Oral evidence: Work of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, HC 171
Oral evidence, 28 June 2022.
Witnesses
Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss MP, Sir Philip Barton and Kumar Iyer.
Chair
Welcome to this morning’s session of the Foreign Affairs Committee. We are lucky to have with us this morning the Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss. Would you mind introducing your team?
Elizabeth Truss
With me are Sir Philip Barton, the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, and Kumar Iyer, the director general for economics.
Chair
Thank you very much indeed for coming this morning. There are many issues that we are looking to cover. We will be as brief as we can in questions, and I would be grateful if you would be succinct in your answers as well so we can get through as much as possible. You have spoken about a network of liberty in the past. How do you see that network building up with the way in which the challenges we are seeing in Ukraine look like they may divide NATO, with China and the Northern Ireland protocol thrown into that, and division among our European partners? Do you see these things as incompatible?
Elizabeth Truss
We see a world, first of all, where security has been shattered, particularly European security. It also has grave consequences for global security with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. What we are seeing is the development of stronger alliances to challenge that. I think the G7 has been very significant in leading on sanctions on Russia and delivering wave after wave of sanctions that have debilitated the Russian economy. Most recently, this weekend we agreed to new sanctions on gold. We have had seven co-ordinated waves of sanctions from the G7. I want to see the G7 acting as an economic NATO, not just looking at the challenge of Russia but also the challenge of China. In our recent G7 Foreign Ministers meeting we put out a statement about Chinese economic coercion. That is a key part, as far as I am concerned, of the network of liberty. Of course, the GDP of the G7 is 50% of the global economy. When we act collectively, we can ensure different outcomes. We can incentivise other nations differently. NATO is also extremely important. We want to see an expanded NATO. We want to see a stronger NATO. We want to see more activity on the eastern flank. After this FAC hearing, I am going to Madrid for a NATO summit, which will be very important because it sets the new strategic context.
Chair
President Macron said that you had agreed to join the political economic community. What does that mean?
Elizabeth Truss
It is not true that we have agreed.
Chair
So President Macron is not right.
Elizabeth Truss
I don’t know the exact words that President Macron has used, but we have not agreed to that. We see the key guarantor of security in Europe as being NATO. Our aims and ambitions are to strengthen NATO. We see the G7 as the absolutely key economic alliance for us. We have been working very closely with G7 partners throughout the Russian/Ukraine crisis. In fact, just two days ago I had a video conference with my G7 counterparts to co-ordinate next steps. Those are what we see as the key alliances as far as the United Kingdom is concerned.
Chair
You do not buy into his political economic community.
Elizabeth Truss
No.
Chair
That is not what he said. It would be useful to know—
Elizabeth Truss
I have not discussed it with him directly. Chair, I am visiting France on Friday, where I will meet Catherine Colonna, my French counterpart. No doubt, if there are proposals afoot, we will discuss them. We have been developing our bilateral relationships with many EU countries. We have now signed 13 bilateral agreements since EU exit. We have seven more due to be signed in the coming months—most recently, a bilateral agreement with Portugal. We are developing bilateral relationships. I speak regularly to the EU. We also have the joint expeditionary force collaborating on the security side as well. We have plentiful and positive relationships with our European friends.
Chair
Let’s talk briefly about NATO. We will come back to some aspects of this, but one of the aspects of NATO that has been really important recently is the application for membership by Sweden and Finland. That is something that I think is supported by the whole House. I would be interested to know how you are working with Turkey in resolving some of the obstacles that seem to be blocking Sweden’s and Finland’s membership, Sweden’s in particular.
Elizabeth Truss
I visited Ankara last week. I had talks with my Foreign Minister counterpart. There are a few remaining issues to be agreed. We are strongly supportive of Sweden and Finland joining NATO. We believe it would strengthen the northern flank in particular, but also add huge value to the alliance. I am hopeful that an agreement can be reached. There have been discussions taking place between NATO, Turkey, Finland and Sweden. The United Kingdom has been supporting those discussions.
Chair
Do you see them joining in Madrid?
Elizabeth Truss
I very much hope that we will see significant progress at Madrid. I cannot commit to that. The UK is not a party to the direct discussions between Turkey, Finland and Sweden, but we all want to resolve the issues so that those two countries are able to join.
Chair
We will move on to your own Department. It has now been a year since the two Departments, DFID and the Foreign Office, were merged. How is the efficiency working? How are you counting whether or not it has been a productive merger? What have you done differently, and what have you done better?
Elizabeth Truss
I am going to ask Philip to talk about some of the more organisational aspects of the merger. What I have done since becoming Foreign Secretary, and since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is to restructure the Department, first of all to have clearer geographical accountability and, secondly, to make sure we are focused more on geopolitics. We now have a geopolitics director general responsible for geopolitics and security. We have also beefed up Kumar’s area, particularly with work on economic security, and we have created a dedicated development director general. I think that was very important. When I arrived at the Department, development was interspersed through the Department. Of course, there is a development angle to virtually every part of the world we deal with, but there wasn’t leadership at board level for development. We have now fixed that.
Chair
You are recreating the ODA, effectively, within the FCO.
Elizabeth Truss
We are creating a dedicated leader for development. That is Nick Dyer. He is responsible for delivering the international development strategy that we launched about a month ago. We have created that structure within the Department. We have created more geographical accountability—for example, around the Indo-Pacific, around Europe, around Africa and Latin America, and around America and the middle east. What I found before was that there was more of a matrix structure and the accountability was not clear enough. Those are the changes I have made as Foreign Secretary, but I will hand over to Philip to say a bit more about that.
Sir Philip Barton
Thank you, Foreign Secretary. When the Prime Minister announced the merger, he wanted us to be more coherent and have more impact in our international work. The things that I would point to over the first year and a half of the new Department are, first, delivery of a year of UK international leadership last year; a very successful G7; COP26; and the Global Partnership for Education summit in the middle of the year. Again, in all of those, the FCDO were at the heart of the UK’s work on that and we achieved more by doing diplomacy and development together. If you look, for example, at our response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we have been more agile by having the development side absolutely in from the first steps, as it were, as we looked at how we have done humanitarian support in the region and how we have thought about the secondary consequences of the invasion around food and security around the world. A third example is that when we have tried to relieve humanitarian suffering I think we have done a better job at putting our political and diplomatic influence alongside that. For example, as we worked with traditional development partners like the World Food Programme to get supplies into Tigray, in light of the conflict there, we have also been able to use our diplomatic influence alongside that to secure access. I think we are achieving what the Prime Minister wanted, which was more coherence and more impact.
Chair
Do you see development spending principally as a tool of diplomacy?
Elizabeth Truss
It has various purposes, but it has to be a coherent part of our foreign policy. One of the concerns I have had about development spending in the past is whether it was contributing to our overall objectives of promoting freedom and democracy around the world and were we looking at it in a way that challenges some of the geopolitical efforts by malign actors. This is why we launched British International Investment as an alternative to strings-attached investment from countries like China. In fact, we are now working much more collaboratively with our G7 partners. This weekend, we launch the global partnership for infrastructure and investment, which is $600 billion of spending. It is a G7 collective effort to challenge the Chinese belt and road initiative. Of course, we need to be focused on alleviating humanitarian suffering, but we also need to look at the future geopolitics and whether our development spending is pushing in the right direction or whether we are inadvertently contributing to countries being pulled towards authoritarian regimes. We look at it through that lens as well as looking at it through the humanitarian lens.
