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UK Worldwide Interests

rose to call attention to the resources available for the promotion of the worldwide interests of the United Kingdom; and to move for Papers. The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, the House may not be surprised to hear that this is a topic on which I speak with even more than my usual diffidence because it could all too easily be seen as just another episode in a serial in which I have already played too many parts. For four years I was seen as the ruthless scourge of my two predecessors at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, my noble friends Lord Carrington and Lord Pym. After rather an exciting role change—from the other side of the street, as it were—I was seen as the spendthrift challenger of my noble friend Lord Lawson. I have also, I am afraid, given a demonstration, some 20 years ago, of the banana skins that lie in the path of Foreign Secretaries dealing with the issues we are discussing today. I have to confess that when I was obliged to announce the closure of a relatively small number of posts including, fatefully as it turned out, the consulate at Salonika, it served to provoke an immense explosion from my distinguished constituent who had been the chairman of the selection committee which had at last enabled me to secure a foothold in the other place. I had forgotten, if I had ever known, that he had been for 50 years the president of the Salonika Veterans Association. This short and flatteringly crowded debate offers scope for discussion, I hope, of every item of the overseas budget. I can do no more than offer an illustrative framework. I look forward particularly to the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Patten of Barnes. He is himself almost, in his own modest words, ““not quite a diplomat””. I shall focus on two themes: first, the range of services which risk being damagingly reduced in the present situation; and, secondly, the quality of what has traditionally and rightly been known as the Diplomatic Service. Decline in those two respects would have very serious implications for the future. Why has that happened? Although the objectives of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office have remained broadly unchanged since they were first set out, for example, in the first annual report for the department by my noble friend Lord Hurd, they are much the same in the foreword written by the present Foreign Secretary to the 2003 White Paper, The United Kingdom’s International Priorities (CM 6052). The objectives and the purposes remain the same. But the burden of implementation has been and is being remorselessly increased for all sorts of reasons. There is a steady growth in the international community. When my noble friend Lord Carrington first went into office there were 126 members of the United Nations. When I left in 1989 there were 164. Today there are 191. That is an explosive growth in the nations with which we have to deal. Travel by Britons overseas has been growing on a similar scale, with 14 million visits five years ago and 15.4 million today. So, too, have the hazards of the world in which they travel, ranging—if I may offer shorthand definitions—from Bali to tsunami to Katrina—so that requests for consular services have doubled in that same period to 80,000 a year. The third factor which creates the difficulties is the presumption that there should be no increase in real terms of the core budget of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and that the Diplomatic Service is always ripe for reduction rather than for any other treatment. Two words are offered by way of guidance to the Foreign Secretary in this respect. The first is the obligation to reprioritise—not a very elegant word—which means to cut or discard some of what is already being done on the assumption that much of what was being done is expendable and can be disposed of. That is just not so. Some may be ripe for reduction but not on the scale expected. The second ugly word is to ““delayerise””. I shall come back to that later if I have to. Both of those words all too often mean to cut, to curtail, to scrap or to eliminate in circumstances where it is often not just imprudent, but unacceptable. I shall give some examples of reprioritisation in respect of non-departmental public bodies, as the jargon has it. My first example is the British Association for Central and Eastern Europe. The noble Lord, Lord Radice, takes a particular interest in it, but cannot be here today. In December three years ago, a letter from the Foreign Secretary assured him that the Foreign Secretary had great regard for the experience and skills of great value in that centre and that it would remain in action. Yet, less than three years later, he was served with what is, in effect, a notice for the extinction of that body, although there is still much to do in the countries to the east of the European Union. Secondly, there is the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, in which I declare a conjugal interest because my noble wife was for some time a member of the board of that organisation. It, too, has been subjected to an examination by outside consultants, on the basis that it is for the organisation to prove its right to survive. At the end of it—as I understand it, but I have not yet seen it officially confirmed—it has been acquitted of the right to die, and is going to survive, but after the expenditure of a consultation fee of about £50,000 on that exercise. Thirdly, there is the Great Britain China Centre, in which I declare an interest as its president for all too many years. It has been in existence much longer than me and, as China has developed and marched further on to the world stage, it has been seen as invaluable by stakeholders in the Peoples’ Republic of China as well as here. It could not be less appropriate for us to have been subjected to a similar scrutiny that has just drawn to a conclusion at a cost of £30,000. We await the final verdict on our future with eager anticipation. I hope I am not wrong to be eager about the conclusion, because it would be folly indeed to do anything to threaten the survival of the centre. Another example, perhaps less important in some ways, is the pattern of sponsored visits to this country and the range of scholarships—Chevening scholarship and Marshall scholarships, for example—that seem to have been reducing in value, duration and scope in recent years, partly in order to fulfil, so far as possible, the Prime Minister’s pledge that the numbers would increase, although the numbers appear to be diminishing as well. Sadly, this is often to the disadvantage of the smaller territories. I take as an example Guyana, from which the noble Baroness the Leader of the House comes, as does another distinguished individual, the former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Sir Sonny Ramphal. Smaller territories appear to be missing out in the attempt to