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Rev. Martin Smyth (Belfast, South): I recently visited Japan with the Select Committee on Health, where I had first-hand evidence of the role played by the British Council, along with the embassy, in promoting British interests. Unfortunately, we received the same message: that the Treasury did not fully appreciate the importance of the investment and the responsibilities involved. I agree with what the right hon. Gentleman has said about our role in the Commonwealth as a whole.
Mr. Howell: What the hon. Gentleman has said confirms our impressions, although, as I said, the pressures on the British Council's budget have been eased, as a result--I hope that this will not embarrass my right hon. Friend the Minister--of some doughty fighting in the Foreign Office for the modern interests of this country, and for updating people's out-of-date views about what really matters when it comes to protecting and promoting those interests. The new focus for which we have called means recognising, in shaping our industrial and trade policies, that the interests and opportunities for British business now lie as much in the emerging markets--many, as I have said, in Commonwealth countries--as in the European markets that are geographically nearer to home.
Although our Committee divided into small groups, it covered a good deal of ground throughout the planet, visiting Commonwealth countries. A comment that we heard repeatedly was that Britain's Commonwealth connections, and the integration in a global network of communications and friendships that goes with them, were the envy of our trading competitors. Those competitors cannot understand why we, the British, have not exploited them to greater advantage. Here we are, at the centre of a gigantic system of world communications in which either Mandarin Chinese or English is being learnt--those will be the only languages left that matter to the entire commercial planetary business--yet we do not seem to have realised the full potential that lies before us, and the full possibilities of what could be a glittering global asset: the Commonwealth network. That network is ready made and inherited--perhaps through luck rather than good judgment, but it is there for us to use.
Perhaps it was understandable that, for a few decades after the end of empire, there would be a period of trauma and uncomfortable adjustment, and that people would feel that perhaps the Commonwealth was all to do with a better yesterday. However, it should never be forgotten that the unwinding of the British empire was, for the most part, an amazingly peaceful and constructive affair, despite one or two tragedies.
That era is over and so is its successor phase of decolonisation. In the closing words of our report, we state:
Mr. Peter Shore (Bethnal Green and Stepney):
Our terms of reference in the study on the future role of the Commonwealth were extremely wide and included the implications for United Kingdom foreign policy. The study encompasses an enormous range of matters--
My right hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. Howell), the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, spoke effectively about our economic and trading relationships with the Commonwealth. They require--and will obtain--a new emphasis because, as my right hon. Friend pointed out, many of our Commonwealth partners are now engaged in the process of economic development, of a most spectacular kind in some cases. Malaysia has been mentioned. If, as we all hope, the Indian sub-continent, especially India itself, takes off, it will make a profound difference to the world economy. We have a strong interest in being part of that.
The right hon. Gentleman also very properly referred to our cultural and educational links with Commonwealth countries--which are of enormous benefit to us and, I hope, equally to them--in terms of our continuing understanding and our continuing influence on those who become part of the elite in the Commonwealth.
It is not possible to overemphasise the importance of the English language in the network of relationships. It is one of the two or three factors that continue to hold the Commonwealth together in a truly remarkable way. Whenever I visit the Indian sub-continent in particular--and this is almost 50 years after the ending of the Raj--I am able to converse in English not just with high officials, but with many people in quite humble spheres of life. That is impossible in any other part of the world except, increasingly, in the European Union, where English is becoming the lingua franca, if I can use that odd expression in this context. That is enormously helpful to us.
As the report is so wide ranging and as the right hon. Member for Guildford has spoken about trade, investment, cultural links, the World Service and the British Council, which play an important part, I shall concentrate on a subject of very great importance in our report, which reflects another of the major new developments in the Commonwealth.
Those who follow Commonwealth history will know that at the Harare Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in 1991, the Commonwealth gave itself a new direction. It issued the following declaration:
In the period between the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Harare and that in Auckland, New Zealand, a few months ago, important and beneficial changes have occurred in the Governments of many Commonwealth countries. Malawi at last got rid of Dr. Hastings Banda; Zambia ended its long experience of one-party, one-President rule, as did Tanzania; and important progress continues to be made in Uganda.
Commonwealth election observers and Commonwealth Parliamentary Association delegations have been sent to a number of Commonwealth countries to witness general elections and report on their fairness or otherwise.
At this point, I pay tribute to the Commonwealth Secretariat. It is a small organisation, yet it is the Commonwealth's only continuing collective permanent organisation. It does a remarkably good job in sponsoring Commonwealth observer missions, advising on democratic practices in other Commonwealth countries as well as administering technical and aid programmes.
The House might be interested in the following figures, which I found shocking. In 1994-95, the total cost of the Commonwealth Secretariat--the Commonwealth's only continuing central organisation--including not only the secretariat, but the fund for technical co-operation, the science council and the youth programme, was £33 million. The British contribution was 30 per cent., or £10 million. The secretariat itself accounted for just under £9 million.
Perhaps I should remind the House that we pay a net contribution of £2,500 million a year for our membership of the European Union. We might reflect upon that figure in comparison with our ludicrously inadequate contribution to the Commonwealth organisation and the Commonwealth Secretariat.
Inevitably, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office distributes its resources similarly. We reported:
Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich):
Is my right hon. Friend aware that, when I raised with the Foreign Office and Baroness Chalker my worry about the fact that, as European institutions become ever larger in Africa, the British contribution becomes smaller, I was told that I should not worry because, of course, it is all very nice and polite, and on the departure of the British assistant head of delegation--I was particularly talking about Lesotho--there would be an extra appointment of an agricultural adviser, who would work from the EU offices? Is my right hon. Friend at one with me in not being absolutely convinced that that is quite the same thing?
"A new global pattern opens out in which the competition to maintain, let alone advance, living standards will be more intense than ever."
That is especially true of countries in Europe, as we are. The report continues:
"In this new situation the United Kingdom has both friends and opportunities."
Who are those friends? They turn out to be our old friends who are also our new friends. They should be embraced, so that the British interest can be promoted in a firm and friendly way and so that the network of the Commonwealth, which is one of the most remarkable developments of the modern age, can be used to the benefit of all who live in it and, indeed, of all mankind.
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"We pledge the Commonwealth and our countries to work with renewed vigour, concentrating especially in the following areas: the protection and promotion of the fundamental political values of the Commonwealth; democracy, democratic processes and institutions which reflect national circumstances, the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary, just and honest Government . . . human rights, including equal rights and opportunities for all citizens regardless of race, colour, creed or political belief."
That declaration was unanimous and in one sentence it committed the Commonwealth and its 50-odd member states to democratic government and human rights.
"In numerical terms, out of a total of about 3,500 United Kingdom based staff, 87 staff within the FCO deal with Commonwealth issues, 80 in geographical and policy departments and seven in the Commonwealth Co-ordination Department."
That is not exactly a large investment of highly trained intellectual and diplomatic resources.
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