Chair
Quite understandably, you are talking about trade as an instrument of foreign policy. Do you think you should be merged with the Department for International Trade as well?
Elizabeth Truss
No, I do not. We work very closely in collaboration with the Department for Trade and, indeed, with the Ministry of Defence. I think it is right that we have separate Cabinet Ministers for those roles because there is a significant amount of work and different focuses required. What we now have across development, trade, security, defence and diplomacy is a coherent foreign policy all pointing in the same direction.
Chair
Your annual report and accounts state that the merger has put a lot of pressure on staff. I am sure we are very understanding of that. What has the impact been and how have you sought to resolve that situation?
Elizabeth Truss
Staff have of course been affected by the merger but also by Covid. It has had a very difficult effect on the Foreign Office in particular. People were not able to come home from some countries. It is very hard to do the job of a diplomat when you cannot meet people. We are now emerging from that. Philip can give more details. I do not think that we have seen an increase in turnover of staff from either organisation. We are doing more work to bring talent into the organisation, particularly to make sure that we have the right expertise in areas like technology and economics under Kumar. There is more work needed to reflect what we have to do in modern diplomacy and the fact that economic coercion is becoming a much bigger issue.
Sir Philip Barton
As the Foreign Secretary said, Covid clearly had a very significant impact. It has on everybody, but for us our ability to do our work, and our ability for our diplomats overseas to remain connected with their lives in the UK, was harder. We are emerging from that. What we are seeing now is people in the Department taking pride in what we are achieving and taking pride in the things I described earlier, where we are achieving more by being more coherent and doing things together. What we have seen in the cross-fertilisation of former DFID, with really deep expertise in how you do significant programmes and effect change that way, and former FCO agility is coming together and bringing the best of us into one sense of purpose. There is a clear sense of mission now, delivering for the UK across diplomacy, development and consular work. As I say, I think people are responding positively to that.
Chair
You talked about unity of mission. Do you have unity of terms and conditions yet?
Sir Philip Barton
We are working through aligning our terms and conditions. We have made progress on pay, for example. Our country-based colleagues overseas were on different scales in the places where there were both DFID offices and high commissions and embassies. We are unifying those. We have unified pay scales at senior levels. We will move to unify the delegated grades over the period ahead. There is a complex set of other terms and conditions—something like 200 in total—and we are working to unify those over the next period.
Chair
The Committee was slightly surprised to hear that you are advertising a post in New York that has just been filled on DFID terms and conditions—an organisation that has not existed for a year.
Sir Philip Barton
While we produce unified terms and conditions, people need to be on a set of terms and conditions. At the moment, we are going through the process of creating a single set of terms and conditions.
Chair
When do you expect that to be complete?
Sir Philip Barton
To be absolutely complete will take a couple of years because it is complex bringing together 200 different terms and conditions.
Chair
When will the last person to be hired on old terms and conditions be hired?
Sir Philip Barton
I cannot give you an absolute answer to that.
Chris Bryant
I have a quick question about humanitarian aid. The UK Government have promised £220 million to Ukraine and surrounding countries. Why has only £60 million been spent so far?
Elizabeth Truss
We have allocated the full £220 million to organisations, but it gets spent over time. I believe the latest figure is around £100 million. Organisations, once they have been allocated the funding, need to deploy that funding over time. All of the £220 million has been allocated.
Chris Bryant
You were talking about authoritarian regimes earlier. You have said that the UK should be a “robust counterweight to authoritarian regimes” and that “we are ending our dependency on authoritarian regimes for energy.” How would you describe the Gulf states?
Elizabeth Truss
I would describe the Gulf states as partners of the United Kingdom. We are currently negotiating a trade deal with the GCC. Is every country that we work with exactly in line with United Kingdom policy on everything? No, they are not, but they are important allies of the United Kingdom.
Chris Bryant
Hang on. Mohammed bin Salman was responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. No? Yes?
Elizabeth Truss
What I would say is that Saudi Arabia—
Chris Bryant
Is he responsible?
Elizabeth Truss
—is an important partner of the United Kingdom.
Chris Bryant
There were 81 executions all on one day in Saudi Arabia, and you do not think that that is an authoritarian regime.
Elizabeth Truss
What I am focused on is making sure that we are dealing with the major threats to the world. The No. 1 threat we are dealing with at the moment is the threat from Russia. In order to do that we need to make sure that we have alternative energy sources. One of the key sources of energy is the Gulf region. We are not dealing in a perfect world. We are dealing in a world where we need to make difficult decisions. I think it is right that we build that closer trading relationship with the Gulf states.
Chris Bryant
If a country is an authoritarian regime, it is fine to do business with it as long as the authoritarianism is only within its own borders. Is that right?
Elizabeth Truss
What we are facing with Russia is a regime that is actively seeking to invade sovereign nations and create a greater Russia to recreate the former Soviet Union. What we are seeing with China—
Chris Bryant
But we went cap in hand to them for 12 years, and now we are doing the same with Saudi Arabia.
Elizabeth Truss
Well, that was wrong.
Chris Bryant
You supported it.
Elizabeth Truss
I think the approach that was taken to Russia by the west was wrong.
Chris Bryant
In the Gulf trade document that you have just published you say, “The government will continue…to hold those who violate human rights to account.” How are you doing that in the Gulf states at the moment?
Elizabeth Truss
These issues are raised regularly with the relevant Ministers and leaders who we meet in the Gulf states.
Chris Bryant
You have, personally?
Elizabeth Truss
I have personally, yes.
Chris Bryant
Your spokesman said that you had not. What is the last human rights issue that you raised with a Gulf state leader?
Elizabeth Truss
I would have to come back to the Committee on the precise timing of that, but I certainly have raised—
Chris Bryant
Anything. Just tell us anything that you have said on human rights—
Elizabeth Truss
I certainly have raised it when I was in—
Chris Bryant
Go on, tell us one now.
Elizabeth Truss
I am just trying to remember my most recent visit, but I can assure you that I have raised it. I will write to you with the details.
Chris Bryant
You cannot remember a single human rights issue that you have raised with a Gulf state leader.
Elizabeth Truss
I have raised particular issues when I have been in the Gulf about human rights issues.
Chris Bryant
Name one.
Elizabeth Truss
I am not going to go into all the details of private conversations, which I will come back to you on in due course.
Chris Bryant
You cannot name one. Thank you, Chair.
Liam Byrne
Your Government have come under some criticism for the cut in support for overseas development. We have had new resources. Do you know how much the UK has had in special drawing rights from the International Monetary Fund?
Elizabeth Truss
I do not have a figure—[Inaudible.]
Liam Byrne
It is £19 billion. It is one of the most significant increases in resource that we could deploy. What conversations have you had with the Treasury about rechannelling those special drawing rights?
