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Debate on the Address

My Lords, Psalm 46. My noble friends could not remember either. Then I thought that some of the weakest words I had ever heard in this House were in the Queen’s Speech on foreign affairs. Before, as your Lordships will know well, foreign affairs and defence came first. The first two days were for defence and foreign affairs and we filled the House with usually 90 or more speakers. You look at the thinness of my Benches on this side and the Labour Benches opposite, and the great strength of the independent Benches and the Liberals, who normally come out in mutual admiration, and you ask why. Then I thought, ““What were the words that moved me yesterday?”” We had two great speeches on the Adjournment and then the Leader of the House said there were a couple of TomToms on the Front Bench. There is another Tom on my left here. I thought, ““What is a TomTom?””. I should know, of course, because I am secretary of the Parliamentary Space Committee. One of the things that I am good at, as many people will know, is that I have a sense of direction. You often have a sense of direction if you have spent a long time on your mother’s milk and can divine water. Many people have no sense of direction. Many of Islamic faith have an extremely good sense of direction and always know where Mecca is. In my car, which is a German car—I always said I would never have a German car—I have a form of TomTom. It does not really work—I call it Hilda—and it says every 10 minutes ““You must make a U-turn””. That is what I would like to say to Members on the Benches opposite. I was told that I should always say ““I”” because their Lordships like to know that you are ““I””. You do not say ““they”” or ““one”” or the report that many people read out from third parties; you say ““I””. I am not very much but I have spent most of my life in trade, usually being put by the Foreign Office below the salt at important meetings. I was brought up to believe that trade was the lifeblood of anything—it created added value—and that if you wanted your trade right you needed to create added value at home and then added value abroad. For 10 years I chaired the Government’s Middle East Trade Committee. I was on that committee long before I was under Lord Jellicoe on the British Overseas Trade Board and under Lord Shackleton on the East European Trade Council. I went round with great men and good and I found that you could go places where no angels could tread. As a result I would find myself sitting with Matrix Churchill in Iraq discussing the problems of the supergun. No one really knew where it was pointed but we knew of Mr Bull, who had decided that it may have been blown up by the Israelis in Amsterdam. The Iraqis regarded it as something of a phallic symbol, too. It was a remarkable piece of kit that scared the living daylights out of everyone. That was where the name ““Living Daylights”” came for the James Bond film, but that is another story. Then I had to go to Iran after the Iran-Iraq war. That was pretty moving, because I had not realised how people had suffered. The Iranians wanted to know if I could help them with Lord Roberts’s workshops because so many of their people were shell-shocked that they did not know what to do. They allocated one-third of their industrial production to establish an organisation called Razmandegan Islam, the ““fighters of Islam””. Although one may object to some of the ways that fanatical countries can be, we have to go back to the time when the Americans had their hostage problem; I was working in a banking group and we had to be involved, directly and indirectly, in the payment of blood money. When we had no diplomatic relations with Libya, the Foreign Office or someone else would say to people like me, ““You must go to Libya””. We would go to Libya and be very well received. All the time one was looking at trade—but because I have a sense of direction, I also use maps. When I look at a map, I say to myself, ““In the European Union everyone is thinking of the country next door, not other countries that may be of mutual value or appreciation to each other””. The German foreign policy was always beggar-my-neighbour—a good card game. They never went off abroad. As your Lordships will remember, the Germans had only one adventure in Africa. I have used this before, but it is one of my favourite stories: 700 Hottentots managed to defeat 3,000 German soldiers. One of my favourite countries was Afghanistan. The Afghans are quite remarkable people. I have a tremendous fear when I look at the map and say, ““Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan””—and realise that around them are another 15 to 16 countries in extremely strategic positions between natural resources and raw materials that are vital to the West. You might say, ““Maybe there are a few people around who want to stir things up. Why should the British have to do it alone?””. That is why I was impressed with the noble Lords, Lord Jopling and Lord Luce, who were simply saying, ““Get the Commonwealth, NATO and the European Union together””. Who else is providing support for the creation or preservation of democracy that will never even come to these countries? That is not the way they decide over there. They need strong rulers, who we can only hope are benevolent. I worry very much about this at the moment, because I feel we are in one of the most dangerous periods of my whole life. I do not know why; there have been terrorists before. When I was in Cyprus the EOKA started with 100 people, who then made friends with the Church. I was there between 1956 and 1958, by which time—and the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, will know this—there were something like 100,000 troops. When we look at the experience of Suez and other interventions around the world, we have to think carefully. I see the great Russian bear stirring. When an ex-KGB Russian leader takes his shirt off and stands there looking muscular, there is a feeling that he is saying, ““Let’s stir it up and see what comes out. We cannot lose””. I was most impressed, as I always am, by the noble Baroness, Lady Symons. As she is not in her place, I shall say that I was told the other day that normally when she travels she puts on a bunny suit. I never thought of her as being the bunny of the Labour Benches. I represent not only the 19 million people who did not vote in the last election but another group—the 52 ambassadors who, on 27 April 2004, wrote to Mr Blair saying: "““We the undersigned British ambassadors, high commissioners, governors and senior international officials, including some who have long experience of the Middle East and others whose experience is elsewhere, have watched with deepening concern the policies which you have followed on the Arab-Israeli problem and Iraq, in close co-operation with the United States … The military actions of coalition forces must be guided by political objectives””." What are the political objectives? I asked, in a Written Question, if we could have an answer to that question. I wrote to the noble Lord, Lord Malloch-Brown, who has a considerable background in this field. As the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, said, more officials must now be involved in foreign affairs; more Foreign Office ambassadors, and more money. I would like an answer to that. My final question addresses the sad departure of the noble Lord, Lord Drayson. I did not think he was a suitable person when he arrived in the House, but when he left I thought he had done an extraordinarily good job. He and I had only one thing in common: my father spent most of his life, and all our family money, motor-racing—and he won Le Mans. But there is a sad note—and I hope this had nothing to do with the noble Lord leaving—in yesterday’s judgment that Fusilier Gentle was unlawfully killed. I would be grateful if the Minister felt able to comment on that, because the reports in the press are pretty damaging. If our forces are not provided with the right equipment we should ensure that they are, rather than allowing people to attack us.