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Queen's Speech

My Lords, apart from the extremely short intervention of the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, in the gap, this has been a long and complicated debate, but it has been very rich in different contributions from many noble Lords. Congratulations to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bath and Wells on a compelling maiden speech. Listening to the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, on European matters reminded me vividly of the sombre expressions of lack of enthusiasm from the Conservative Front Bench on European matters. While that was sad, in contrast we on these Benches became agreeably engaged by the noble Lord’s enthusiasm for creating the rest of the new world order, perhaps not so much in the image of the domination of the United States. That is an important theme for the future when we consider all these problems. The economic and financial crisis in the whole of the western world, but also in Asia and elsewhere, has helped us to restore the sensible equilibrium between Europe and other parts of the world eastwards and the United States. In that, we have been getting away from the awful hegemony of the United States of recent years and all the mistakes that were made in United States policy in the two terms of President Bush’s Administration. However, not everything is perfect. Our enthusiasm was very great when Barack Obama became the President-elect, to be inaugurated in January. The voting scenarios in the United States in some of the rural areas, particularly in the south, looked like the first South African elections in the way that people were joining long queues to vote, often for the first time. It was a very inspiring moment. At the same time, we were reminded that not everything is so simple and straightforward. When Barack Obama went to the Middle East when he was still a candidate, close to the date of the election, he spent two hours in Palestine with the Palestinian Authority and 22 hours of the 24-hour visit in Israel. I hope that that will not be so in the future, because symbolically that represents to the struggling Palestinians an imbalance in the old American tradition of recent years, but not in the days immediately after the Second World War, when there was a much more sensible attitude of balance between different groups and emerging countries in the Middle East. America is still at the very early stages of the new Administration-elect, and we shall see how it plays out from January. They will have many difficult and urgent things to do in domestic policy, but overseas policy will be paramount. In the mean time, Europe played a leading role operationally in the financial and economic crisis. I hope that the Minister will agree later, if he has the chance, how united Europe was. I know that there was a drastic, emergency financial and economic crisis, but it was striking how, at long last, after all those complaints of many years of Europe not being united enough in centralised policy—centralised in all senses of the word—this time that happened, and Britain led the way. We were rather proud of the way in which the British Government handled that crisis on behalf of the nation. I move on from there to a number of areas where I will be deliberately brief, and I will only refer to several areas, with apologies to colleagues who might wish that I would mention others, for which there will not be time. I do not want to delay the House at this late hour. First, there were the references by the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, and others, to Lisbon and all that now has gone beyond that. I have just come back from an interesting visit to the European Parliament on Monday and Tuesday. I spent a lot of time with people representing all groups, all provenances and all the main committees and Members, and I saw very senior figures. The European Parliament is now developing with the interesting addition of the new European member states. There is a very strong feeling that Europe must move ahead on all these fronts, with the member states working together, and that the operational texture of the Lisbon treaty and its provisions are needed to ensure that that can happen smoothly. It is not a matter of excessive institutional obsession, as the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, suggested; it is the practical way to go forward with such a large number of member states. Therefore, I am sad that in the European context the only section in that Parliament which is against moving forward in that way, apart from UKIP and one or two small right-wing minority nationalist groups in other member states, is the British Conservative sub-section of the EPP. Apparently it is still poised to leave the EPP but we are not sure when and how that will happen. That is very sad for this country. It makes us wish that the Government would assert themselves more and more on the European front. I move on to the financial background and the interest rate. While this debate has been going on, the Bank of England has cut the interest rate from 3 to 2 per cent. One full percentage point is a dramatic cut, and it means that the central bank rate is now down to as low as its 1951 level. At the same time, the ECB rate has gone down from 3.25 to 2.5 per cent, a reduction of 0.75 per cent. Therefore, for the second time, it is higher than the Bank of England rate, which traditionally has always been higher in order to prop up the pound and ensure that people buy UK Treasury and government bonds. That major change must be a precursor to something else. Some of the very shrewd veterans of City practices are now saying, ““My word, this means that the Government are already surreptitiously devaluing the pound””, which has fallen significantly from the summer pre-crisis rate to the present level. The pound has become a marginal international currency. There is no shame or excessive sadness in saying that; it is just the reality of the sweeping monetary movements that have occurred in the world over the past five decades. The pound sterling is now down to 4 per cent of total reserves. The leading reserve currency—the United States dollar—is now being approached more and more closely by the euro, which is emerging as the strongest currency in the world. Although this debate concerns mainly foreign affairs, I am sure that the Minister would be prepared to refer, even briefly, to the question of Britain joining the euro—a matter that is moving more and more to the fore. Even if the British Government decide to submit that as a proposal, as we know, it would take some time for it to be achieved under the procedures of the European Central Bank. It would also be a very good opportunity for the Government to get rid of referendum-itis—the poison that is still in the British system—as they did, very bravely, with the Lisbon treaty. We on these Benches were glad about that and welcomed it, and we supported the Government wholeheartedly in what they did with that legislation. There is no intrinsic reason for the Government to hesitate on this matter. Therefore, I hope that there will be a strong Answer to my Oral Question, number 4, on Monday. President Barroso, one of the most respected Presidents of the European Commission, recently referred—rather provocatively, in the view of UKIP Members in the European Parliament—to the prospect of us joining the euro. He said that many more British politicians now want us to do so and would very much welcome it. With apologies to my noble friend Lord Addington and others who mentioned important defence matters, I turn briefly to another major area that has emerged repeatedly in this debate—the Middle East and Israel/Palestine. This matter must now be tackled by our Government, as well as the European Union portion of the quartet. The recent meeting of the quartet in mid-November, with the French presidency taking the lead and Russia making much more of a contribution than usual, was encouraging for the first time. Russia will host the next meeting at the end of the first quarter of next year. However, when these matters were raised in the short debate on 13 October in the previous Session, there was nothing new to report. I say that with no disrespect to the Minister, whom we admire very much and welcome once again on this occasion. He has been a very patient listener to this long debate. He himself reiterated the position of the quartet and this country’s participation in it back in January and February. Now, surely the Government realise that there must be forward movement. I am sure that the Israeli Government realise it—there are signs of that. I also saw Tzipi Livni very briefly at the European Parliament on Monday when she addressed the Foreign Affairs Committee. No one knows what will happen to her. Would she be Prime Minister if she managed to win? Perhaps it will be Mr Netanyahu instead, as people in Israel tend to expect. The polls in Israel show that people want to have discussions. They even want to talk to Hamas and the fringe parties in the Israeli political spectrum. The Shas and other parties privately say that they would like to talk to Hamas directly, behind the scenes to start with, but no one encourages them to do so. It is not anti-Israel but pro-Israel to say that the time has come for that Government, and the new one after the elections next year, to seize this opportunity and do a deal. Israel has so much compared with Palestine. Palestine has 22 per cent of the territory left of the combined territory after partition in 1947. Now is the time for Israeli generosity, which will then help them to save the Zionist state of Israel, which I support, as does the noble Lord, Lord Steinberg. That is the only reality that matters. If they postpone again and look to the United States to give them artificial support by endless vetos of UN Security Council resolutions, that will be a blind alley that will eventually destroy the Zionist state. Please, please, after so many powerful contributions made tonight—we are proud of the contributions from these Benches as well—can the Minister move forward and give us some powerful assurances that the quartet is not just a farce but a reality of international importance?