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Queen’s Speech

My Lords, the noble Lord’s last words indicate not only his own wisdom but the fact that, as I have said in this House before, if we get a deal at the end of this week, we will be at the beginning of the beginning. There are years of negotiations ahead, both within Europe and outside it.

I do not know whether your Lordships have noticed it, but every Queen’s Speech has one sentence in it—I have heard them all since 1970:

“I pray that the blessing of Almighty God may rest upon your counsels”.

I have never said “Amen” more fervently than I did yesterday. I genuinely hope that the Prime Minister gets a deal. I also hope that he will become more realistic about 31 October, and that when he and others say that they will obey the law, they will obey both the letter and the spirit of the law. How palpably absurd it would be if we were on the verge of an acceptable deal, but because the clock reached 11 pm on 31 October, we tore it all up. That is manifest nonsense.

The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, in a very interesting and diverting speech, in effect described how Brexit has dominated the agenda for so long that it has distorted everything else. He talked about foreign policy with a knowledge that very few of us, if any, can emulate. He talked about John Major’s leadership at the time of the bombing of the Kurds and about the fact that earlier this week, we did not send the Foreign Secretary to a high-level meeting of Foreign Ministers. I have absolutely nothing but praise for Dr Andrew Murrison, who did so much during the commemorations of 2018, 100 years after the end of the war. However, he is not the Foreign Secretary—his colleagues in Europe and beyond know that—and the Foreign Secretary should have been there. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, also said how strange it was that, in a speech delivered by Her Majesty, who is the head of the Commonwealth, the Commonwealth, which comprises such an enormous proportion of the world’s population, was not even mentioned. My noble friend Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon mentioned it this afternoon, and I applaud him for doing so, but there was no mention of it in the Queen’s Speech. The noble Lord, Lord Desai, a few moments ago referred to the Commonwealth and how important it is that we build relations where they already exist.

Again, there was no mention of Russia in the Queen’s Speech. It is a sobering thought, but when we leave the European Union, we and Russia will be the two great European countries outside the European Union. Russia is a European country. Although it does not have the sort of infrastructure of democracy that we have—we have not done too well recently—Russia bled more than any other single nation during the last century. I am not an apologist for President Putin, and I do not entirely admire his statecraft. However, think of Stalingrad, and of how the Russian people suffered. Was it not rather churlish that they were not invited to the D-day commemorations earlier this year? We should be building relations with Russia, developing our cultural relations, which are considerable, although they have suffered since the closing down of the British Council. However, we should also seek to get alongside Russian parliamentarians, to give a degree of quiet encouragement to those who are struggling for democracy in Russia. Those of us who remember the Soviet Union—I was chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Committee for the Release of Soviet Jewry—know what a sea-change came about with Gorbachev and perestroika. We know that Russia is a country of great people with a great culture, and that, frankly, we have a lot in common.

We have nothing in common with the dictatorship or with Soviet communism—but with the Russian people, yes.

It should be a prime objective of British foreign policy, as we move out of the European Union, not only to maintain and to cultivate our relations with the European neighbours whom we are leaving but to make other friends in Europe, and to try to ensure that there is a balance and stability in our continent—it is our continent. By the middle of this century, the dominant world power will of course be China. We know what China has done, is doing and will continue to do in Africa. We know what China is seeking to do on its own continent. We know that China, which has the most ancient surviving civilization in the world, is a country of enormous human and natural resources. I am not advocating in any sense that we should not have cordial relations with China, but we should remember that we are dealing with a country that has the power to become an aggressor. An earlier speaker referred to the number of huge aircraft carriers the Chinese are building. What are they doing that for? Well, there could be a variety of reasons, but we should be aware of all of them.

With our diplomatic infrastructure—with our history—we need to play that leading role in the world, to which there is a passing reference, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, in the gracious Speech:

“As the United Kingdom leaves the European Union, my Government will ensure that it continues to play a leading role in global affairs, defending its interests and promoting its values”.

Amen to that as well, but we are not doing that at the moment and we have to make a commitment to doing it. At the moment we are not playing a leading role. We are not even playing a bit part. I find that shaming.

I was very glad to hear the absolutely excellent speech of my noble friend Lord Jopling, who knows a thing or two about parliamentary organisation, and I agreed with virtually every word he said. Like him, I am not advocating that we do not come out. That was the result of the referendum. I regret it as deeply as he does but I acknowledge the fact. But I also acknowledge the fact that my party has behaved in a shameful and stupid way, particularly in recent weeks and months. I have referred to this before but the expulsion of 21 of the finest members of the party—in the process turning the Government into a real minority Government—was hardly sensible.

We can come together—and we must. But the most important thing of all is that we come together across this House and across the other place. In the words of the late Jo Cox, there is more that unites us than divides us across the parties and within the parties. I would like to see something that I have advocated since the Monday after the Reformation—