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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.
1.32 pm
Lord Hylton: My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, although I cannot compete with her global sweep. I shall focus, essentially, on Israel and Palestine. I appreciated the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, who brought some good news of modest improvements in the West Bank and encouraging words about medical co-operation. We welcome them very much.
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I urge Her Majesty's Government and those responsible for European Union policy to approach the Middle East with a proper and necessary sense of humility. We should recognise that our actions-and, indeed, our inaction-have led to the wasted years of a so-called peace process, with no real peace and at least three brutal and devastating wars, beginning in 2003. Since the Oslo agreements we have squandered millions of pounds in propping up doubtful regimes, only to see the buildings we had paid for destroyed and damaged. One lesson we might well learn is not to set unrealistic preconditions. My arguments in several previous debates in your Lordships' House about including the Hamas movement now have, I am glad to say, the support of many far more eminent people.
Our new humility should include a sympathetic understanding of both Israel and Palestine. Israelis remember centuries of persecution, largely in European states, culminating in the Nazi attempt at genocide. They recall how nearly they were defeated in 1947-48 and how many wars they have had to fight since then. They say, with some justification, that when they pulled out of Lebanon and Gaza, all they got was rockets in return. They fear that similar rockets could be fired at them from the West Bank.
On the other side, we have to understand the pent-up anger and frustration of Palestinians over their sufferings. The Naqba, or disaster, uprooted Palestinians, who now number millions of refugees and exiles scattered through the Middle East and beyond. Gaza endured 49 years of occupation, four years of isolation from the rest of the world and blockade, and one month of devastating attack last winter. The West Bank has suffered 42 years of hostile military occupation, with ever increasing enemy colonisation and very limited freedom of movement. Some 9,000 Palestinians are now in Israeli jails, including 21 members of their elected Parliament, not to speak of women, youths and children.
Both sides long, however, for real peace, bringing with it mutual security, recognition and legitimacy. I was recently at a mixed joint conference in Jerusalem which produced some hopeful and useful ideas. The first encourages both sides to think beyond their own narrow national interests. Could they find and adopt transcendent goals in ways similar to the behaviour of the French, Germans and others following the Second World War, avoiding revenge but building the future? If this happened, the whole region would be transformed. Such a change is urgent, if only because of the huge proportion of the total population who are now under 25 and often unemployed.
Both Israel and Palestine, in fact or potentially, contain important national minorities. Israel has well over 1 million Palestinian citizens. Within Palestine, Israeli economic, rather than ideological, migrants could remain in the future where they now are, provided that they accept Palestinian jurisdiction. Each of the two states could come to see its national minority not as a liability but rather as an asset. This would, of course, depend on both sides complying with best international practice.
There is much talk and uncertainty about the Palestinian elections due in January next year. Could these be used most constructively to elect a new Palestinian
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The religious leaders in Israel and Palestine have a distinct contribution to make towards real peace. More than 10 years ago, the noble and right Reverend Lord, Lord Carey, helped both sets of leaders to come together for the first time. They then jointly produced the admirable Alexandria Declaration. It is sad that there has been so little follow up to this. As religious people can be found among the hardliners on both sides, there is plenty of scope for including the extremes and consolidating the moderates.
Unilateral measures, taken by all sides and parties, could also be helpful. These are most likely to be constructive if they are carefully co-ordinated. Alas, this has seldom been the case in the past. I have in mind particularly the release of captives and detainees and the building of a transport link to connect Gaza and the West Bank. Mutual security and intelligence sharing is another area where small beginnings have been made but much more is needed.
The last important multilateral peace conference was held in Madrid in 1991. There are those who argue that the Arab League peace initiative, now seven years old, could form the basis for a new conference. If perchance a regional framework could in that way be agreed, it might become a little less difficult to work two states of Israel and Palestine into such a framework. Such an approach may require security guarantees, peacekeeping forces and effective inward investment. The resulting gains for Israel, Palestine, the region and, indirectly, for Europe and the whole world are so great as to be barely describable.
Our policy, as I suggested earlier, should be humble but realistic, understanding of basic needs and interests, and patiently working to include all parties in conflict resolution rather than in unsatisfying conflict management. Time, as has been said earlier today, is not on anyone's side.