Elizabeth Truss
Frequent discussions with the Treasury on that issue.
Liam Byrne
When was the last discussion?
Sir Philip Barton
I think it was in the early spring, in the wake of the spending review.
Elizabeth Truss
Yes.
Liam Byrne
What is your personal target for the fraction of special drawing rights that we should be recycling?
Elizabeth Truss
I do not have a personal target for the fraction of drawing rights that we should be targeting, but I am clear that it is an opportunity for us to find funding to help support projects.
Liam Byrne
Should we be rechannelling more than we are today?
Elizabeth Truss
As I say, we are in discussions with the Treasury about just that.
Liam Byrne
Do you know how much we have recycled so far?
Elizabeth Truss
No, I don’t.
Liam Byrne
It is about 20% to 25% of £19 billion. It is the biggest single increase that we could make in development aid this year, but you do not know what the figure is and you do not know what your target is.
Elizabeth Truss
As I said, we have regular discussions. In fact, we continue to be in discussions with the Treasury about the overall overseas development budget. We are trying to secure funding for various projects, in particular to make sure that we have funding for Ukraine. I think as we go forward, one of my big focuses is Ukrainian reconstruction and seeing what we can do in terms of SDRs for those projects.
Liam Byrne
We have just been handed £19 billion of special drawing rights. What is your target, your personal objective, for what fraction of that we should be rechannelling?
Elizabeth Truss
My objective is to secure funding for the Ukrainian reconstruction. Those are regular discussions I have with the Treasury. We negotiate on a case-by-case basis with the Treasury, who own the policy for special drawing rights.
Liam Byrne
But you do not have a personal view on what fraction of the £19 billion—
Elizabeth Truss
I am not going to go into the details of my negotiations with the Treasury which are ongoing. I don’t know if Philip wants to say anything.
Liam Byrne
Is it too low?
Sir Philip Barton
As the Foreign Secretary says, it is an ongoing discussion with the Treasury about how the SDRs are used and how they are scored.
Liam Byrne
It sounds like you have cut development spending, you have been given £19 billion and you do not have a strategy for maximising how much of this new £19 billion we are recycling.
Chair
Neil, you wanted to come in.
Neil Coyle
We have moved on slightly, but I will come back to that. It was around the departmental merger and the extension you just touched on around Ukraine work, but also Afghanistan. In March, you wrote to the Prime Minister to ask for 1,000 additional staff for the Department to help manage that. What was the answer?
Sir Philip Barton
As you know, there is a process across the whole of the Government around the size of the civil service. The Foreign Secretary and I are engaged, as we have been asked to be, by the Cabinet Office and the Treasury in that process. We have begun those discussions. They have not concluded. That is the process by which decisions will be taken around the overall size of the civil service and individual Departments.
Neil Coyle
You do not want to cut the number and you have asked for some more. What is the situation right now?
Sir Philip Barton
I am explaining where we are in terms of numbers of people in the Department.
Neil Coyle
Do you have any more yet?
Sir Philip Barton
There is a civil service-wide process which has not concluded. That will answer the question about the long-term size of the Department.
Neil Coyle
When do you expect that?
Sir Philip Barton
On that process there will be a conclusion in the autumn. It is a centrally run process—
Neil Coyle
Sorry, Sir Philip, if it is in autumn, we can come back to it then. In the meantime, what is happening to civil servants out there who are being tasked with the work that you would like the 1,000 extra to be doing? You have asked for that 1,000 quotient, so what has been deprioritised in order to deliver the work of the 1,000 people you have not yet got?
Sir Philip Barton
To finish the answer, the process will conclude in the autumn. In the meantime, we are recruiting additional staff because we knew, particularly at the less senior levels, that we did not have enough staff. That recruitment process is happening now and additional staff will be coming into the Department over the next few months as we conclude those processes. The Foreign Secretary has set out how we have restructured to make sure that we are prioritising what we need to do in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and that we are, in the way the Foreign Secretary has described, absolutely focused on that and in a more coherent way around how we lead our development work. The international economics work that Kumar leads is clear about our leadership of geographic work.
Neil Coyle
What was deprioritised?
Sir Philip Barton
We are focused on the top priorities, as the Foreign Secretary has set out, which is primarily Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Neil Coyle
So what was deprioritised? You are not answering. You are saying that you have taken on these additional priorities and you have asked for extra staff to do it, but you are not saying what has been deprioritised. It is a really simple question.
Sir Philip Barton
Clearly, as we look forward, as it were, there is the work you do on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There are other areas of work that we get to when we can.
Neil Coyle
I have tried to help.
Chair
Perhaps the Foreign Secretary would like to help you.
Elizabeth Truss
As Philip says, we have moved staff into Russia/Ukraine. We have moved staff into geopolitics, supporting the G7 work around that. We have gained some efficiencies in doing that. I think it is important to point that out. I was talking about development. There are quite a lot of disparate teams across the organisation. We have now put them into a single area and a single directorate. That has created more coherence in the organisation.
Chair
You have drawn down on—
Elizabeth Truss
In terms of geographical areas, I have highlighted Russia/Ukraine. We have a strong tilt towards the Indo-Pacific. We are also making sure that our development aid in Africa is going up over time. Those are the areas that we are prioritising. In terms of staff numbers, I am sure we could write to you on that.
Chair
Perhaps, Foreign Secretary, you could tell me where you might have drawn down from. Have you drawn down from South America? Have you drawn down from Asia? Have you drawn down from America, Australia or Europe? I can keep going, if you like.
Elizabeth Truss
We also have extra staff who have come over from the Cabinet Office to support the NIP work.
Chair
Have you drawn down no staff from any other areas at all?
Sir Philip Barton
Overall, Chair, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we prepared an immediate 24/7 crisis response. We drew across the organisation. As the situation became clear, we then wanted to make sure that we had an enhanced effort and again we drew across the organisation and looked at where we could find additional people. We have done that across the whole Department.
Chair
I am just delighted that the Foreign Office is clearly the Department on the mount, and every time you look for loaves and fishes, you reach into the basket and there is enough to feed the 5,000. It is fantastic. It is a remarkable achievement.
Bob Seely
I have a quick question on the changing of contracts. Why is it taking so long to change over people’s contracts? I rightly see FCO folks who are not on as generous terms as people who have come over from DFID. Why is it taking so long just to get a single contract for anybody working in the FCDO? You are saying that this might go on for another two years.
Sir Philip Barton
There are two reasons. One is that it is not just the salary and the pay scales which we are moving to unify as quickly as we can. There are obviously affordability questions in how you do that. There is then a wider package of quite complicated allowances which were different between the two Departments. We need to work out how best to do that. In some cases, for example, if you look at pay, a former DFID colleague might be paid in basic salary terms more than a former FCO colleague, but the wider allowance package will have been different. It is the wider package of allowances that takes longer to work through.
Bob Seely
Do you think that process would be quicker in the private sector, or do you think that a private sector company would take the same amount of time to work through these issues?
