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Diplomacy

My Lords, I have just excised from my speech the phrase ““punching above our weight””. Britain's Diplomatic Service is a centre of excellence admired worldwide and the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, is an outstanding example of the service at its best. I have had close contact with the FCO since 1960, when I entered as a third secretary. Traditionally, the service has been able to take a major share of the available pool of talent and, from my experience even over recent years, I am convinced that it still attracts high-quality personnel. The question, therefore, is whether that will continue as the CSR cuts bite. What will be the effects on recruitment and morale? There are some welcome features in the CSR, such as the new foreign currency mechanism that will increase stability, but the settlement overall will have a disproportionate and negative effect on the service, with 25 per cent in cuts over four years. By 2014, the FCO budget will be £1.3 billion, which is only just above the UK's contribution to the European External Action Service. By then, DfID will have £11.56 billion—nine times as much as the FCO. DfID officials will not easily substitute for FCO officials. Of course, traditional diplomacy has its faults. The ““déformation professionelle”” results in excessive caution and a yearning for the quiet life, but officials are immensely competent and loyal to the Government of the day, even when they feel under fire from that Government. For example, it was claimed that the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, in the 1980s said that the Ministry of Agriculture represented farmers and the FCO represented foreigners. Echoes of this arise in the talk of a cull of faceless bureaucrats in London. Is it right that over four years there will be a reduction of 10 per cent in the number of diplomats overseas? How many compulsory redundancies are planned for? Given the number of redundancy payments, how long will it be before the savings actually begin? Will the payment of school fees for diplomats’ children continue after the redundancy of their parents? Even within the reduced total, the traditional diplomatic role will be reduced. That is, a larger share of the reduced budget will reflect changes in our society and mobility worldwide, such as the increase in consular and visa work. Will the Minister give an assurance that personnel, building security and counterterrorism will not suffer, and that language training will not be reduced? Our hard language ability is much admired and, of course, costly. I am sceptical about the claims of a revolution based on the new emphasis on trade promotion. For many years, the path to promotion has lain through expertise in trade. Trade envoys—yes, but ambassadors from the business community—no. Apart from the reduction in salary, the job is very different. How do we mitigate the effects? I have time to give only some headlines. On the selling of the FCO estate, much has already been done, for instance, in the Lisbon and Vienna residencies. Is there a threat even to the Paris residence? As the noble Lord, Lord Jay, will evidence, it is much used for trade promotion. More locally engaged staff can have only a limited effect because there is clearly a ceiling for their promotion. If there are more jobs in London and development of the hub concept, we may lose the value of personal contacts cultivated over time and the facilitation of networks and alliances. As for co-location and overlapping subject areas with DfID, there is some scope in the fields of governance and conflict prevention. On greater co-operation with allies, now that there is new Franco-British co-operation in defence, why not in foreign affairs? There are potential benefits in premises and personnel, particularly in west Africa. Co-operation with the European External Action Service includes the co-location of embassies and delegations and long-term personnel secondment. It is an interesting paradox that, by these cuts, a Conservative-led Government will lead to the posts in the European External Action Service, with its budget of £8 billion, having greater weight than our own diplomatic personnel. Clearly, the role of diplomacy is misunderstood and undervalued. If we want a still substantial global role, we will have to pay for it. Development aid cannot be effective if there are problems of governance, as we have seen in Somalia. It is odd that a Conservative-led coalition is reducing our strategic strengths and promoting a ““littler England””. Is this our ““east of Suez moment”” in foreign affairs? Finally, the Independent of 8 July stated that after the FCO leadership conference, which was attended by more than 200 ambassadors and high commissioners, the Prime Minister addressed business leaders at Downing Street. The newspaper said: "““Mr Cameron laughed: ‘We made them all travel economy class, wherever they came from, I'm pleased to say’. The assembled audience laughed””." Is the aim, or at least the effect, of these cuts to reduce a first-class service to an economy-class service?