1.41 pm
Lord Anderson of Swansea: My Lords, I shall avoid the temptation in these unfocused debates of embarking on a Cook's tour around the world in eight minutes. I shall try instead to focus on certain events of the past few weeks and draw perhaps some general conclusions from them.
My starting point is 8 and 9 November 1989 and the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. I recall-this is a corrective to those who like to forecast the future-speaking six months beforehand to a German woman MP whom I know well. She told me that Germany would never be reunified in her lifetime. Well, she is still alive and Germany is reunified and we have seen the most remarkable positive results since.
My own judgment is that historians will see the overall effects of 1989 as more significant than those of 9/11. The fall of the wall ended the post-war division of Europe. Perhaps we have not yet caught up with those changes in the political structures needed to support it, but they have had a most marked effect. It was the end of the Soviet Union, the end of the Soviet empire and almost the end of Soviet ideology. Proud nations that had the untidy, post-war interruption
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We think less of the effects of the fall of the Berlin Wall on the third world. I attended a lecture earlier this week by former President FW de Klerk, who argued that, because the communist menace appeared less strong to the Afrikaner minority in apartheid South Africa, they were able to make changes and concessions that might otherwise not have been possible.
On the other hand, the fall of the wall has had some adverse effects for Africa. Pre-1989, there was superpower competition for votes of African states in the General Assembly of the UN. That competition has gone and, to some extent, Africa has become marginalised. I was delighted that my noble friend was able to indicate that the commitment to providing 0.7 per cent of GNI in development aid remains valid and strong for this Government. However, there came a time when I recall even Richard Dowden, one of the few eminent commentators on Africa in this country, saying that perhaps our only reason for being there was moral. Well, as we say in this Parliament, since then an amendment has been moved. Others have mentioned the competition for resources with China. We saw the recent offer of $6 billion of credit from the People's Republic of China to Africa, a reflection of China's willingness to move from its own region in the search for resources and, as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, said, of the way in which economic power has moved from west to east.
It is probably also true not only that the West has suffered an economic decline as against the East but also that, over the past weeks, we have seen some signs of a political decline. There have been a number of adverse changes over that period. Let us think, for example, of Afghanistan. There were clear signs of public opinion in this country moving against our commitment to that war; there was uncertainty as to who the enemy is and how one measures success in the Afghan war. Perhaps one needs, as the noble Lord said, a sense of history, of the bloody nose that this country received in the 1840s in the first Afghan War. One needs also to read again one's Kipling about the Great Game in the 1880s. One needs perhaps to revisit the bleeding wound that President Gorbachev's Soviet Union got in its latter days. One needs to look at the old adage: one cannot buy the Afghans; one can only rent them. Indeed, one sees various press commentaries now that state that we are indeed bribing certain forces because of the fragmentation and turbulence of that country.
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I am ready to accept the Prime Minister's assertion that it is in our interests to help the other countries that may serve as nests for al-Qaeda activity-for example, Somalia and Yemen. It is some indication of the increasing linkage between domestic and foreign policy that the training camps in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan and in Afghanistan train people who will appear on our streets. I am prepared to accept that, however corrupt and fragmented that country is and whatever void exists at a national level, it is in our interests to bolster as best we can the Afghan regime. I accept that the likely effect on Pakistan, a nuclear-armed country, of a withdrawal and the boost that any precipitate withdrawal would give to worldwide jihadists are very important considerations. Therefore, I was pleased by what the Prime Minister said in his Lord Mayor's banquet speech, which showed a realistic appraisal of the need not only to satisfy public opinion in this country but also to have a clearer strategy. What he outlined there, I very much applaud.
