Debate on the Address

Lord Faulkner of Worcester:

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, referred to this debate being marked by the contributions of the good, the great and the gallant. I certainly agree with him that this has been a most impressive debate, in which an extraordinary range of knowledge and experience has been shared with the House by all noble Lords who have taken part. It is one of those occasions in which this House demonstrates what sort of debate it is able to have because of the sort of people who are part of it. That reflects very well on the House.

I will concentrate very briefly on a part of the world and on a country that I do not think has been mentioned by any noble Lord who has spoken so far; I refer to the question of Britain’s relations with Argentina. I will give an account of the visit that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, and I paid to that country under the auspices of the IPU at the end of September in our capacity as officers of the British-Argentine All-Party Parliamentary Group. We were joined on the visit by a third officer, a Conservative Member from the other place, Mark Pritchard. We went with entirely open minds and we made it clear that we were willing to engage in discussion on anything that our Argentine hosts wished to raise with us. We were thoroughly briefed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office before we went. While we were in Buenos Aires, we had the good fortune to stay at the residence of the British Ambassador, Dr John Hughes, which meant that we received daily briefings and were kept up to date with what was appearing in the media about our visit.

The tenor of our briefing before we left was that on a wide range of issues the relationship between Britain and Argentina is excellent. The FCO was at pains to point out that Argentina’s membership of the UN Security Council, which has now just come to an end, was entirely constructive, particularly in areas such as combating drug trafficking, anti-terrorism and arms control. The trade and cultural relationships between our two countries are all positive and, of course, spread widely into sport—although supporters of the English football team and now, amazingly, the national rugby team would prefer that the Argentine national sides were not quite as successful as they are. The sporting links none the less go back a long way and are very warm. Our welcome also was warm and genuine, and we were able to engage with Argentine parliamentarians on a wide range of issues, including our experience in combating football hooliganism, transport planning and homeland security.

However, there was of course one issue where the scale of disagreement between our countries is profound—the islands in the south Atlantic, which we call the Falklands. We were warned in advance that there had been little constructive dialogue on this subject at government level for the past decade or so. Disagreements over fishing policy, direct flights to the islands, hydrocarbon and minerals extraction, and, above all other matters, sovereignty continue. We made it clear to our Argentine hosts that we could not discuss sovereignty and stressed that, if any progress is to be made on this issue, the interests of the islanders need to be taken into account.

Before we went into the Congress building on our first full day in Buenos Aires, we were conscious that discussions with its foreign relations committee and its new “Malvinas Observatory”—a sort of think tank of academics, diplomats and politicians—could have gone disastrously wrong. There could have been a complete stand-off, a confrontational non-meeting of minds or a restating of existing entrenched positions. In the week before that meeting took place, if one had read some of the Argentine press, this did not look like a far-fetched set of circumstances. On 25 September, the newspaper Ambito Financiero carried a piece headed “Three Britons in enemy territory”. However, it was not quite like that.

Instead, we formed the opinion that there was a real desire within the Congress at least to open up a dialogue at parliamentary level with our two Houses of Parliament. We were told that just before we arrived the Argentine-British parliamentary group in the Congress was reformed. Of great interest to the parliamentarians—certainly to those who wish to look forwards rather than backwards—was the agreement between Britain and Spain over Gibraltar, which was concluded in September, just prior to our visit.

This debate provides the opportunity for me to congratulate the Government, and the Governments of Spain and Gibraltar, on reaching what is clearly a very satisfactory conclusion. As noble Lords will be aware, the agreement has brought to an end decades of ill will, harassment, misunderstanding and hostility between Spain and Gibraltar. It covers the use of Gibraltar airport, the lifting of Spanish airspace restrictions, the opening of the border, the paying of pensions to Spanish workers in Gibraltar and the recognition of Gibraltar’s international dialling code. The agreement reflects well on the three parties involved.

A number of aspects of the negotiations and the agreement are particularly interesting. First, the Gibraltarians were allowed by the Spanish Government to take part in the discussions in their own right. Previously, they had insisted that Gibraltarians could take part in talks only as part of the British team. Secondly, the agreement provides that the British Government retain international responsibility for Gibraltar. Thirdly, Spain has not been required to abandon its sovereignty claim on Gibraltar, although it has effectively been allowed to park it in a siding while the rest of the agreement is implemented.

I found particularly interesting the comments made by the Spanish Foreign Office official, José Pons, in an interview with the Gibraltar Chronicle on 12 June this year. He described the trilateral dialogue as an historic opportunity to achieve normal and prosperous cross-border relations,

“without any of the sides having to renounce their positions of principle”.

The obvious question is whether any lessons can be learnt from the agreement with Spain over Gibraltar that could have relevance to the dispute with Argentina over the Falklands. With the Argentine presidential election taking place next year, I would not be too confident of much progress being made at government level. Maybe parliamentary diplomacy offers better prospects, rather as it did when Argentina sent a delegation to the IPU centenary conference in London back in 1989, the year before diplomatic relations were formally restored after the war.

My noble friend Lord Triesman will recall that Deputy Jorge Argüello, chairman of the Congress’s foreign relations committee, visited London in the middle of October. Indeed, he met my noble friend on the day after he came to speak to the British-Argentine All-Party Parliamentary Group. Dr Argüello told us at that meeting that he and his colleagues were studying the terms of the Gibraltar settlement and would be sending us their views on it. Whether anything comes of that, we shall have to wait and see.

Meanwhile, on the subject of the Falklands, I commend the Government for resisting the temptation to mark the 25th anniversary of the Falklands war next year with a militaristic celebration. I particularly welcome the comments of the Minister for Veterans, Derek Twigg MP, who was reported in the Times last Tuesday as saying that the June event would be a commemoration, not a celebration. He said:

“Our relationship with Argentina has come a long way in recent years. We will recognise their losses too. Our commemoration will not be triumphant”.

That is absolutely right. We can all understand how difficult the 25th anniversary will be for Argentina. We have to remember that our quarrel in 1981 was with the military dictators, not with the Argentine people. We have an opportunity to rebuild our friendships and I hope that we shall do so.

© Lords Hansard 20 November 2006