take sufficient notice of the larger territories. A third example, and one that is perhaps most important in this context, is the treatment being given to language training and allowances in the Diplomatic Service. Until five years ago, diplomats were not only paid a language allowance at a level depending on their success in examinations while serving in the country where that language was spoken—which is still the position—but they also received the allowance at half the rate after leaving that country, provided they passed the relevant examination every five years. That allowance no longer exists. It is important to recognise its value. I experienced it when I visited Hungary a couple of months ago. I was reminded that on my first visit in 1983, our then ambassador, Sir Bryan Cartledge—I do not think he was then ““Sir””, but he was the ambassador—was a fluent Hungarian speaker and, as a Russian speaker, he went on to Moscow. On my last visit, I met Mr John Nichols, who is another Hungarian speaker. Every one of the four intervening ambassadors in that post has been able to speak Hungarian. In almost every case they have been the only head of mission in that capital who could speak the native language, which gave them a primacy of great importance. That is the kind of illustration of what we mean when we talk about Britain punching above her weight—a phrase about which there has always been a degree of dissent between my noble friend Lord Hurd and myself. He seeks to disclaim its authorship but I am not reluctant to make such a claim, although I doubt whether I did. I dare say I got it from somewhere. It is a very good phrase anyway. In light of that, your Lordships will not be surprised to hear that at a leadership conference held in the Foreign Office about a year ago, at which many heads of mission were present—I dare say that the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, was there—one of them said that he regretted that we could not do for our successors what they had been able to do for us, to invest in the long-lasting skills and qualities of the Diplomatic Service. What about delayering? The noble Lord, Lord Triesman, will recollect that we discussed an example of that in the House on 2 November at col. 195 when debating the replacement of the Director for the Americas. Robert Culshaw was one of my many former private secretaries, who although their numbers are diminishing are still strewn around the service. He has had a distinguished career as the noble Lord rightly said. At the age of 53 Robert Culshaw is leaving the service and is being replaced by Mr Steven Williams, whom I do not know, but I have no reason to doubt his qualities. Indeed, I am sure that they are fine. The post is being downgraded from director to head of department. As the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, was careful to point out on that occasion, Mr Williams has"““considerable experience of both Latin America and the Caribbean Department””.—[Official Report, 2/11/05; col. 197.]" The noble Lord did not add that he had had no experience of North America, which is not necessarily an absolute disqualification, but coupled with the downgrading of the post, it is not the right signal to give, whatever the talents of Mr Williams. That is taking place in a setting in which a great many more things are being done to reduce the significance of our service. I shall not try to touch on every post that has been closed in the past couple of years. I have no time to speak about Madagascar, although others will surely have something to say. Since April 2003, in the Americas region no fewer than 10 posts have been closed, including four embassies and one High Commission. I have no doubt that my noble friends Lord Garel-Jones and Lady Hooper will have something to say about that. The downgrading of the first example of the Americas has to be seen as part of the deliberate shrinkage of the service. It is delayering in response to the Collinson Grant report of January this year. I should like to know the cost of that consultation. There is not just a deliberate shrinkage of the service, but an equally deliberate replacement of the career planning structure, which has been part of the success of the service heretofore. It was the key to the achievement of the Budapest-style continuity, to which I have referred. That has been replaced in whole or in part by competitive advertising of jobs within and without the service so that a spell in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is in danger of being regarded as just a step or two in portfolio careers. That is in sharp contrast to the pattern sought but not always achieved in large multinational companies to have the right person in the right place to secure the full benefit of the training and experience that they have received. Sadly that concept of service, which also applies to the Armed Forces, is not just about applying for jobs and getting them. A pattern of development is important. Up to 20 per cent of the senior management structure, of which Robert Culshaw formed a part, is now said to be following his example and seeking early retirement. If that is so it is a sad and damaging situation. It sits disturbingly alongside the objective proclaimed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary in his foreword to his 2003 strategy document, when he said that,"““the FCO must preserve the diplomatic expertise, knowledge and professionalism that are its core strength, rightly admired across the world””." Of course, I am not arguing that there should not be planning and effective control of public expenditure, but I invite reconsideration of the balance between the three aspects of overseas expenditure—defence, development and diplomacy. To take one example of defence, not long ago the MoD produced its Major Projects Report 2005, which states:"““The Department expects . . . its top 20 equipment projects will meet Key User Requirements””—" that is at least reassuring—"““but at a cost of £29 billion, some 10 per cent higher than the expected cost at approval””." We understand why the MoD was never the favourite department in the Treasury when I was there. But think of that figure. DfID is of course important in itself, but enhanced only if it is accompanied by effective diplomacy. In the six years since 1999, DfID’s budget has expanded from £2,764 million to £4,481 million. That is an expansion of £1,717 million, which is almost twice the core budget of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office at the end of that period. So I remind the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary and his representative here on Earth—the noble Lord, Lord Triesman—of the statement from which I have just quoted:"““the FCO must preserve the diplomatic expertise, knowledge and professionalism that are its core strength, rightly admired around the world””." Defence, development and diplomacy: of those three, diplomacy is not the least important. I beg to move for Papers.