In the Middle East, we hoped that the new Obama Administration would adopt a more nuanced and balanced role. I was in Egypt just before the Cairo speech, when there were great expectations. Alas, those expectations have been somewhat dimmed as a result of the recent retreat by the Obama Administration on settlements. It is surely clear that there can be no peace between the Palestinians and Israelis without a two-state solution and that there cannot be a two-state solution while the areas occupied by the Israelis are criss-crossed by all these settlements and Bantustans. It looks as if Prime Minister Netanyahu has won a short-term tactical victory. Alas, the longer-term consequences may be sadder for Israel-and I yield to no one in my admiration for Israel, its proud democracy and rule of law and the fact that it faces an existential threat from Iran as well as the fact that the 1 million Palestinians living in Israel certainly do not want to be absorbed into a Palestinian Authority, as they show very clearly. But the consequences of that retreat on the settlements against pressure from Prime Minister Netanyahu have been not only the projected resignation of President Abbas but new pressures for a Palestinian state and anger in the Arab world. The Arab peace initiative of 2002, which may need a clearer road map attached to it, has now been pushed aside and the politics of hope in Israel and Palestine, as the events of the past few weeks show, have yielded to the politics of management of a crisis to prevent it from getting worse.
On the European Union and the speech given by Mr Cameron, clearly the background was unfortunate. For example, there was the withdrawal from the mainstream centre-right family. Anyone who understands the European Union understands the importance of the political families and the need to be part of one's natural family if one is to pull one's weight, rather than creating some mishmash of funny groups with little or no attachment to core Europe. There was also, alas, from the shadow Foreign Minister the attack on Mr Blair's prospects of becoming the president of the new grouping. There can be many cogent arguments against Mr Blair, but I think that there was consternation on the continent about the Opposition in this country seeking to stab in the back our own prime candidate,
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Furthermore, the pledges that have been made on a sovereignty Bill, the referendum and opt-outs tell one more about the internal party management than about realistic prospects. There is unlikely to be any serious prospect for further institutional change over at least the next decade. If one wished, for example, to add to one of the accession treaties something in relation to one of the several opt-outs being suggested, can one imagine the horror that it would cause on the continent? It would be totally contrary to the declared policy of seeking to encourage expansion to Croatia and the Balkan countries. Is one going to sacrifice Croatia and Iceland on the altar of trying to get our view on these opt-outs? We know, realistically, that the opt-outs depend on the support of all the other countries, which will not be coming. It is tilting at windmills and chasing dragons and is not worth a row of beans. The real tragedy is that, just to appease the Europhobes, any possible Conservative Government would feel the need to throw them fish from time to time, as they will ask for more, which can only make our position worse in relation to our partners. That said, those pledges mean very little. Any attempt to demand their fulfilment could only make worse our position on the continent.
I end on a more positive note. There was no attempt in Mr Cameron's speech to rewrite the ESDP, which is one of the great and increasing success stories of the European Union. Perhaps that was the result of the lecturing of Mr Hague when he recently went to Washington. There was also no mention of the Commonwealth. I yield to no one in being a proponent of the Commonwealth; I have chaired the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association for four years. I do not want to make the party point about how the Conservative Government in 1986 almost destroyed the Commonwealth over South Africa. I was at Marlborough House at that time and I remember it well-and the tirade in the Conservative press against the developing Commonwealth. No, I do not make that point. But this is clearly a pipe dream. Those who go to CHOGM in Trinidad and Tobago next week will not find any appetite for this new grouping, which is not really a pro-Commonwealth suggestion but a desperate attempt to find an alternative to the only realistic position on the European Union. That said, I find much to commend in Mr Cameron's speech, which will be seen historically as a rejection of not only the referendum but other referendums and a major recognition of where our future lies. Historians will see it as a major step, though a step only, on the road to reality.
1.57 pm
Viscount Eccles: My Lords, my purpose is narrow. I look forward to the promised draft international development legislation,
- "to make binding my government's commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of gross national income on international development by 2013".
I wonder why the draftsman slipped in the accurate word "spend". Surely, to be consistent, the word should be "invest". Everything else is investment, is it not?
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I declare an interest because I was the Commonwealth Development Corporation's chief executive for some nine years, ending in 1994, in the days when CDC was of continuing and almost always friendly interest to Parliament. We were sometimes confused with the Overseas Food Corporation and groundnuts, but the OFC was summarily dissolved. CDC continues to this day and is still wholly owned by the taxpayer and a public corporation.
