Alistair Burt

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's desire to intervene, but we are now very short of time for other colleagues.

In two other areas, I hope that what is currently perceived as the President's caution will not drift into more dangerous inactivity. In both areas, our Government have crucial responsibilities. On climate change, I do not believe we should allow our expectations of Copenhagen to be dashed completely. Perhaps some lessening of overblown expectations was needed-Copenhagen was never going to solve everything-but nothing that has happened over the past 12 months has done anything but increase concerns about climate change and the need for a concerted response from nations. It is about rather more than the onshore wind farms we tend to get bogged down with.

We remember the imaginative underwater Cabinet meeting with which the President of the Maldives brought worldwide attention to his country's plight. Just because he represents a beautiful country, we should have no doubt that he not only speaks for all who fear the impact of climate change on the world's most impoverished nations but that he gets to the heart of the fact that contemporary politics struggles with a response to issues beyond the immediate. The Government should accept no compromises as they work for the best possible settlement.

Similarly, on Afghanistan, a long period of contemplating the possible options for General Stanley McChrystal runs the risk of seeming drift, as our own and other NATO forces wait for a decision about new deployment. Over the past 12 months, the relationship of all our constituencies with our forces has deepened, as we have understood that a matter of geopolitics-dealing with forces and issues of massive consequence-all too often comes down to a dread visit from Army liaison and a knock on the door.

We are all immeasurably appreciative of and grateful for what our forces have been achieving on our behalf-the universal sentiment of everyone in the House today. In March, the 2nd Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment returned from Iraq, and the soldiers were celebrated by Biggleswade town council on behalf of all my constituents. Their tale is instructive. Two years ago their work as mentors with the Iraqi forces was deemed impossible, yet they left this year with a string of successes, having built a firm base for the future, exactly what we wish to see in the more inhospitable climate of Afghanistan, where voices are similarly raised saying that the job is impossible.

This week a group of youngsters in Sandy will begin packing boxes of Christmas treats for those serving in Afghanistan. The crowds at this year's Remembrance day emphasised both their respect and their anxiety for a cause that they desperately want to understand and support, but of which they are truly fearful. Reiteration by the Government of our role with greater clarity than they have given us up to now, reassurance on equipment and training and, surely, persistence with the President for a decision on the next steps should be the minimum outcome of consideration of the Gracious Speech.

The Europe that President Obama has to deal with bears the massive imprint of the events of 20 years ago, which have been the subject of much discussion in recent weeks. To those of us who remember those events as parliamentarians, the wonder of the achievement of the fall of the wall is never likely to disappear. Many of us have our own recollections. Mine are as an observer to the first free elections in Berlin in 1990. My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) also remembers them well. Seeing those first ballot boxes open-Tories take East Berlin-was a matter of enormous joy for those of us who were there and will remain a highlight of our political memories.

But Europe is never still. I commend the work of the Westminster Foundation, supported by all parties, which does much to prepare and support those looking to enhance democracy in Europe and beyond. A number of countries have joined an enlarged EU as a result of the events of November 2009. Through the foundation, I have been a regular visitor to Macedonia, and I urge the Government to continue to do all they can to assist in the efforts to resolve the outstanding name issue with Greece. It cost that country its membership application for NATO last year, and might, if unresolved, stall Macedonia's application for EU entry, risking destabilising what is still a fragile region.

The Government's failure to deliver the referendum on the Lisbon treaty has further weakened the position of the EU in this country, and their determination, particularly in their dying days, to use the EU largely as a domestic party political issue to divide them from my party does them little credit. If they want to live up to their commitment in the Queen's Speech, they should be working with EU partners to encourage the Union to move on from institutional issues to the wider world, and to follow the agenda of my right hon. Friends-globalisation, global warming and global development.

