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UK Worldwide Interests

My Lords, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, has chosen to raise an important subject for today’s debate, for which I thank him. It has attracted contributions from a distinguished range of Peers. With his barrister’s eye for the key points, he has chosen the issue of the FCO’s resources and the promotion of the UK’s global interests. It is right that the FCO’s resources should not be considered in isolation but rather against how best to deliver the outcomes and priorities that it has been set. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones, and others, we have and will continue to have a global foreign policy. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Park, that it is bound to be about pursuing the UK’s national interests, if there is any doubt about that matter. But as the G8 and others have shown in the past year, the eradication of poverty is one of our interests—not the only one—and I do not know whether we are assisted enormously by having reruns today of the debate on whether the FCO and whatever we call the Department for International Development should be one or more than one department. I thank all noble Lords for the extraordinary range of experiences that they have shared; it has been quite humbling for me. I join the congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Patten, on a fine maiden speech, based on his formidable international experience. I have also read Not Quite a Diplomat, which I commend, if advertising on that level is allowed in your Lordships’ House. It was of course an uncontroversial speech. In trying to avoid controversy he has focused attention on whether we are doing the right things and whether we are obsessed with managerialism. In that context, I say to the noble Lords, Lord Goodlad and Lord Patten, that good management is not a bad objective. I do not think that any of us would want to disparage it. I am afraid that when people read the language of management it is more often disparaged than achieved. Our ambassadors manage many services and we want them to do it well. Visa services, security services and consulates—I shall not go through the list—must be managed well. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, has encouraged me to send the central message, as he sees it, that billions of pounds have been spent that could be more effectively spent elsewhere. He used the example of the MoD. I want to get into that argument a little later. But I say now, particularly since MoD money was talked about, that I look forward to hearing the proposals for the cuts in the MoD budget that would make available the kind of cash it is suggested should be spent in the FCO, and to seeing how popular those arguments are in your Lordships’ House. There have been three spending reviews since the Government came to office. Both the 2000 and 2002 spending reviews delivered additional resources to the FCO. That trend continued in the 2004 spending review, which resulted in a budget for the FCO that will be £188 million higher in 2007–08 than it was in 2004–05. That is an increase in real terms of 1.4 per cent a year over the period of the spending review. Overall the FCO’s budget has increased, as my noble friend Lord Truscott said, by £143 million in real terms since 1999–2000 and by 25 per cent in real terms since 1997. My noble friend Lord Truscott was right to say that there was no crisis. Of course, more resources would always be very helpful. The noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, made the point that the budget has not been cut and nor are we in the situation that she feared of moving from having embassies of our own to having European Union embassy styles of management. I cannot imagine that—