Sir Philip Barton
I have discussed this a lot with our non-executive directors, who all have deep private sector experience. What they say is that this is a complex process and it always takes time.
Bob Seely
I have a tiny follow-up on what we were talking about. I am not trying to be critical, but because you have such a draw on resources on Russia and Ukraine, I know that you would want to say that we are still firing on all cylinders on South Africa, the Middle East and all this stuff. But because you are so focused, for very good reason, on Russia and Ukraine, without wishing to be critical, do you think the day-to-day work in other areas is suffering or do you think you are doing more with less? How long can you continue to do more with less before your other ambitions as the FCDO become constricted because you have to focus resources?
Elizabeth Truss
Ultimately, there is always a point at which you cannot do things in any organisation, because there is an infinite amount we can do as the Foreign Office. We have to focus. I think that by creating this geopolitical area we are now more efficient in some of the ways we deal with issues. For example, we have recently signed a security and CET agreement with Indonesia. We are now able to look at doing that with other partners around the world. We are able to read across. My observation about the Foreign Office historically is that it has been quite siloed. We have sometimes reinvented the wheel or not read across. For example, in China we have a China department but a lot of the work we need to do on China is working with our G7 allies to challenge China collectively. That is done better through our geopolitics area. I think we are doing things differently, but, of course, you are right, Bob, that there will be areas where we cannot do as much. There is a certain amount of reducing some of the activities that were not necessarily generating as much value.
Bob Seely
Can you enlighten us as to what some of those activities were? What would have been a medium-term priority that has now fallen down the scale, just because of the amount of significant additional work that is now being done, either on China or on Russia and Ukraine?
Sir Philip Barton
The way I would answer it is that, first, to go back to your sustainable question, there is an issue around the overall shape and resourcing of the Department in terms of people. That goes back to the question about the additional 1,000. In a sense, it is true of the two legacy Departments that for a lot of their time they were doing business as usual in a world where we are seeing more frequent and very significant crises. How we have contingency to respond to that is an important question for how we are organised in the future. On the prioritisation point, what we have not done is said that we are stopping X or Y completely. We do not have a list of things. What we have done is look across the whole Department to resource the increased effort. There will be bilateral relationships where, in an ideal world, we will be doing more on opportunity/proactive work. We now have a reduced resource on that, and are just keeping relationships going because we need to put resource into the response to Russia/Ukraine.
Chair
Can I ask specifically about an area where you have committed to do extra work? We are all aware of the Rwanda policy and the oversight that has been promised of Rwanda to support them. What extra resources have you put into Rwanda?
Sir Philip Barton
I would have to come back to you on the precise details, Chair. I think what we have done used our excellent high commissioner and his team and their time as the resource in support of the Home Office-led third-country partnership.
Chair
As far as you are aware.
Sir Philip Barton
I would have to absolutely check. I do not think we have put in additional staff—obviously, at the UK end, as you would expect, as FCDO we have played our part in the cross-HMG work on this priority area.
Chair
I ask because the commitment was to have oversight in Kigali of refugees who had been sent to Rwanda. I am just wondering what commitment you made as part of that agreement. Presumably there was some consular responsibility as part of that. I am sure the Home Secretary would have asked for support because, of course, this is a high commission and not a Government Department. What commitment did you make?
Elizabeth Truss
Our high commission is very closely involved in what is happening there.
Chair
I am sure. I am just wondering what augmented—
Elizabeth Truss
It is worth saying that Rwanda is a country where we are building a series of partnerships on a number of issues.
Chair
Absolutely. I understand that. I do not wish to be in any way critical. That is a separate Home Office policy, and we are not going into it. You must have made a commitment to the Home Secretary. What did she ask for, and what have you committed to do in the high commission in Kigali in order to support the promise made by the British Government to have oversight of refugees, supposedly numbered in the hundreds, who will at some point in the imminent future be sent to Rwanda?
Elizabeth Truss
My understanding is that that will be led by Home Office officials rather than FCDO officials. This is for all of the migration work we do. Home Office officials lead in terms of assessing accommodation and all of those types of issues. It is very much Home Office-led. We provide diplomatic support, but we would not be providing that type of oversight.
Chair
What preparations have you made to provide diplomatic support to how many Home Office officials in Kigali?
Elizabeth Truss
I would have to come back.
Sir Philip Barton
Chair, we will have to come back to you on the numbers. I think the key thing is that the high commissioner and his team have put at the disposal of the Home Office their diplomatic influence, access and support as we have had our discussions with the Government of Rwanda.
Elizabeth Truss
It is worth saying that one of the points I have focused on as Foreign Secretary is empowering our missions more. Particularly in development aid, we are giving them larger development budgets and having more decisions taken at country level. They are in a better position to decide which projects will add value than people sitting in Whitehall. That is a better way of delivering. It is less bureaucratic than what we have had before. Yes, there are areas where we have to prioritise, but, broadly speaking, we are also making our network work better. I think we are getting more out of our staff on the frontline as a result.
Chair
I am going to come to Neil Coyle in a second for more on Rwanda, but before I do, do you support financial targets for foreign aid?
Elizabeth Truss
What do you mean by that?
Chair
Do you support 0.5% financial targets for foreign aid?
Elizabeth Truss
Yes.
Chair
You do. Do you think that the foreign aid target should go back to 0.7%?
Elizabeth Truss
We have pledged that it will go back to 0.7%.
Chair
Indeed. I am just wondering what you think.
Elizabeth Truss
The answer is that I always agree with Government policy, Chair.
Chair
There we go. I am delighted to hear it. Let’s go to Rwanda.
Neil Coyle
Maybe it is a bit of jetlag or something, but I am really concerned about this. Is the FCDO’s position that the Home Office will have staff on the ground to handle the new partnership?
Elizabeth Truss
The partnership was signed by the Home Secretary with her counterpart in the Rwandan Government. Of course, the United Kingdom and Rwanda have a very close relationship, for which the Foreign Office is responsible. This is a Home Office policy which we are working with the Home Office to deliver in Rwanda.
Neil Coyle
The UK and Rwanda migration and economic development partnership is a Home Office policy?
Elizabeth Truss
Yes.
Neil Coyle
You are quite happy for the Home Secretary to be leading on economic development partnership contracts with other Governments.
Elizabeth Truss
Yes.
Neil Coyle
Are you out of a job?
Elizabeth Truss
No, believe me, I have plenty to do. I have numerous colleagues working internationally, so I have the Energy Secretary signing energy partnerships with other countries. I have the Justice Secretary working on the International Criminal Court. The Foreign Office is a Department that delivers in certain areas, particularly in international development, but we have other delivery Departments such as the Home Office who are the experts on dealing with migration. We also have the Business Department who are the experts on dealing with energy. We work collaboratively across Government. We were fully involved in this policy development, but in terms of delivery it is a Home Office responsibility.
Neil Coyle
It sounds like chaos. When the UN says—
Elizabeth Truss
It is a coherent Government policy.
Neil Coyle
When the UN says that this is an illegal policy, an unlawful policy, do you say, “Go and talk to the Home Secretary,” as your subordinate, part of your team, as it sounds like from your recent description just then?