I shall return to CDC later, but first I refer to two very differing economic achievements over the past 50 years, in Ghana and Malaysia. These two are now a classic case of dramatically different performance, about which I was first asked in Accra long ago, in the early 1990s. A group of businessmen challenged me to explain how it was that Ghana and Malaysia started at independence with the same income per head, 10 million people each, a comparable stock of natural resources, similar education systems and the legacy of British administration and law yet, after 30 years, Malaysians were achieving 10 times the Ghanaian income per head. I did my best but, whatever the explanation then, this startling disparity has continued. Now, with 25 million people each and with progress in each, Malaysia is a middle income country. While Ghana is well ahead of much of sub-Saharan Africa, its income per head is still only one-tenth of Malaysia's. Twenty-eight per cent of Ghanaians are below the one-dollar-a-day poverty line, but only 5 per cent of Malays.
I could offer an explanation, but it would be long and complex, following in the footsteps of Lord Bauer rather than those of Bob Geldof. No relevant comments can be found in the Africa Commission's report of 2005, signed by both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, nor in DfID's 2009 White Paper, so I conclude that I am out of joint with the times, because I still believe in private sector economic development as the best and fastest way out of absolute poverty. Yet even if I am wrong, we need DfID's explanation of the two completely different experiences of Ghana and Malaysia-or will the Minister provide the explanation today? It has already been the subject of discussion within Government.
Given the belief that economic development, primarily but not exclusively driven by the private sector, is the surest way to achieve sustainable reductions in poverty, why does it not come top of the list of DfID's objectives? For some reason, DfID believes that it cannot be directly involved, for example in contributing to the acquisition or even in the provision of the necessary foreign capital. Aspects of that leverage between public and private money were referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock. No poor country is likely to find the capital it needs from its own savings-not on any acceptable timescale, at least-yet all that DfID believes we can do is to enable for some deferred future, pursuing good governance when we know it is very likely that people will govern themselves better when they are already better off. Indeed, I seem to remember that we were, from time to time, very critical of Malaysian governance as they progressed to middle income.
A second DfID priority is emphasising climate change to people who have no electricity. A third is looking for less conflict, when we know that people
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Your Lordships will not be surprised to hear that I now come back to CDC, which used to find economic opportunities in places where, and at times when, there was not market capital available. CDC went into these gaps to fund companies where the risk-reward prospects looked unattractive to quoted market players, and where the local skills base was not yet sufficiently developed. In order to offset this high-risk profile, CDC received modest injections of capital in the form of long-term Treasury loans on favourable interest rates. There is no such capability available to DfID today. Indeed, and most unfortunately, CDC is the subject of controversy and misunderstanding, as the recent frustrating and frustrated dialogue between the Public Accounts Committee, DfID and CDC clearly shows. Only Private Eye comes out a carping winner from this sad dialogue. The frustration is understandable; no parliamentary committee likes to find itself questioning a wholly owned public body that has negotiated its way out of parliamentary accountability.
The history of its escape is revealing. In 1997, somebody advised Tony Blair to turn CDC into a public-private partnership, whatever that was meant to mean or to achieve. The public-private partnership written into the manifesto never happened. In its mistaken efforts to conform, CDC severely damaged its balance sheet. By 2004, it seemed to the Government that something-anything-needed to be done. It was then, by agreeing to CDC becoming a fund of funds in an attempt to clear up the mess made by the failed 1997 policy, that CDC escaped from its accountability and DfID was excused from a relationship that it found embarrassing.
In effect, CDC now subcontracts its developmental role to third-party fund managers. It only takes responsibility for those with whom it places its money, and then depends upon the financial results of the fund managers who deploy that money. CDC has thus given up its responsibility for what happens on the ground. It manages no assets itself, so nothing that it says or somewhat petulantly protests in its reply to the Public Accounts Committee will gainsay the way in which the parliamentary chain of accountability is broken, or gainsay the very indirect relationship between CDC and our aid programme. The Government's handling of its relationship with CDC has been a disgrace. DfID appears pleased to be shot of it, yet CDC is still 100 per cent publicly owned. What now drives CDC is for others to say, but it is not the British
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I believe it is high time that Parliament was told how the Government defend their stewardship of that public corporation. They should answer the question: where does hands-on economic development feature in DfID's forward plans? At present, we seem to be overwhelmed by an inward-looking political agenda, with little time and space left for the vital task of economic development needed to lift the lost billion out of absolute poverty.
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