Examination of Witnesses (Questions 28-39)
COUNCILLOR MIKE
SUMMERS, OBE, LESLIE
JAQUES OBE AND
THE HON
BRIAN W. ISAAC
MLC
3 DECEMBER 2007
Chairman: I ask those members of the
public who are leaving to go quickly, and those who are entering
the room to take your seats and switch off your mobile phones.
For those who have just arrived, I repeat what I said at the beginning.
I threw someone out last week whose mobile phone went off. I shall
not hesitate to do so again. Please switch them off, or put them
on silent. Thank you.
Gentlemen, all three of you were sitting at
the back listening to the previous witnesses. I thank you very
much for coming to see us today. Would you begin by introducing
yourselves?
Brian W. Isaac: I am Brian Isaac,
a member of the Executive Council of St. Helena.
Leslie Jaques: I am Leslie Jaques,
Commissioner, from the Pitcairn Islands.
Mike Summers: I am Mike Summers,
of the Legislative Council of the Falkland Islands Government.
Andrew Mackinlay: That is like being
the Governor, is it not?
Chairman: You are the UK representative,
I believe.
Leslie Jaques: Yes.
Q28 Chairman: How would you characterise
your relationships with your respective Governors? That is a difficult
question for a man from the Pitcairn Islands, so I put it to the
other two.
Brian W. Isaac: We work very closely.
As you are aware, the island recently received a new Governor,
with whom I have had two meetings. They were most welcome. Working
relations with the previous Governor were close and very good.
Mike Summers: You will appreciate
that in our circumstances it is essential that the Legislative
Council works very closely with the Governor, particularly on
foreign affairs issues. By and large, we tend to have good and
co-operative relations with Governors. However, you will have
noted, from evidence submitted from the Falkland Islands Legislative
Council, that there are concerns that that relationship can vary
with personalities, which cannot be right. It is essential that
Governors coming to the territories have the right brief and training
to ensure that they know precisely what they are meant to achieve.
Q29 Chairman: Perhaps we will come
on to those issues in greater detail. I have a general question
about the Overseas Territories Consultative Council, which you
are attending this week. How useful is that organisation to you?
Leslie Jaques: It is very good.
Pitcairn Island is small and isolated. It is probably the most
remote region of what was the British Empire. We do not get to
London very often. Both through the Consultative Council and other
relationships, there is a huge amount of networking, support and
learning, which is to our advantage. Certainly, from our point
of view, it is very worth while.
Q30 Chairman: You are in a rather
unusual position, because you are a Foreign and Commonwealth Office
appointee, but you also represent an overseas territory at the
Consultative Council.
Leslie Jaques: That is right.
Q31 Chairman: How widely known is
the relationship between Overseas Territories and the Consultative
Council among Pitcairners?
Leslie Jaques: Pitcairn Island
has always been run almost directly through the Governor's office.
One of my roles is to restructure that in order to create more
of a self-governing scenario and to devolve operational responsibility
to Pitcairn in the same way that other governments administer
their Overseas Territories. We consult very widely with the community,
as part of that process, and I spend a lot of time on Pitcairn:
this year I spent six months there, and I shall spend virtually
the whole of next year there as well in order to implement and
manage change. The consultation process is a very important part
of that. Communication between the Foreign Office, the Governor's
office, our office and the Pitcairn Island Council and community
has improved massively—it is probably better than it has
ever been.
Q32 Chairman: Could you deal with
the wider question, Mr. Summers?
Mike Summers: I have been to the
majority of OTCC meetings since the organisation was set up. It
has improved over the years. We are all responsible if it does
not work as it should do, because we have the opportunity to add
items to the agenda and to comment on how it is run. It is a good
institution and we would be very much the poorer without it. However,
sometimes we wonder whether there is significant resource to follow
up all the issues raised at OTCC meetings, which we will probably
discuss this year. However, it is an evolving institution and
it is a good thing that it exists.
Brian W. Isaac: This will be the
first time that I have attended the OTCC. I look forward to working
with it. Previous colleagues of mine who have attended those forums
found them very beneficial. They have strengthened links between
Territories and we must retain our relationship with it. I hope
that that relationship will continue.
