Government: Civil Service and Judiciary

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 1:39 pm on 24 May 2007.

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Photo of Baroness Park of Monmouth Baroness Park of Monmouth Conservative 1:39, 24 May 2007

My Lords, once again we are deeply indebted to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon. The noble Lords, Lord Wright of Richmond and Lord Lipsey, have between them said what I wanted to say, but far better, about the decimation of the foreign service and the growth of a third world of private advisers in the UK which has so largely eroded the role of the Civil Service and usurped to some extent its function as dispassionate adviser and its duty to advise and warn. I have had to rewrite my speech; I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I cannot always read my own writing.

What has gone wrong has been the simultaneous arrival of the unaccountable political adviser in large numbers, both inside and outside government, and the failure of both the Cabinet and the House of Commons to protect our vital political and defence interests and, above all, to restrain one department—the Treasury, or perhaps I should say an over-powerful Chancellor—from making critical decisions, particularly in the field of defence and foreign affairs, based solely on immediate financial considerations: money for the Treasury. An example is the long-term and nearly irreversible cost to our influence in the world, especially in the UN—the noble Lord, Lord Wright of Richmond, made the point about the Falklands—derived from saving the cost of a small post at the expense of long-term influence. I could give many similar examples from defence—not least that, since the Navy cannot have bases everywhere to support an, often unforeseen, operation, it is all the more important to preserve the right diplomatic relationships with countries which will allow us access to bases when we need them. That point was made in one of the defence papers.

Equally, the creation of so many think tanks, the Prime Minister's own strategic unit among them, has not only done serious damage to the departments of state which should be the prime source of advice and action, particularly in foreign and defence affairs, but it has helped to create expensive armies of special advisers and experts to produce glossy reports. The unit's paper Investing in Prevention employed two FCO, three DfID and three MoD people, and 32 others, including the ubiquitous McKinsey, to advocate closer co-operation—and many more analysts to ensure co-operation— between the FCO, DfID and the MoD in Whitehall; and to have more "thematic strategies" in the UK to guide priority setting for country engagement. No one seems any longer to recognise that the right answer is probably to return to embassies, where defence and commercial attachés, the British Council and development worked together under one roof, and where DfID focused on development but was not regarded as the voice of the whole national policy. In a number of countries, particularly in Africa, the large, independent DfID missions are already coming to be regarded as the real voice of the UK. Do we want that?

Let us not forget the vital role of the embassies in the fight against terrorism and the practical control of immigration through, for instance, the biometric data produced by our embassies in Ethiopia, Eritrea and other African countries. In tackling increasingly complex situations, there is a need for much more coherence and, above all, what was called in the Army "boots on the ground". It is no use living and planning in London. The interests of the UK, as the FCO has itself said, are best served by having an extensive network of overseas posts operated, full time, by FCO personnel. Posts wholly staffed by the locally engaged would be an invitation to trouble if there were ever a coup.

Where posts have had to close—in central America, for instance—or where the FCO cannot open them because of financial constraints, such as Kyrgyzstan, this country is inevitably likely to suffer a diminution of trade, influence, first-hand information and, not least, continuity. In the old days, not so very long ago, you served in a country as a very junior person. You probably went back 15 years later, and at once had access where it was needed because you had grown further and so had your friends in the country. That is missing from a constant stream of lively, interesting special advisers who do something for five years and them move on to do something else. There is no continuity there.

Perhaps one of the most dangerous results of the detachment of DfID from the FCO by the Government, however, has been the resulting failure to relate its activities, where they are political, to the central foreign policy of this county, of which it should be a part. I have no doubt that there is a great deal of consultation in this country, but perhaps not enough. There have been problems in Ethiopia, for instance. But the most glaring example of the danger of giving DfID independent status must surely be Clare Short's letter of November 1997 to the Mugabe Government when she assumed power as the Secretary of State for DfID:

"I should make it clear that we do not accept that Britain has a special responsibility to meet the costs of land purchase in Zimbabwe. We are a new Government from diverse backgrounds without links to former colonial interests. My own origins are Irish and as you know we were colonised not colonisers".

She went on:

"I am told Britain provided a package of assistance for resettlement in the period immediately following independence. This was, I gather, carefully planned and implemented, and met most of its targets ... Again, I am told there were discussions in 1989 and 1996 to explore the possibility of further assistance. However that is all in the past".

It is not surprising that New Africa, a glossy and much-read magazine, published a special supplement in May, paid for by the Zimbabwe Government, which printed her letter—which was in other ways a deeply patronising document—in full. It remains a valued tool in Mugabe's campaign against Britain.