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Government Departments: Soft Power

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, for her introduction to this debate, particularly at the beginning when she helped us to understand its breadth by mentioning a concept difficult to grasp at first—that of almost soft military power. She mentioned the importance of the stabilisation unit and the importance, from her experience, of a buy-in from all departments. This has been a wide-ranging debate and, as someone who knows very little about the subject, I think it has been a valuable one. The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, and my noble friend Lord Soley both touched on the concept of exporting our convictions and our values. The noble Lord, Lord Hall, and, I think, my noble friend Lord Smith both touched on the idea of culture breeding conversation and ways of influence. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, rightly pointed out to us that, important as co-ordination is, at the end of the day government is about resource allocation, and it is these resource allocation issues that we must face. I shall return to this important issue. A feature of the debate has been the fact that seven Peers have mentioned the BBC World Service and its importance. The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, brought that into play by the power of journalism and, almost romantically, the power of truth as soft power and influence. The whole dilemma that we face with the BBC was put over most passionately in the excellent speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, and I hope that the Government will listen to it. I would like to look back, say, 10 years, to when soft power was, in a sense, around. We were in Government at the time. Soft power had five distinct thrusts: the BBC World Service, the British Council, the various scholarships, the conferences that were developed through Wilton Park and quite a big commitment by embassies and high commissions on what might be said to be cultural public events. This was called soft power but also public diplomacy. Along came Jack Straw, who, if nothing else, is a pretty pragmatic and down-to-earth individual, and he initiated a study by the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Coles, into how we were doing this soft power—this public diplomacy thing. I am afraid that the outcomes were a bit of a shock. For instance, the report showed that there was little design in the range of activities that could demonstrate a link to outcomes. Research showed that over long periods, whatever the activities, people’s attitudes to the UK did not change very much. Put broadly, around the world we were not much liked. We were grudgingly admired but thought to be cold, fairly heartless people. Public diplomacy had not warmed people to us, nor—during the Iraq war, for example—led them to think worse of us. The Government of the day reacted to this. The first major change was to introduce the Public Diplomacy Board, with external expertise and consultancy help to develop programmes. The second step—a very pragmatic and important idea—was to stop worrying about whether people liked us a lot. It would be nice, but the point was that we should develop programmes and key themes. We chose several themes, such as climate change, green cities, religious tolerance and democratisation. The idea was, through our soft power, to demonstrate values and raise issues with which we could engage people, as opposed to a simplistic ““Will they like us?””. At the time there was also a review of the World Service and the British Council which, in general, did not change. There was a strategic withdrawal from broadcasting to some post-Soviet countries and the start of the Farsi and Arabic television services. The development from that was the creation in 2009 of the new Strategic Communication and Public Diplomacy Forum, which seemed to have fairly widespread support. The House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee concluded that these new arrangements, "““with the relevant high-level body now chaired by the Foreign Secretary rather than a more junior minister, appear to be in accord with the more central place that public diplomacy is taking in the FCO’s work””." The previous Government had a reasonable record in recognising the breadth and complexity of soft power and the importance of co-ordination. What of the present Government? The Library has been the source of much of my research. It found relatively few hard statements by the Government on soft power. Mr Hague certainly made a comment, saying that he had, "““inherited a structure of government that had no effective mechanism for bringing together strategic decisions about foreign affairs, security, defence and development””." I assume that by that group he meant soft power. He announced: "““It is our intention to transform this, using the National Security Council where appropriate to bring together all the departments of government in the pursuit of national objectives so that foreign policy runs through the veins of the entire administration””." How far have the Government got? This is the point at which we turn to the Minister for a progress report on how far the Government have got on co-ordination, soft power and what their attitudes and positions are. Therefore, I would like the Minister to respond in four key areas. I have to mention the BBC, which so passionately concerns almost anybody who knows anything about this area. First, do the Government believe in soft power? In other words, do they have a definition of it and does it form an important plank of FCO policy? More importantly, does it form an important part of the Government’s policy framework? I hope the answer to that will be yes. What mechanisms do the Government have in place to achieve co-ordination? What mechanisms do they have to make sure, in the words of my noble friend Lady Taylor, that all departments buy into the efforts of government to exercise soft power? There is a particular area that I should like the Minister to touch on. Again, I thank the Library for this. I would never have found such an obscure reference. Perhaps that is unfair. I would never have found it; whether it is obscure is probably a comment on my industry. The Library found the annexe Soft Power in the FCO Business Plan. Section 5 is headed ““Use Soft Power to Promote British Values, Advance Development and Prevent Conflict””. That is a definition of soft power. Paragraph 5.1 of the actions to be taken under the business plan states: "““Develop a long term programme to enhance UK ‘soft power’, co-ordinated by the NSC””." This big piece of work was supposed to be completed last month. I hope that the Minister can give us a progress report on that. Paragraph 5.1.v states: "““Devise a strategy to enhance: (a) the impact of UK contribution to conflict prevention, (b) the impact of UK educational scholarships, (c) the impact of the British Council and BBC World Service, (d) links with democratic political parties overseas, and (e) the impact of the UK’s promotion of human rights””." I hope that we will be given a progress report on that, which may answer many questions. How do the Government make their decisions? How do they conduct the trade-offs and decide the resource allocation issues about which we have heard? We are not talking about billions of pounds and the macroeconomy but modest sums and modest trade-offs, as has been illustrated. Do we have clear objectives? Do we measure the outcomes effectively? Do we have a sense of relative values? It is very important that the Minister explains how the decisions regarding the BBC were arrived at, how it can be sustained and whether the FCO and the Government will reconsider them. A 16 per cent cut in a £270 million budget is not a large amount of money in macroeconomic terms. As I have stressed, it is absolutely right to get value for money. However, I believe that the first cut of £19 million will result in the loss of 30 million radio listeners. That works out at something like 65p a listener. In response to an Oral Question from the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, on the British Council and the BBC, the Minister said: "““I like to agree with the noble Baroness on as many things as I can, but I just do not agree on this. It does not completely contradict anything. If anything, the position of the BBC World Service will be enhanced””.—[Official Report, 21/10/10; col. 884.]" A number of noble Lords have quoted from Peter Horrocks’s e-mail. It is a very telling e-mail that bears quoting again. He refers to the impact that the BBC had in reporting the recent disturbances in the Middle East. The e-mail states: "““But in just a month’s time, we will need to cut back dramatically on our services as a result of the funding reductions. For instance the TV service will reduce from 15 live hours of news a day to 7 by cutting our overnight and morning coverage. Radio will be cut from 12 live hours a day to 7. And we will lose 44 of our valued Arabic staff, many of whom played an invaluable role in the coverage of the uprisings, often appearing on English output in the UK and around the world, as well as broadcasting in Arabic””." How does the Minister reconcile that with the statement that the position of the BBC World Service will be, if anything, enhanced?