Elizabeth Truss
I do not recognise the premise of that question. This is a perfectly legal policy that this Government are pursuing. As I am sure you are aware, Mr Coyle, all Government policies are cleared cross-government, getting the support of all Government Departments. We have worked very closely with the Home Office on this policy.
Neil Coyle
As the Foreign Secretary for the United Kingdom, no country has raised concerns with you about the legality of that policy?
Elizabeth Truss
No. In fact—
Neil Coyle
Astonishing.
Elizabeth Truss
What has been raised with me by foreign counterparts is wanting to learn from the UK’s policy so that they can engage in similar arrangements.
Neil Coyle
As things stand, there is absolutely no plan to provide additional resource or staff from the Foreign Office to help run operations on the ground in Rwanda?
Sir Philip Barton
To be clear, what I said was we will have to come back and give chapter and verse on the arrangements that we will put in place at the high commission. We work in partnership with the Home Office.
Neil Coyle
On the money for this, the spending, who is responsible for the £120 million aid package? That should be the FCDO. Right? Who is overseeing that £120 million deal?
Elizabeth Truss
It is the Home Office who is responsible for that.
Neil Coyle
The Home Office is overseeing the aid package.
Elizabeth Truss
The ODA budget is not just spent by the Foreign Office. The ODA budget is spent by other Government Departments and it is overall managed by the Treasury, which goes back to Mr Byrne’s point earlier.
Neil Coyle
On the reduction to 0.5% from 0.7%, is the £120 million—
Sir Philip Barton
It is not ODA money. It is not coming from the development budget.
Neil Coyle
None of the justified increase in support required to deal with Ukraine, Afghanistan and also this unlawful policy in Rwanda is included in the 0.5%. What was the purpose of reducing it to 0.5%? Was it just tokenistic?
Elizabeth Truss
The overall ODA budget is 0.5%.
Neil Coyle
None of this additional aid would be considered—
Elizabeth Truss
For example, the Ukraine funding is within the 0.5%. The budget that the permanent secretary is talking about is a Home Office budget. The budget we control—I can give you the numbers if that is helpful—is £8.5 billion for 2021-22 and goes up to £9.2 billion for 2022-23. By 2025, it is up to £9.9 billion, but that is the ODA allocations that are down to the Foreign Office and for which we are responsible.
Chair
Thank you.
Royston Smith
Foreign Secretary, thank you for coming to see us today. I want to talk a bit about state hostage taking and particularly the release of hostages recently from Iran. We have had two former Foreign Secretaries come before us and talk about the outstanding IMS debt. What were the five conditions required by the Treasury to allow that IMS debt to Iran to be repaid?
Elizabeth Truss
The core point is that the debt had to be used for humanitarian purposes. That was the key requirement.
Royston Smith
And that was the only requirement? Were there any other conditions?
Elizabeth Truss
That was the key requirement, as far as we were concerned; that was the potential issue for the Treasury.
Royston Smith
The Treasury did not have any other requirements. It was just that one. As long as you could show that it was only ever going to be used for humanitarian aid, the money could be released. That was the only stumbling block throughout.
Elizabeth Truss
You will have to ask the Treasury if there were more requirements as far as they were concerned, but as far as we were concerned that was the key area that we had to have assurance on.
Royston Smith
There was that condition specifically. What changed? How did you demonstrate that by paying that debt it would only be used for humanitarian aid? It is very difficult. If you release money for a particular issue, it still allows the regime to backfill in another way. How did you demonstrate categorically to Treasury that that was the only way that that debt was going to be used when it was repaid?
Elizabeth Truss
One of the issues is that I am not able to tell the Committee, because it is confidential, about the precise route that we used. That is the issue. I am unable to share that with you, regrettably, but what I can tell you is that the assurances we received about the route were enough to reassure the Treasury and get it signed off by the Treasury at all levels.
Royston Smith
Did you have discussions with the US Government about the repayment?
Elizabeth Truss
I talk to the US Government regularly about many issues, including the IMS debt, and indeed the issues of the unfairly detained people in Iran.
Royston Smith
What about other detainees in Iran now? Is there any progress on securing their release?
Elizabeth Truss
We continue to press the Iranian Government for the release of all detainees. In the case of some detainees, the families do not want us to reveal who is detained. But I can assure you that we continue to talk to the Iranian Government, and we continue to work to secure the release of all detainees.
Royston Smith
On hostage taking more broadly, we were in Washington last week and met Ambassador Roger Carstens, who is a Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs. He gave us a quite thorough briefing about how the US deals with hostage taking. How do we deal in general with that? How do we deal with families? How do we deal with the extended issues when a person is taken? What mechanism do we use to try to secure their release?
Elizabeth Truss
In terms of the specific cases I have been involved in, we spend a lot of time lobbying Governments directly to secure the release and doing that by means of persuasion. Our teams have recently secured the release of five people from Afghanistan, for example. We also secured the release of Nazanin and Anousheh from Iran. We take a case-by-case approach on all of these issues because it depends on the Government and on the specific circumstance. In the case of Iran we had two very clear irritants in our bilateral relationship. No. 1 was the detainees, and No. 2 was the IMS debt. I agreed with Minister Abdollahian, the Iranian Foreign Minister, that we would deal with those issues in parallel. That is the approach we took with Iran. We took a different approach with Afghanistan. We are currently working on various other cases around the world. What we are also doing is working with our G7 partners on a more unified approach to unfair detention. In particular, Canada is leading on this initiative, and there is going to be a conference later this year. What we want is more of an “all for one and one for all” approach so that we cannot be picked off against other countries and we have a common approach to detainee taking.
Royston Smith
In the US, the special envoy for hostage affairs is the point of contact. He speaks to families and walks them through the process. He makes them understand and accept that it could be a long process and that not much is going to happen overnight. Do we have a single point of contact like that?
Elizabeth Truss
We have an excellent team at the Foreign Office dealing with this.
Sir Philip Barton
We have arranged for our consular director to brief you about how the process works in practice in more detail. I am sorry that has not happened yet for diary reasons. In our Consular Directorate we have what we call a special cases team. Where it is not a run-of-the-mill case that just needs standard consular assistance, they will be responsible. They take responsibility for liaison with the family. They also, crucially, work very closely with the relevant geographic part of the Department and the overseas embassy or high commission, depending on where someone might be held, to make sure that we have the totality of UK effort behind a particular case. It is fully co-ordinated and obviously involves Ministers as necessary. This special cases team will be the one responsible for staying in touch with families over the long term.
Royston Smith
I have one final, small question. They were very candid with us about how many hostages they were looking at in the US and how they had categorised them. Some were not categorised as hostages in the first place, so they have a process to go through. Do you have a similar process? How many people are currently deemed to be hostages from this country?
Sir Philip Barton
I think we need to be clear around language. There are hostages in the sense of hostages held by terrorist groups. I think you are using the term in a broader sense. Those are the workload of the special cases team—
Royston Smith
In the sense of people who have been detained and are not allowed to come home.
