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Foreign and Commonwealth Office

My Lords, the House would have been pleased to learn that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, was going to make some remarks—inevitably brief but also illuminating—in the gap. If I may misuse the famous London slogan, I could say, ““Mind the gap and stand clear of the floors””, using the verb ““mind”” in the old Anglo-Saxon sense of ““pay attention to”” and the phrase ““stand clear of the floors”” to refer to the Government’s policy, which involves far too tight a budget for the Foreign Office, with all its future duties. That has been a consensus outcome of this debate from all parts of the House, although it was couched in very polite language. I hope that the Minister will not misunderstand the politeness, which is a traditional House of Lords phenomenon for concealing, as it were, the anxiety that many noble Lords have expressed today about the new budget plans. I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire for his initiative in launching this debate. It has been a very great occasion. He spoke with his traditional authority and knowledge, blending the best elements of Chatham House and the international relations department of the London School of Economics, as well as his knowledge of these matters as a politician in the House of Lords. How right he was to refer to the Cabinet Office role having been built up in recent times by slightly jealous Prime Ministers, so that it becomes a miniature Foreign Office of a kind on its own. Its difficulties at present partly reflect that, and partly the need to recast some of its roles. I also agree with my noble friend Lord Wallace when he said that the now Prime Minister—and then Chancellor—did not appear at all keen on the Foreign Office and probably wanted it to be a small and more modest department in future; modest for the wrong reasons. I also agree very much with the suggestion of my noble friend that we call our embassies in the EU countries British Government Offices, British Government Representation Offices, or some such more modern title. That would convey that we are not too nervous about being reasonably integrated with our colleagues in the European Union. It was also a great pleasure to hear the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, refer to DfID. I think that he used a phrase along the lines of ““it has much more cash than it actually uses””. It is manifestly unfair on the Foreign Office, as both departments ultimately need more resources. DfID, as has been said in this debate, is getting going in a really striking way now, and no one would want to detract from that. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, also referred to that unfair disparity between the two departments, which I hope will be dealt with in future years. I am so glad that my noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby showed the strong support for the EU that we have come to expect from her. How right she was to say that that also means, by implication, an even more active role for our own embassies or missions in other EU countries, particularly the east European ones, where their modern nation-building needs help and advice from outside—but not of an overweening kind, I hasten to add. I rather agree with the analysis of the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, when he said that it sounded as if the Treasury wanted a reduction and the Foreign Office Ministers then decided to build the modern strategy in that reality. While one would like to have time to refer to other speeches, time is inevitably short on these occasions, but it was also a pleasure to listen to the wise advice of the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, who spoke from her knowledge of the modern problems of the Foreign Office. To declare an interest, the noble Baroness recently became the appointed chairman of the European Atlantic Group, of which I am president. She will contribute much knowledge and authority to that group in future. The diplomats in that group, whether as guests, visitors or members—for many foreign diplomats come to each of our occasions, whether we have dinners or other gatherings—frequently pay tribute to the quality of the British Foreign Office and its work. The modernisation of the Foreign Office in recent years has been very considerable, with agreeable developments such as more women diplomats and more couples being located in missions, which are important for the modern development of the sociology of the Foreign Office. They are not just from Oxbridge, by the way; although that process is pretty slow, it is getting better—and the sooner it gets rapidly better, the greater that achievement will be. Links to trade and economics also reinforce the modern role of the Foreign Office, rather than reducing it. A number of your Lordships referred to more effort within the European Union. The conclusions of the report from the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, however, were pretty radical, although couched in polite language. Conclusion 2 states: "““We conclude that the Comprehensive Spending Review … settlement for the FCO, one of the tightest in Whitehall, risks jeopardising the FCO’s important work””." That is a strong conclusion, and the Government must now answer some of the points made in this debate about those anxieties. However, I will quickly pay tribute to David Miliband’s leadership as Secretary of State, which has been quite remarkable—not least in the recent European reform treaty proceedings—as has that of Jim Murphy, his Europe Minister in the House of Commons. In future, under that treaty, the external action service of the EU will also be extremely important for British diplomats and their careers. I hope that that new mechanism will be successful in future. However, £1.7 billion is really not enough to deal with the priorities that the Foreign Office will now face in this much larger and more demanding world, where there are more and more countries in total in the UN. The presence in African missions is totally inadequate, as has been said, and that applies to other parts of the world as well. My noble friend Lord Roper mentioned the helpful and beautifully laid out report from the House of Lords Library. The relevant figure in real terms is 5 per cent per annum. The £1.7 billion for 2010-11 will be inadequate for the Foreign Office’s tasks. The new targets come after five to seven years of demoralising cuts in services and activities here, there and everywhere in the Foreign Office, as you rapidly find out if you talk to younger diplomatic members of the Foreign Office when they are entitled to be indiscreet in the corner of a pub or restaurant. The reduction of posts in EU countries at a time when enlargement and the Lisbon treaty increase the need for Foreign Office activities is difficult for the Government to justify. The military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan was mentioned several times. It needs to be finite so that we do not get into the morass of an inexorable rise in hugely extravagant and expensive defence spending without achieving our necessary targets. Although some people in the Middle East may be incorrect in their analysis, a lot of people in that area do not share our support for NATO’s role and regard it as a pretend assignment for an organisation that should have been disbanded shortly after the signing of the Warsaw Pact. Many Arabs and Afghans say that this is a pretend mechanism to keep NATO going and that it is not really an appropriate role. I do not agree with that but none the less one cannot go on saying that NATO’s role in Afghanistan will last for years and years with all the huge expenditure that that will involve for Britain and other countries. The important matter of the arms trade treaty was referred to in the report. I very much endorse the need for that in the modern world. My noble friend Lady Williams also accepts that that is an important priority, and has campaigned for it recently. I do not have time to refer to the FCO services and executive agencies’ work mentioned at page 53 of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee’s report. Therefore, I conclude by asking the Minister to respond seriously—as I am sure he will and as he normally does—to the points made. The figures are not adequate. At least £2 billion is needed for the immediate target of 2010-11. That constitutes a very modest increase. In future the Foreign Office needs to expand rather than being crunched into a relatively low-morale institution given the pressures from the Treasury and other parts of the Government.