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Queen’s Speech

My Lords, I hope to return later to the very reasonable and thoughtful speech by the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg. First, I have a couple of comments to make about earlier speeches in this debate. I will then make very brief comments on the Middle East’s nuclear weapons and on Afghanistan. One thing concerned me when I heard the moving speeches of the right reverend Prelates the Bishop of Bath and Wells and the Bishop of Winchester. Both outlined the scale of disastrous civil war and violence that are occurring even today in much of Africa and sometimes in south-east Asia. One of the most terrible statistics that I have encountered recently came from the very same Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in Liberia to whom the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester referred. No less than a quarter of the women and girls known to have been raped in that country were children under the age of five. That tells one something about how desperate the situation is. When I listened to both right reverend Prelates, I was very concerned about what the UK might do. That brings me back to the very eloquent speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, and to my great concern about it. She knows very well the issues of overseas aid and poverty in the world. She spoke about them with great eloquence and great sincerity, but I was very troubled by her reiteration of the Government’s pledge of 0.7 per cent of GDP to overseas aid, peacekeeping and other matters of that kind. Let us be quite frank about this: 0.7 per cent has been an ambition of this Government since 1997. We have now reached a figure of 0.34 per cent, which, admittedly, is considerably better than that of many countries, including even the United States. But it is only half of 0.7 per cent. However, in that period we lived through times of great prosperity in this country and of substantial budget surpluses. Yet we have never got anywhere near achieving 0.7 per cent. That is why I ask the Government to take very seriously the pledges they are making and would even suggest that they become pledges in law because, frankly, I very much doubt whether, given the scale of our financial problems, that figure will be reached in any foreseeable period. The one way in which it might be reached—I would commend this to the Government and would ask them to look at it much more closely than they have so far—is the proposal for a Tobin tax on financial transactions, which is now broadly supported by France and Germany. It is the one area where there might be adequate remuneration and revenues to achieve 0.7 per cent. For a reason which is beyond me, because of the nature of the support that this proposal has had, I do not understand why our Government do not look much more closely at it. It is estimated in a recent research study by Austria that it would bring in something of the order of £700 billion if it extended generally and £90 billion if it was limited only to the United Kingdom. I very much agree with the spokesman for the Opposition, the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, on something that he has often reiterated to the House; namely, the rise of Asia and the significant increase in the proportion of world wealth and investment that now originates there. However, I thought that he slightly exaggerated the speed at which all this is happening. It is still true that the European Union is the single biggest trading block in the world, the largest source of overseas investment in the world and has the capacity to have a major impact in its negotiations in the WTO and elsewhere. I share the noble Lord’s analysis that Asia is rising and that the challenge to that is very significant. What is the possible logic of accepting divisions in Europe when Europe should be bargaining with the rest of the world for outcomes that will be beneficial to both? It is simply unjustifiable to pursue essentially historic arguments about sovereignty in the European Union when this is one of the few instruments we have to deal with some of the terrible violence and poverty in the world. I agree with him very much that the Commonwealth had underused potential. That is true. The Commonwealth could be much more effective, given strong support from us and others. To give one example: I was recently in Islamabad and had the opportunity of talking to some of the leading foreign affairs figures in Pakistan. One could not help but grieve about why the Commonwealth has not been able to build any kind of effective bridge of discussion between Pakistan and India. These two great countries are still far too absorbed in their enmity with one another and one of whose survival—I repeat, survival—is, as many of us know, at stake. I shall be brief on Afghanistan, because we have had some very distinguished speeches, including that of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew of Twysden. We have to live with the difficulties that have arisen from what I believe has long been a profoundly mistaken policy, which dates back to the Administration of President George Bush; that is, the belief that in some peculiar way Afghanistan can be a centrally governed and administered state. It never has been. All central Governments in Afghanistan have sooner or later to come to terms with the regional and sometimes almost feudal lords of the various provinces. There have been some very effective contributions to this in recent years. One of the most profound and disturbing was the objection of Peter Galbraith, who was the American envoy in Afghanistan and a former ambassador to Croatia. He was inclined to speak with rather too much directness for acceptable