---

Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Scheme

For those who are bewildered by the script, this is the second half of my epilogue comment on the superb one-hour debate we have just heard on this central issue. I was coming to the point of saying how worried some of us are that the Commonwealth is not grasped and understood in its full significance as an ideal network for promoting the interests of this country and our contribution to the world in the 21st century. It is not a question of looking back nostalgically at the Commonwealth but of understanding how the modern world really works, and the Commonwealth network is more relevant than many of the institutions we inherited in the 20th century. Can the Minister reaffirm recognition of the immense value and importance of international scholarship schemes running, as one noble Lord said, between countries and through countries in a latticework of exchanges, bringing immense power, common understanding and common values to a very large part of the world? Can he reaffirm that education is near the heart of the Commonwealth agenda? Those are government words uttered in good faith which now need to be supported by a stronger line on this issue. Can he reaffirm—or perhaps I should say affirm—that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office understands the place of a strengthened Commonwealth in our nation’s future and our national interest? I have spoken for only a few minutes but I have to say frankly that, in the impression of many people, some of them giving voice to it today, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has lost the plot over this issue. It did not understand that the structure and architecture of the modern world requires a strengthened Commonwealth with Britain as part of it; not necessarily as the centre, as in the past, but certainly as a leading player in this remarkable network which history has placed in our laps and, by good fortune and chance, has preserved for the future. Can the decision be reopened at the first opportunity so that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has the chance to regain grasp of the changes in the modern world and how the Commonwealth fits into them? If we can have reassurance on those points we will feel that this debate has not only been brilliant and informed but also worth while.