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Foreign Affairs and Defence

The combination of circumstances in world affairs presents some of the greatest dangers for decades: nuclear proliferation; widespread conflict in Africa; immense tensions in the middle east; and widespread terrorist outrages. It also presents a major opportunity in 2009, because a new Administration in Washington have the best opportunity in a long time to win new friends for the United States, our greatest ally. I believe that this House should welcome the experienced team that President-elect Obama has put together in foreign affairs and defence, and hope—I believe the Foreign Secretary was expressing this hope—that the middle east peace process will, indeed, be one of their highest priorities, because unless a two-state solution is agreed soon, it may never be agreed. I hope that they will truly bring all the power and momentum that comes from being an American Administration who have four or eight years in office ahead of them. The sombre nature of the background to our debate has been underlined by the scale and severity of the terrorist atrocities in Mumbai. In the face of those despicable outrages, to which the Foreign Secretary referred, we have all affirmed this country's strong support for the Indian authorities in their efforts to identify the orchestrators. It is encouraging that the Government of Pakistan have offered high-level co-operation and have made several arrests, because the whole world looks to them to do everything possible to work with India on this vital matter, including making further arrests, as appropriate, although we are mindful of course that Pakistan has itself been the victim of a massive terrorist attack within the past few months. This House is also united in wishing to see the entrenchment of democratic government in Pakistan, which is much the best hope for its fragile economic position and for the defeat of terrorism. That message was strongly conveyed in Pakistan by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and I when we visited in September, and it has also been conveyed by the Foreign Secretary on his visits. Indeed, he has made many international visits over the past few weeks, and we welcome the initiatives that he has taken on Bosnia, which we discussed yesterday, his visits to the Gulf and to Damascus, and the emphasis he has placed on the middle east peace process. As an aside, I must say that in the summer the Foreign Secretary was meant to be going on a tour of Britain, but he has ended up going on a tour of the world instead. Evidently, when the Prime Minister gets a more secure position within the Labour party, the Foreign Secretary thinks that leaving the country regularly is more attractive to him than stirring up trouble in the country. We must recall that in the summer he was insisting, in that famous press conference with a bemused Italian Foreign Minister—the tour did at least get as a far as Carlton gardens—that he"““wanted to support Gordon's leadership.””" He could not actually say that he had succeeded in supporting that leadership at that time. But since then he has been all over the world and has avoided what he calls ““Heseltine moments””, although in case he drifts away from that practice, we are keeping a careful eye on the Mace. Although, as the Foreign Secretary says, there is a lot of bipartisanship in foreign policy—as I will illustrate—he regretted that foreign policy was not mentioned in the amendment tabled by the Opposition. That is the amendment to be voted on at the end of tomorrow's debate, which is about public services. Not surprisingly therefore the amendment is about public services. When he was saying that, the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) muttered ““Astonishing””, but the Liberal Democrats have not tabled any amendment at all, which the House might think is even more astonishing. It has never been our practice as the Opposition to divide the House on foreign policy during the Queen's Speech, and if the Foreign Secretary thinks that the Opposition should behave differently, he may soon have the opportunity to make such decisions for himself. It is a powerful feature of British foreign policy that outside the area of European institutions, which we debated yesterday, so much of it enjoys broad bipartisan support, whoever is in office. That is certainly true of several tragic situations in Africa.