In each of those areas, the EU has a prominent role, where an active UK Government-I genuinely believe that my colleagues will form one in time-working in partnership with their neighbours, can make a significant contribution. On globalisation, the Lisbon agenda needs further stimulus and engagement. On global warming and global development, we need to create the advocacy fund, long championed by Conservative Members, to ensure that they poorest have the support that they need. We need to heed the warning about food and food sufficiency and reverse the declining trend of investment in agriculture, recognising that staple crop yields are flat, rather than rising, in many poor countries.

To conclude, what we needed in the Queen's Speech was not a list of unobtainable objectives through legislation, laudable though some of them were, but a straightforward valedictory telegram from the Government, telling other countries what they thought of them and announcing a general election to provide a mandate to a Government to come in to deal with the substantial problems, all of which we have heard about tonight. Only that election can give Parliament the clout that it needs to do the job that people want us to do.

— from debate entitled “Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and Defence”

The three speeches/headings immediately before

  1. 1 earlier: David Winnick

    Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

  2. 2 earlier: Alistair Burt

    These debates always bring out two things: first, the immense amount of knowledge that colleagues have from their experiences all over the world; and, secondly, a rather relentless and sometimes dispiriting account of the problems that the Government have to face. However, without these debates we would be far less well informed than we are.

    There are a number of pegs on which foreign affairs remarks on the Gracious Speech can be hung, and I want to hang mine on the back of a year of President Obama and 20 years of European progress since the fall of the Berlin wall. I shall touch on a number of topics that others have mentioned in the debate.

    Without the engagement of the United States, the Government's aspirations as set out in the Queen's Speech, to work for

    "security, stability and prosperity in Afghanistan and Pakistan and for peace in the Middle East"

    will make little progress. I was in the United States about 12 months ago as an observer for the Harvard induction week for new members of Congress, along with the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson). This traditional neutral and bipartisan affair, which incidentally might lend itself as a style of briefing for new Members of this House in due course, is presented by academics, commentators, diplomats and those from business. It pulled no punches about the in-tray of Congress and the President-from climate change to terrorism through nuclear proliferation and economic chaos.

    The world's expectations of the President have been high. The fact that the "re-set" button from the Bush era was pressed early ensured that the much-wanted re-engagement of the US into the multilateral world that it had to a degree struggled to come to terms with was welcomed. It was a different voice. The President's first international broadcast was to an Arabic news station; his first phone call was to the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas. He spoke directly to the people of Iran, he is closing Guantanamo Bay, he spoke so well in Cairo and he has made the goal of progress in the middle east not an afterthought of his Administration, but an upfront determination. All those facts suggested change, and the sort of change the world was seeking.

    On the middle east I believe, as a Conservative friend of Israel whose support for the state of Israel is long-standing and well-documented in this House, that the President must continue with his realistic approach to the Israeli Administration. He must endeavour to make it clear that Israel's moral high ground, so precious to it in the face of relentless terrorism and hostility and on which it might yet have to rely again in dealing with Iran, has suffered terribly in recent years and that criticism or expressions of concern over policy such as those on settlements, for example, are not always ill-meant but are designed to start winning that high ground back.

    I suspect that the hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews), who described his journey from being a supporter of the state of Israel to where he is now, will have spoken for some. They might not express it in as extreme and very partial terms as he did, but he captured the concern about Israel's loss of the moral high ground.

    I believe that much might revolve around the case of Corporal Gilad Shalit, who, as we know, is still in the captivity of Hamas after more than three years. Following the release of video evidence that he was still alive, at the cost of a substantial prisoner exchange-which tells us much about the appreciation of life in the middle east-the world might unite first in demanding that the Red Cross should be allowed to see Corporal Shalit. We might then use the inevitable contacts necessary for such developments to pursue other avenues. To go on as we are in the middle east is in nobody's security interests, least of all Israel's.

  3. 3 earlier: Sylvia Heal

    Order. May I inform the House that I have been advised that the winding-up speeches will commence at 9.30? There are still Members hoping to catch my eye. I hope that they can do the maths between them and all be successful.

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