Sir Philip Barton
If you are talking about the work of the special cases team, I will make sure that the director, when she briefs you, comes with the numbers of their workload.
Alicia Kearns
To quickly follow on from Royston, the foremost job of the Foreign Office is to keep British nationals safe abroad. I am surprised that you do not want to tell us the number of people. It is not just terrorist groups that hold people hostage. It is hostile states as well. How many British nationals are currently being held hostage around the world?
Sir Philip Barton
I do not have that number in front of me.
Alicia Kearns
But you can see why that concerns me.
Sir Philip Barton
I will make sure that the director, when she briefs the Committee, comes with the numbers.
Chris Bryant
This is an allied question. Gholamreza Ziaei, the former head of Evin Prison in Iran, which is where Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was held, was responsible for the inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners at the prison. He is sanctioned by the EU but not by the UK. Why?
Elizabeth Truss
That is something I am very happy to look into, Chris. I will look into that. I was not aware of that.
Chris Bryant
It would be under the Magnitsky sanctions rather than, obviously, Russian sanctions.
Elizabeth Truss
Let me have a look at that. I am happy to have a look at that.
Liam Byrne
Following Alicia’s question, how many dual nationals in Iran are at risk of the death sentence, for alleged spying for example? How many of our fellow citizens are facing that threat today?
Sir Philip Barton
I do not think it is helpful for us to talk about numbers of people held in Iran. As the Foreign Secretary said earlier, families often ask us not to—
Liam Byrne
I am just asking for numbers. I am asking how many Iranian British dual nationals are at risk of the death sentence for alleged spying to date.
Sir Philip Barton
I do not think it is helpful for us to go into numbers.
Liam Byrne
I think the Committee wants to know.
Alicia Kearns
It is helpful.
Elizabeth Truss
I think we can give you a private briefing, but one of the issues that we have with unfairly detained personnel is getting these issues resolved and making them very public. It does not help achieve the outcomes we want. Our absolute priority is getting these British nationals released.
Chair
That is not what Richard Ratcliffe told us. That is not what many of the other families have told us, but we can come back to that.
Elizabeth Truss
I am very—
Chair
There is clearly a difference of opinion here, Foreign Secretary.
Elizabeth Truss
There is, but the way that we secured Nazanin’s release and Anousheh’s release was through a lot of quite low-key work to get it done. Sometimes publicity does not help. There are different cases, and different Governments are influenced in different ways. Where we feel it is helpful, we will take that approach. For example, securing the release of detainees from Afghanistan was done in a very quiet fashion and was successful. I think we have to be careful not to give publicity to some of these cases where the malign regime wants the publicity. That is the issue we face.
Liam Byrne
Even if the families would like the numbers to be known.
Elizabeth Truss
It is a different issue if the families want to publicise it. I would never, ever second-guess somebody whose family has been detained. They absolutely have a right to publicise their case. I am simply saying that where the families have requested us not to publicise it, and where we think there is a good route to get this done in a relatively low-key manner, that is the approach we will take. The private briefing with our director will be very helpful. This is a discussion that we often have internally when we are trying to deal with these cases.
Royston Smith
Foreign Secretary, we were not asking for names or details. We were asking merely for numbers. I do not think that is an unreasonable question. I agree with almost everything else you have said, but I do not agree with not telling us the numbers.
Elizabeth Truss
What I am saying is that I am happy that we provide that to the Committee on a private basis. That is what I am saying.
Liam Byrne
Should Iran be taken off the foreign terrorist list?
Elizabeth Truss
Sorry?
Liam Byrne
At the moment, Iran is deemed to be supporting terrorism. Is that still your view?
Elizabeth Truss
Yes.
Henry Smith
Foreign Secretary, thanks for joining us. Moving on to private and military—
Chair
Just before you do that, there are, as you know, British citizens who have been detained in Luhansk and Donetsk in, frankly, kangaroo courts under Putin’s control. What support are you able to offer them?
Elizabeth Truss
We are offering direct support to the families. We have been in touch with the families. I spoke this morning to the Ukrainian Prime Minister about these specific detainees. You are right that they are prisoners of war. They were legitimately fighting for the Ukrainian army and we are doing all we can to secure their release.
Chair
To be absolutely clear, under the Geneva convention and the protocol for war they are absolutely legal and lawful combatants in a uniformed armed force for a recognised state. There is no debate about that.
Elizabeth Truss
That is absolutely correct.
Chair
Thank you.
Henry Smith
Moving on to illegal combatants, I understand that you recently gave evidence to the International Development Committee with regard to the Wagner Group and the mercenary activities that they are engaged in, destabilising a number of states in Africa. What are the UK Government doing to address and tackle the threat and the destabilising nature of such groups?
Elizabeth Truss
The Wagner Group is a very concerning organisation. It is destabilising countries. It is a wing of the Russian state, essentially. That is what we are seeing. We are seeing Wagner Group personnel also being used in the field in Ukraine. We have sanctioned the Wagner Group as an entity. We did that in March this year. We are working with our allies. There is a regular discussion at the G7 about what more we can do collectively to target the activities of the Wagner Group. The other point is that we need to be providing security alternatives to Governments around the world. It is a similar point to the point I was making about economic security. If countries want their security improved, we need to be working with them on counter-terrorism agreements and on areas like joint military exercises and intelligence support so that they are not pulled into the orbit of the malign activities of the Wagner Group or anything else. It is not good enough just to say, “We don’t like what the Wagner Group is doing.” We also need to be collectively, as the free world, providing alternatives to help countries bolster their own security.
Henry Smith
If I could ask you to expand on that a little bit more, first of all which countries are you particularly concerned about with regard to private military organisations? What does giving an alternative choice to those countries, as you have just been articulating, look like, particularly in working in partnership with our allies?
Elizabeth Truss
In terms of the countries that we believe the Wagner Group has been running deployments to, Syria, Sudan, the Central African Republic, Mozambique, Libya and Mali are all countries where we believe these deployments are. The point I was making about strengthening our security arrangements is not necessarily with countries that have the Wagner Group active at present. It is also preventive. Having a positive security relationship with the United Kingdom or one of our G7 and NATO allies helps prevent infiltration by the likes of the Wagner Group into those countries. As I said, we have signed co-operation agreements with Indonesia very recently. We work as part of the five-powered agreement with countries like Malaysia in south-east Asia. We are in exploratory talks with a number of African countries about security partnerships. This is an absolute imperative for the free world. As well as challenging the belt and road initiative and other initiatives of economic coercion, we need to be looking at how we collaborate more closely on security.
Chair
Can I pick up on some of that? You have spoken about a few of the countries you are worried about. One of the countries many of us are worried about at the moment is Libya, which you will be all too well aware is one of the main trafficking routes for illegal migration and is, tragically, seeing huge numbers of people effectively trafficked into slavery, sexual abuse and extreme violence and very often death on the routes that lead up to the Mediterranean coast. What engagement have you had recently with Libya?
Elizabeth Truss
Minister Cleverley has had significant engagement with Libya. He has visited very recently. I do not have the most recent date, but we are in regular touch, urging that elections take place in Libya. That is very important.