diplomacy about the problems of having a central Government and president whose authority we were obliged to sustain, and who have been profoundly involved in corruption and possibly even in the drug trade. How can we create a domestic situation which provides more support from the Afghan people for the attempt to deal with the Taliban? The answer has to lie in raising regional negotiations between ourselves and the domestic provincial leaders of Afghanistan in order to sustain their support for what we are trying to do. In that context, one of the most significant things—I very much agree here with what has been said during this debate—is to try to build rural strength and rural development in that country. I want to say one more important thing about Afghanistan. Given the situation in which the legitimacy of the Government is somewhat doubted, we need to try to restore some of the trust by sustaining and extending civic rights. I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, on the danger of a sudden pull-out. We would all like to see a big reduction in British troops and a timetable for their departure. I agree with those Members of this House who have pointed out that the repercussions on Pakistan of a sudden pull-out are so grave that we should not even seriously consider that possibility. Pakistan has now got a weak civil Government, but they have at least established an agreed authority over the military. It is a country torn apart by the arguments in Pakistan about whether the Army should be devoted to trying to root out the Taliban in Waziristan and elsewhere. I agree strongly that we have to support economic development in Pakistan, but I also feel very strongly that we have to try to develop Pakistan’s discussion with her neighbours in such a way as to leave her less vulnerable than she is today. By her neighbours, I again mean, at least in part, India, where a relationship between the two, even if it is only a hotline, is of the most crucial importance. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, on his moderate and sensible approach to the Middle East, but I shall add one doubt. In the past few days, we have had the response of Fatah and of Mr Erekat, its chief negotiator, to the very close to outright rejection of an attempt to stop the settlements by the present Government of Israel. It is absolutely essential to have some movement by the Government of Israel on settlements, and on reducing the demand that they make on land and aquifers. With every day that passes, I increasingly doubt the possibility of a two-nation solution. A nation cannot be built on as little as is now being left of the West Bank and Gaza in terms of economic strength. We now have to face up to the fact that time is running out very fast indeed. It is important to say that the almost outright rejection by Mr Netanyahu’s Government of the original request from President Obama for a complete stop in settlements was not resolved by Secretary of State Mrs Hillary Clinton’s rather extraordinary comment that Mr Netanyahu made a generous proposal. It was nothing of the kind. It was no proposal at all. Given the situation where the United States, for reasons I do not fully understand, seems to be unable to take any initiative with regard to the settlements, the EU has a great responsibility as the major financier of the Palestinian Authority, the major supporter of police reform in Gaza and, particularly, the West Bank, to intervene and to go directly into the issues of the Middle East and say, "As the substantial financier of the Palestinian Authority, we believe we should be heard on the issue of how we can get some kind of constructive talks going on this matter. We cannot accept the scale of the rejection of the settlement issue by the present Government of Israel". My final point relates to nuclear weapons. The road towards the abolition of nuclear weapons, to which we are all—including the United States, the United Kingdom and others—now broadly committed, lies through three pathways. The first is a ratification of the successor to START, which runs out at the end of this month. The Americans and Russians have extended their acceptance of the existing verification of the treaty, but discussions on the proposal for substantial reductions will now have to take place at the beginning of the coming year. United Kingdom support for that is badly needed and is widely offered but, frankly, much turns on whether the United States Congress will feel able to ratify such a treaty. The second path, beyond that, is a treaty for a comprehensive nuclear test ban. However, there are substantial questions about whether in its present mood the United States Senate would be willing to ratify such a treaty. The third path is the review of the nuclear proliferation treaty in the spring of next year. The two treaties to which I have referred are vital to the success of that conference. To be successful, it would have to accept the additional protocols and accept much tougher limits on what can be done by countries such as Iran and North Korea. The only possible way of achieving that is to follow the route of the existing treaties that reduce the scale of nuclear weapons. Although I vastly admire President Obama, we in this country tend to underestimate the scale of the difficulty he confronts in obtaining the domestic support that he needs. Some good will has gone in bitter arguments over health issues and health reforms and, therefore, the support that we can give to the American Government depends on how we, as a country, can help to persuade the Senate and others that these are crucial steps on the path towards world peace, and that world peace is now within our possibilities but is still very far from being certain.