Q33 Sir John Stanley: I have three
questions to put to you in relation to the Falkland Islands. The
Foreign Office, it must be said, had a pretty appalling track
record under the previous Conservative Government—of which
I was a member in different Ministries from time to time—in
terms of standing up for the sovereignty and independence of the
Falkland Islands people. Do you feel that the Foreign Office has
learned those lessons, and is it now sufficiently robust in protecting
the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands?
Mike Summers: The Falkland Islands
Government are happy with UK Government statements on sovereignty
over the Falkland Islands going back a number of years now. The
current Prime Minister and his predecessor have been very robust
in saying that the UK does not doubt its sovereignty over the
Falkland Islands, and that there should be no discussion of sovereignty
unless the people of the Falklands so wish. That has been a strong,
coherent and unwavering message, and in our circumstances the
consistency of that message is crucial.
Q34 Sir John Stanley: Thank you.
Do you feel that present arrangements for the demarcation of fishing
rights between the Falkland Islands and Argentina are stable and
satisfactory, and that they properly protect the Falkland Islands'
fishing rights?
Mike Summers: I believe so. The
boundaries between the Falklands and Argentina, where they exist,
are well known to us. There have been some instances relatively
recently where vessels that thought they were fishing legally
on the high seas have been arrested by Argentina and caused to
make some payment to be released. It is a matter for international
debate. How the Argentine Government delimit their outer area
is not entirely clear to everybody and seems to be open to some
interpretation. That cannot be satisfactory, but we are entirely
clear about where the boundaries lie between us and Argentina
in areas where they are contiguous.
Q35 Sir John Stanley: Do you feel
that the Foreign Office is taking sufficient steps to resolve
the grey areas of dispute to which you refer?
Mike Summers: I am not aware that
the Foreign Office is very active on that issue.
Q36 Sir John Stanley: Thank you.
Can we turn to oil and gas rights? The British Government are
taking some interesting initiatives—including in the United
Nations, it appears—to claim oil and gas rights in areas
around the world where the UK has particular continental shelf
rights. Do you feel that the Foreign Office is doing all it reasonably
can to protect oil and gas rights in the Falkland Islands and
the adjacent South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands?
Mike Summers: In conjunction with
the Foreign Office and other UK institutions, we have undertaken
study of the continental shelf extending eastwards, in particular,
from the Falkland Islands to establish whether continental shelf
extension can legitimately be claimed. The results of that investigation
seem to suggest that it can, and we are satisfied that the British
Government and their institutions are preparing that claim. It
goes largely to the east, and not much to the north and west,
which deals with some potential difficulties. It is our understanding
that that claim, along with those for other British Territories,
will be made to the United Nations convention on the law of the
sea in due course. I regret that I cannot speak on behalf of South
Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, over which we have had
no jurisdiction since the 1985 constitution.
Q37 Sir John Stanley: You made it
clear that we are concentrating on the westward extension.
Mike Summers: No, eastward.
Q38 Sir John Stanley: Okay. If the
focus is on the eastward extension and the sensitive issue is
westward extension, are there any areas of westward extension
likely to produce a clash with Argentina?
Mike Summers: I do not believe
so—not as far as the Falklands jurisdiction is concerned,
although you will obviously be aware of proposals to claim continental
shelf extension from the Antarctic, which will cause some difficulties
with both the Argentines and Chile.
Q39 Mr. Illsley: I have a couple
of questions. I was at a conference in Chile in 2003 with the
United Kingdom delegation when we were subject to a bit of a diatribe
by the Argentine delegation about the Falklands Islands. We are
a long way away from the Falkland Islands and I just wondered
whether you have picked up an increased level of claim on the
part of the Argentines recently. Is the rhetoric about the ownership
of the islands or their sovereignty still the same or has it decreased?
Mike Summers: The attitude of
the current Argentine government under President Kirchner has
been different from the attitude of Argentine governments in the
past, in that they have been significantly more aggressive and
have sought to undermine the economy of the Falklands in a number
of ways. That has been going on throughout the presidency of Mr.
Kirchner. We are not clear about what his successor will do, although
there is every reason to believe that the policy will remain much
as it is.
Other South American countries tend simply to
put up their hands and say, "We support the Argentine claim",
without there being very much debate or discussion. I suspect
that it is convenient for them not to get into public debate with
the Argentines about the Falklands.
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