Chair
The reason I raise it while we are talking about private military companies is that the person who certainly has a reasonable claim to be the current Prime Minister of Libya has spoken publicly about the threat of the Wagner Group and the different Russian mercenary elements in Libya. Have you met him to discuss it? I believe his name is Bashagha.
Elizabeth Truss
I have not, no.
Chair
I know he was meeting various people in Parliament last week or the week before, so I wondered whether you had had the opportunity.
Elizabeth Truss
No. What we want as the United Kingdom Government is an election to take place so that we have proper process in place in Libya.
Chris Bryant
Do you want an amendment to the international law on mercenaries? In the Geneva conventions there are six clauses you have to fulfil for somebody to be termed a mercenary, and it is really difficult to get any kind of conviction.
Elizabeth Truss
It is an interesting idea.
Chris Bryant
You do not know.
Elizabeth Truss
I do not know. It is an interesting idea, which I will look into.
Chris Bryant
Could you write to us?
Chair
Can I come back briefly to Libya again? Given that we have been speaking this year about the threat of hydrocarbons splitting the NATO alliance and splitting the European partnership that is supporting the coalition helping Ukraine, and given that we are quite rightly focused on illegal migration and the influence it could have on not just the United Kingdom but actually European co-operation, and given that we have been speaking about food security and the threat that that could have to sub-Saharan Africa and indeed many parts of north Africa in terms of unrest—let’s not forget that the price rises that were one of the triggers of the Arab spring in 2011 were significantly lower than now—are you worried about the direction of travel in Libya? Do you not think it would be one of those areas where the UK’s active involvement would have major repercussions, not just for illegal migration to our country but the stability of Europe and the possible trafficking of not just a few million people, as came out of Syria in recent years in 2014 and 2015, but tens of millions, possibly even a hundred or so million people moving north from sub-Saharan Africa?
Elizabeth Truss
Of course, I am extremely concerned about the global energy crisis and the food crisis that we are facing. The UK attended the food crisis summit last week. We are putting more money into support, and we are also working very hard to help get the grain out of Odesa and out of Ukraine overall. Those are absolutely key concerns. We are pushing on action in Libya. We think the way forward is to have the election. We need people to get round the table and talk to make that progress. We are playing an active role, and James Cleverley is very much leading on that.
Chair
One of the two principal actors in the Libyan scene was in London last week. Was it a policy decision not to meet him, or was it simply timing?
Elizabeth Truss
We need to make sure that we are speaking to both sides in Libya.
Chair
You could invite the other one too.
Elizabeth Truss
I was out of the country.
Chair
Sure, but you have several key Ministers, and you have many officials.
Elizabeth Truss
It was not a policy decision is the answer.
Sir Philip Barton
He was here on a private visit, Chair. Officials meet him as part of our engagement with the whole spectrum of Libyan actors in support of the UN-led efforts to secure political progress, working closely with the P3, France and the US, also Germany and Italy.
Elizabeth Truss
I think it is important that we are even-handed. That is very important from our perspective.
Chair
I completely accept that, but you could meet both of them.
Elizabeth Truss
Believe me, if there was any action that we could take that would resolve the situation in Libya we would take it. What is important is that the parties get round the table and deal with the issue.
Chair
Forgive me, but we are talking about stopping a few hundred people coming to the UK and who we are going to send to Rwanda, and we have literally tens of thousands and possibly even millions crossing from Libya. It would strike me that stopping the leaking tap while ignoring the raging torrent would seem an unwise thing to do. Anyway, we can move on from that with Alicia.
Alicia Kearns
I want to briefly touch on Bosnia. Parliament and the Foreign Office, under your leadership, have been a very strong voice on the Balkans, which is absolutely right. How are we ensuring that the Balkans are not forgotten, given the immediate crisis? The NATO summit is coming up today, for example. Given that the EU quite clearly is not doing what it needs to do in focusing on the Balkans and bringing them in, my particular concern is that Dodik only a few weeks ago said that Putin had told him, “We are not leaving our friends and the Serbs are just waiting for time.” Given the Republika Srpska’s quite open desire to restart the Bosnian war, will you be asking EU leaders to join the UK and US in the sanctions regime that you have put forward?
Elizabeth Truss
The answer is yes, I have urged our EU allies to follow us on the sanctions. I recently visited Sarajevo. It is very important that we do not allow the situation to drift and go back to what was an appalling time in the country. I met the Presidents of Bosnia and made that very clear to them in the meeting. I am also concerned, as you say, about Serbia. I was very pleased that Sergey Lavrov’s flight was prevented from entering the country, but I am concerned about malign Russian influence in the region, as well as economic coercion by China. We have recently seen a coal-fired power station funded by China in the country. This is why, as well as providing security assistance, which the United Kingdom is doing—I saw some of the equipment we are supplying in Bosnia when I was there—we need to provide more economic support. I announced £100 million of UK-backed investment by 2025 and opening new UKEF credit lines for Bosnia and Herzegovina. We also need to see our allies act. We recently discussed this at the G7 meeting. I know the Germans are keen to do more. The United States is keen to do more. We are pushing that very hard. While the war in Ukraine is the absolute immediate issue, we cannot have other parts of Europe being destabilised by malign Russian activity.
Alicia Kearns
Moving to a very different part of the world, looking at the Pacific I really welcome the British International Investment effort and the G7 efforts about this, making it an economic power to counter hostile influence. When we talk about an Indo-Pacific strategy and the tilt, there is a lot of focus on the Indo. What successes, if any, have we had in the Pacific with small states?
Elizabeth Truss
We are doing a lot of work on refocusing our investment offer to the Pacific states, particularly working with Australia and New Zealand, who have very close relationships with those states. At the Commonwealth Heads of Government summit last week, I met both Australia and New Zealand, as well as a number of the Pacific states, to talk about how we can partner on investments to that area. We have also recently signed up to a joint initiative with the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Japan—Pacific Blue Partnerships; I hope I got that name right. It is all about providing support to small island states in the Pacific. This is an area where the G7 and our allies, like Australia and New Zealand, really understand that we have to step up.
Alicia Kearns
I think the Committee would be very keen to see a specific strategy or specific plan for what we are going to see in terms of small island state engagement rather than the bigger players that we are used to having that relationship with, if that is possible.
Elizabeth Truss
I hope that you will be able to see more very soon. Jacinda Ardern will be visiting London next week. We are working particularly closely with New Zealand on this issue. I hope we will be able to say more in the coming weeks.
Alicia Kearns
Atrocity prevention is something I have raised time and again on this Committee since I joined it. We are obviously living through a real period when we see continual atrocities on different levels, with hostile state actors but also non-state actors. Is the conflict centre doing what it should be doing? What are the efforts that are meaningfully being put in place, Sir Philip, under your leadership to improve our atrocity prevention capabilities? As part of that, have you had a chance to consider the recommendations of our Afghanistan report? That specifically looked at crisis planning and administration around preventing atrocities. What efforts have you made to put in place those recommendations?
