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By Lord Wallace of Saltaire - 19th January 2010
Lord Wallace of Saltaire writes for ePolitix.com ahead of his oral question on the implications of the reduction in the budget of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Ministers love to say, when talking of UK foreign policy, that Britain 'punches above its weight'. We certainly wield more influence than other states our size in the world, because of the skill of our diplomats. As the numbers and international spread of those diplomats continues to shrink, however, this conjuring trick of global influence is getting harder and harder to sustain.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office budget has been squeezed further and further over the past decade. UK subscriptions to international organisations come off the FCO budget; as these rise, so does the outcome of multilateral decisions over which the UK government has limited influence, thus other budget lines are squeezed.
Some within the Labour government have never overcome their suspicion of the FCO, and the diplomatic service, as naturally conservative, living too well in grand embassies overseas, and still predominantly recruited from public schools. Much of this criticism has been outdated by Robin Cook's reforms to FCO recruitment, which have brought many bright young Asians into the services, but perceptions always linger after circumstances have changed.
Gordon Brown as chancellor intensely disliked the FCO; he avoided contact with embassies when travelling abroad, and had no sympathy with claims for more generous funding. Money flowed to the Department for International Development instead, making it a much larger player in British relations with developing countries than the FCO itself.
Then the Treasury pinned FCO funding to sterling, without compensation for exchange rate changes. So the fall in sterling over the past year has forced sharp cuts in spending outside the UK, only a year after embassies in Europe and other developed countries had cut back to release resources for the conflict regions of south and central Asia.
There's a danger that in many places Britain will soon have no-one left to punch at all; unless, in spite of the popular press and Conservative hesitancy, the British decide to rely more on joint staffing of posts within the newly agreed EU External Action Service.
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd