the Commonwealth, the people’s Commonwealth. The initiator of the idea of a parallel Commonwealth forum at CHOGM and its first organiser at the Edinburgh summit was, of course, the Royal Commonwealth Society. Issues of extremism, liberty, tolerance, development and information technology will be on the agenda. In all those issues non-governmental organisations can make a significant contribution but often that potential is not always realised. I believe that the UK Government can do more and provide leadership in that area within the Commonwealth context to help people improve relations between communities and citizens in this country, as we have already heard through sport, culture and youth activities, which are the obvious channels for that purpose. In my capacity as chair of the Royal Commonwealth Society, I see the work that we carry out in central London where we have led developments on youth CHOGMs where people are given the practical experience of how democracy and the rule of law work in practice. We are developing young people and promoting policy debate and we are ensuring that there is better dialogue, communication and understanding. It is sad, and a strange irony, that the Commonwealth is least appreciated and understood in the way that it should be. It is not on the radar screen of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office; it is only there when there is a problem, such as with Zimbabwe, but it is never positively promoted. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, is very committed and is keen that this dimension is not just on the radar screen of the FCO but is also on those of other government departments. I hope that she will urge the Government to approach Malta in a positive and optimistic spirit to help that meeting realise its potential and to ensure that it gives the leadership and support that civil society and NGOs require. I hope that the message from this House will be that we do not just work at inter-governmental level, but we also make sure that the people of the Commonwealth connect through civil society activities.