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Debate on the Address

My Lords, it is my pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Belmont, and congratulate him warmly on his maiden speech. I understand from a leading member of his party that he comes from a very distinguished family which has made a significant contribution to Northern Ireland politics. I understand that he is not only a councillor on Belfast City Council but an alderman, a Lord Mayor and a High Sheriff of Belfast. So it is perhaps not surprising that there were one or two passing references to Ulster. We look forward to his contributions on the Balkans and the interesting linkage between the Balkans and Ulster politics. We also look forward to his contributions on defence generally and on the exciting developments which we hope to see in Northern Ireland. World problems are great and time is short, soI will content myself with some reflections on the 50th anniversary of Suez. Many in your Lordships' House will regard the events of Suez in 1956 as a most formative stage in their own political development. It was a time when many of us who were brought up in an age of empire suddenly had to question those assumptions. It is perhaps instructive to ask whether we, as a country, have yet fully absorbed the lessons of Suez. I joined the Foreign Office in 1960, in the aftermath of Suez. I recall within the Foreign Office the gradual recognition of the need to change which led to those agonised debates in the 1960s on the withdrawal east of Suez and, most importantly, on the most appropriate response of this country to European developments. After Suez, President de Gaulle had been persuaded by Chancellor Adenauer that France’s future lay in Europe. As president, President de Gaulle was probably correct in concluding at the time that Britain had not yet made a sufficient degree of adjustment. We were ““ce grand peuple insulaire”” and possibly a Trojan horse of the USA, at least potentially. The history of our development in foreign policy over the past 50 years has been one of crab-like adjustment to that European role. We need to ask ourselves whether that process has gone far enough. What have we learnt from Suez? Are we resting on our major strengths, as members of the key world institutions—the United Nations Security Council, the Commonwealth, the European Union, the G8—and on our centres of excellence in our Armed Forces and our diplomatic service? Key considerations include the fact that it is no longer feasible for us to have a unilateral foreign policy. Possibly the Falklands was the last real opportunity for an almost entirely British operation. We need allies and coalitions. Never before has there been a greater linkage between foreign and domestic policy. One thinks of the domestic impact of terrorism, the wider problems of climate change, immigration and drugs. What happens in Afghanistan will have its effect on the streets of not only our major cities but also, alas, our rural villages. Pace the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, the Commonwealth is an important asset, but it is not a serious alternative to our major alliances. Some agree with the theory that Suez exposed our dependence on the US and that we had to continue on that basis. Of course, it is clearly in our interestto seek a close relationship with the remaining superpower, but our interests diverge in many key areas. There are great swathes of policy where they largely coincide with those of our European partners. The European Union recognises that soft power is not enough and that it needs a military component. We should recognise that we gain strength and weight in key areas of the world—for example, in relations with Russia, with the Caucasus and perhaps even now in Iraq—only by working with the European Union, let alone in key areas such as energy security, climate change and terrorism. We do so even in technical areas such as protection of intellectual property, where perhaps the Munich-based European Patent Office needs fully to be brought under the umbrella of the Union. Fifty years on from Suez, we live in a time of accelerating and fundamental change. Let us think of the headlines over recent weeks. China ended a successful summit with 50 African leaders on5 November, agreeing trade deals worth £19 billion. The company Arcelor Mittal, led by an Indian entrepreneur, has a greater annual production of steel than the next three producers, two of which are Japanese and one South Korean. Corus, formerly British Steel, faces a takeover from an Indian conglomerate, Tata, with a Brazilian competitor perhaps in the frame. China is now the largest aluminium producer in the world. A Chinese billionaire has invested £800 million in Anglo American. Al Jazeera opened a new English language channel on Wednesday of last week. I could go on. The world is changing and all these recent developments affect our interests and our foreign policy formulation. Have we made that sea change in policy to reflect those changes as the landscape moves around us? Alas, too much of our media wallows in nostalgia and has an invincible repugnance for closer links with the EU. I hope that I am not being too controversial in saying that some of this prejudice rubs off on the major opposition party. The proposed European Union constitution was flawed and is dead, but it will certainly return to the agenda under the German presidency, albeit in a more limited form. The debate on this mini-treaty will not be about just the necessary institutional reforms to prepare for enlargement; it will also be aboutan enhanced role for national parliaments and institutionalising foreign policy formulation and the European diplomatic service. We should also not avoid serious consideration of co-operation in the instruments of foreign policy, co-locating diplomatic premises and so on. Our interests in certain areas of the world, though not in all, will almost certainly converge, save in the commercial field. Now is surely the time for some radical rethinking of our priorities. Fifty years on from Suez, so much has changed in the world around us. Have we changed sufficiently in our national attitudes and our institutions?