Debate on the Address

I certainly support the election of a certain percentage of the upper Chamber, although I am not sure that I entirely agree with Opposition Front Benchers that the figure should be 80 per cent. However, I agree that we should elect a significant number. It was a striking disappointment for me to realise some years ago in my work on democracy capacity building that we cannot really have democracy without political parties. I am sorry about that; I wish that we could. We certainly need politicians and they need to cohere around a set of principles and, in the end, that means that they form parties. Party politics is by no means perfect, but we need to support it and build its capacity where it emerges in fledgling democracies. The second pillar that needs to be found is the rule of law. No one is above the law and we look on with interest at the sight of our Prime Minister possibly being questioned by the police about certain things that he may have done. I have no idea whether he has done anything wrong, but I find it healthy that he is not above the law and that our police force does not conduct itself with partiality. The rule of law also involves independent judges who decide without fear or favour, a commitment to the rights of the individual and a respect for human rights. The third pillar found in a healthy democracy is freedom of speech and a free media. Sometimes we pull our hair out at our irresponsible media, but I am glad that we have our media rather than the one in Belarus or Burma. This pillar also involves the freedom to criticise those in power, the freedom to worship whichever God we choose, the freedom to assemble and the freedom to travel. Freedom is an important pillar of democracy. The fourth pillar is a strong civil society. A country is not just made of the state and individuals. In between are all those little platoons of charities, organisations, associations, unions, Churches and faith groups that form the glue of that society and hold the whole thing together. That is what I mean by the promotion of democracy. Churchill described democracy as the worst form of government ever invented, apart from all of the others, and I am sure that he was right. Every democratic country will have its own home-grown version, with all its quirks and idiosyncrasies, and that is how it should be. I am persuaded that democracy cannot be imposed from the outside. If anyone thought—I am not sure that they did—that we could simply go to war in Iraq and impose democracy from the outside, they have been proved wrong, because that has clearly been a non-successful policy. Democracy will look different and it cannot be imposed, but the four pillars of free and fair elections, the rule of law, freedom of speech and a strong civil society will be found in every healthy democracy. In the long run that will mean that a country will enjoy better governance—good governance—and that will lead to better lives for its citizens. If I was to say the one thing that we could do for any of the failing states where people live in such abject poverty or suffer such human rights abuses, it would be to help those countries to build a democratic framework so that they end up with good governance. Despite what some may claim, Britain has much solid experience in all those four pillars. In fact, we are rather good at them, warts and all, and we have experience to share, albeit with patience and humility. If we add that to our international heritage and our global networks, it soon becomes clear that we should be at the forefront of offering help and support in building capacity in all those nations that aspire to become stronger democracies. We do that in three principal ways. The Westminster Foundation for Democracy has existed since 1994 and it provides a platform for both party to party capacity building work, and institution to institution work, both the political and the civil society streams. But its budget is roughly £4 million a year, which is peanuts compared with what other countries, such as America and Germany, spend on democracy building. The budgets of the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute are around $100 million each per year, and the Germans also spend a lot of money. Secondly, last year more than £200 million from the DFID budget went on support for democracy and good governance. That is commendable and to be supported, but I simply ask whether that was spent in a focused way, or whether it could have been better spent on democracy building and good governance projects through a specialist organisation. The third way in which we build democracy is by the FCO—through various of its posts—buying in specialist capacity building services in a country, not least through the global opportunity fund, and there have been successes. Bahrain was mentioned, and that was an example where the global opportunities fund was put to good use in supporting its fledgling democracy.