Sir Philip Barton
On the Afghanistan report, I have read it and we have considered it very carefully. The Government will reply in the normal way. As you know, and as I wrote to the Chair back in March, we did, in light of our experiences last year, conduct a very thorough internal lessons learning process on our Afghanistan response and what that meant for our crisis capability going forward. We took many of those lessons into the way we organised ourselves to respond to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As you know, and as you said, we have the Office for Conflict, Stabilisation and Mediation. That is established and is absolutely working across the whole of the Department in our global network on our atrocity prevention work. It is looking at how we can create a dedicated hub to, basically, take a comprehensive approach to this sort of work in priority countries. It is developing tools like early warning and how and who we engage with, both bilaterally and multilaterally, and what sort of programmatic support we can put in place.
Alicia Kearns
Forgive me, you said we need to look at how we create a hub. When I was elected, I fought for a conflict centre to be established, and it has been established. Why are we looking to create a hub when we already have the conflict centre?
Sir Philip Barton
The conflict centre looks across the whole range of conflict issues, not just atrocity prevention. Atrocity prevention is clearly a key part of that, but it is not the only part.
Alicia Kearns
Would you be able to assess that under your leadership the capabilities of the Foreign Office and its ability to tackle atrocities and prevent them has improved?
Sir Philip Barton
We have not formally assessed that. I would be giving you an instinctive answer, but we are organised around this office and looking in particular at the area.
Alicia Kearns
Perhaps I will put a marker down that, as I asked it last time, you can expect that within the next year I will be asking it again. It would be great to get an actual assessment, because the foremost job is to keep people safe, and therefore that means preventing atrocities. It would be very good to work out how we are going to assess it. The Foreign Office should not be doing any work unless it can assess whether or not it is achieving any outcomes or impact. I would like to come back to China later, Chair.
Elizabeth Truss
I have the details of the partners in the Blue Pacific. We put out a joint statement on 25 June: Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the UK and the United States are establishing partners in the Blue Pacific. It has three aims: delivering results for the Pacific more effectively and efficiently; bolstering Pacific regionalism; and expanding opportunities for co-operation between the Pacific and the world. This is specifically on investing in the Pacific islands. I am happy to share more details of the initiative as they emerge.
Chair
That would be great. Is that connected to the Solomon Islands as well?
Elizabeth Truss
Yes, that is part of it.
Chair
And the response to China’s increased presence?
Elizabeth Truss
Absolutely. We are actively looking at what we can do with New Zealand to invest more capability in the Solomons.
Chair
Thank you very much. That came up quite a lot in the United States, as I am sure you would imagine.
Henry Smith
Staying with the Indo-Pacific region, you have recently spoken about the idea of there being a global NATO and how it might be able, through partnership, to help defend democracies in the Indo-Pacific region. How would you envisage that sort of organisation working? What sort of partnerships are being worked on with regard to that? For example, you mentioned earlier a security arrangement with Indonesia and, in response just now to the Chair, working with partners like New Zealand with regard to issues like the Solomon Islands.
Elizabeth Truss
Absolutely. On the global NATO, in this week’s new NATO strategic concept there will be strong reference to China. We recognise that China has built up its armed forces. It is more active in the European area and therefore NATO needs to be more actively looking at the threat from China. This is a key step forward for NATO in its actions on China. In the relationships that the UK has in the region, we are working with Australia and New Zealand on investment partnerships. We are also working with Japan on joint investment partnerships. I mentioned the Blue Pacific new initiative with all of those partners and the United States as well. We have a number of security arrangements. AUKUS is very important. At Kigali last week I met the new Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, who is keen to push forward on all aspects of AUKUS, including pillar 2, which is looking at cyber and technology, as well as pillar 1, the submarines. We want to build on the five powers relationship we have in the region with the likes of Malaysia, and to deepen our security relationship with Japan. I will be going to Japan fairly soon. We are in talks about closer security co-operation. It is a network across the Asia-Pacific region, working with all of our key partners.
Henry Smith
I am very pleased to hear all of that. I think that is extremely important, so why has the China strategy been delayed?
Elizabeth Truss
I didn’t know there was—
Sir Philip Barton
Sorry, could you elaborate on that?
Henry Smith
I understand it was due to be published imminently.
Alicia Kearns
There were also media reports about the fact that it was brought to Cabinet and was then shelved. We were told by officials a number of times that the China strategy was due to be published in June.
Elizabeth Truss
I am afraid we—
Alicia Kearns
Did it come to Cabinet and was it shelved?
Elizabeth Truss
Clearly, the Government have regular internal discussions about China and Russia and about key threats, essentially, but there was no intention as far as I am aware to publish a China strategy. We published the integrated review last year. We are now following up with the network of liberty work on expanding our partnerships in the region, both security and economic partnerships, as well as bolstering the G7 as an economic agency. We are doing all that, but there was no intention as far as I am aware to publish a strategy on China.
Henry Smith
But we do have a China strategy.
Elizabeth Truss
Yes. It is encapsulated within the integrated review.
Henry Smith
Why can’t it be published then? It is a key piece of foreign policy, as you acknowledge, in terms of work with the G7 and other international partners. Surely, there should be a clear, articulated policy. I appreciate it will be an evolving policy.
Elizabeth Truss
We have a very clear, articulated China policy, which I am happy to talk through with this Committee, but we did not commit to publish a strategy.
Alicia Kearns
Forgive me, there is a separate strategy that has been developed under the integrated review because I have met the officials who are drafting the strategy and have been working on it. There is an intention to have a specific China subset strategy, which has been agreed cross-government and has been going round different Government Departments. The understanding was that in part that would be published. If it is not going to be published, has it now been finalised across all Government Departments? Did it come before the Cabinet, and was that shelved as a discussion?
Sir Philip Barton
I think it is in the process of being finalised.
Hon. Members
So there is one.
Sir Philip Barton
As with many countries, including countries like Russia, clearly a lot of our work is sensitive and not easily put into the public domain.
Bob Seely
With respect, we have been repeatedly promised a China strategy, which would be a really important part of the Government’s foreign policy going forward. We have been waiting for it. We have been promised it for over a year and there have been statements made to that effect. I think we are all a bit confused that all of a sudden—
Elizabeth Truss
I am very happy to go away and look at this. I am very clear that we have a China strategy which I am currently implementing in everything I do, but in terms of a written document I will go away and look at that, Bob.
Bob Seely
Could you? When we have asked specifically about China in the past two and a half years, we have been promised that a China strategy was coming, almost as a way of articulating the fact that we are looking again at our China strategy because of the change in our relationship with authoritarian states like Russia and China, because of the threat that they pose to the open order and because of the changing nature and the increased authoritarianism in those states. We were repeatedly given holding answers in light of expecting a China strategy.
Elizabeth Truss
I do not believe I have given you those holding answers. I do not believe I have said anything on that.
Alicia Kearns
I completely appreciate that there is a meta China strategy, and I think you are very clear in your direction on China, but, Sir Philip, in terms of you saying it is almost finished, when did you last see the internal China strategy which is cross-government and has been going round Government Departments for months?
Sir Philip Barton
I would have to come back to you. I cannot recall exactly when I last saw a document.