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Commonwealth

My Lords, I reiterate the thanks of the House to the noble Lord, Lord Luce, for introducing this subject. Here we are, compressing the mighty subject of the Commonwealth into three minutes. That might have depressed me until I heard the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, whose capacity to compress so much into three minutes is remarkable and a tribute to this House. I also welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Vadera, to the Front Bench. We are all looking forward to her maiden speech. I declare an interest as chairman of the Council of Commonwealth Societies. One of that council’s tasks is to be involved in the organisation of the Commonwealth Day Observance service in the abbey just across the road from here in March each year. That service illustrates something extremely important about the Commonwealth: that it has a unique ability to create an inter-faith dialogue. Although the service is within the abbey, it is not Anglican; it is an inter-faith dialogue. I hope that the Minister will tell us that the Sen commission report on respect and understanding will take us forward at CHOGM—that it will not just be a report, but that there will be action subsequent to it. The noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, mentioned Nigeria, albeit briefly. The Commonwealth observer group report on the elections in Nigeria this year was gloomy reading. That report has gone to the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, but will CMAG do anything about it? These reports on failures of democracy in the Commonwealth seem somehow to vanish into the air. Something has to happen as a consequence of them. I would be grateful for anything that the Minister could tell us about that. The right reverend Prelate made a point about trade issues at CHOGM. I know that the agenda is not yet fixed, but there is great concern among the Africa group in the WTO that trade should be high on the agenda and not trailing down below. Important issues such as the EU partnership agreements need to be discussed. Will the Minister reassure us that trade will be at the top of the agenda? If we do not discuss trade, all that will be left for us to discuss is aid. I raised with the Government a couple of weeks ago the unfortunate and ill judged closure of our embassy in Madagascar. We wait to see what will happen, but the idea that the best interests of this country and Madagascar can be looked after part-time from 1,000 miles away in Mauritius is frankly nonsense. Will the Minister assure us that the closure in Madagascar is not the beginning of a long list of others? We need from the Government a statement of their commitment to the Commonwealth. Not only do we in this country have a great return on that vision, commitment and investment of imagination, but those things are also in the interests of global understanding, dialogue and a better future for us all.