The House Magazine Parliament’s Magazine No.10 - The Foreign and Commonwealth Offi ce - The Foreign and Commonwealth Offi No.10 Guide toThe Foreign and Commonwealth Offi ce In association with 01 FCO Guide.indd 1 09/07/2013 12:19:53 Global Partners in Education Reform Thanks to this work and a commitment to a research-led and evidence-based approach to With over 150 years’ experience and the largest educational development, we’re asked to help research facility of its kind, the Cambridge governments reform their education systems, Assessment Group is a key education partner enabling countries and individuals alike to to governments across the globe. realise their potential. Through our exam boards OCR, Cambridge In Singapore we work in partnership with English Language Assessment and Cambridge the government on the design and delivery International Examinations, eight million of O Levels. 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If you want to know more about what is happening in education in this country or abroad, please contact Andrew Williams at [email protected] to arrange a meeting with an expert. www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk Our exam bOards ca.indd 1 09/07/2013 10:32:53 The House Supplement No.10 July 2013 he word in Whitehall is www.politicshome.com that the Foreign Of ce is [email protected] T back in business. After DODS PARLIAMENTARY EDITOR- ADVERTISING SALES MAN- years when much of bilateral IN-CHIEF AGER diplomacy was conducted Paul Waugh Adam Kinlan CONTENT EDITOR COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR directly by No. 10, the impressive building Jessica Bowie Rob Ellis next to the Treasury has regained much of POLITICAL REPORTER DODS CEO its previous in uence and reputation. Our Daniel Bond Keith Sadler PARLIAMENTARY EDITOR MANAGING DIRECTOR relationship with the European Union is going Tony Grew Shane Greer through a dif cult phase, and the FCO will COMMISSIONING AND SPECIAL MANAGING DIRECTOR, EN- PROJECTS EDITOR GAGEMENT be a key player. We hope this guide helps to Sally Dawson Philip Eisenhart unravel the some of the complex relationships, HEAD OF PRODUCTION EDITORIAL John Levers [email protected] identi es the decision makers and highlights DESIGN Tel 020 7593 5665 the signi cant areas of activity. Charlotte O’Neill ADVERTISING GISELA STUART MP EDITOR Matt Titley housemagazinesales Max Dubiel @dods.co.uk ADVERTISING Tel 0207 593 5645 Contents Gary Brydon SUBSCRIPTIONS Sue Reynolds Tel 020 8955 7007 Wesley Lawson [email protected] 4 HISTORY Anthony Seldon looks back at the power Dods subs struggles between Downing Street and King Charles PO Box 2068 Bushey Street Herts, WD23 3ZF 12 COMMENT Stephen Booth and Adam Hug look at ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION £195 the vital role the Foreign Offi ce has played in promot- TWO-YEAR SUBSCRIPTION £351 ing trade and investment The House Magazine is published by Dods 16 HOW IT WORKS Paul Waugh goes behind the 21 Dartmouth Street, London, SW1H 9BP The House Magazine is printed in the UK by The Magazine Printing scenes to assess the key fi gures who make the Company using only paper from FSC/PEFC suppliers. www.magprint. co.uk department tick The publisher and editor are most grateful to the Clerk of the Parlia- ments, the Clerk of the House and other senior offi cers of both Houses 24 INTERVIEW Anthony Seldon speaks to FCO Perma- for the support and advice they readily give. nent Under-Secretary Simon Fraser ISSN 0309-0426 © Dods Reproduction in any form is prohibited without prior written consent. 30 PROFILES EDITOR Gisela Stuart MP 46 FEATURE Daniel Bond examines the department’s ASSOCIATE EDITORS Graham Brady MP, Charles Kennedy MP, Austin Mitchell MP, radical social media strategy Priti Patel MP, Jenny Willott MP LIFE PRESIDENT Lord Cormack 50 THE FCO ORGANOGRAM Dods is widely respected for producing highly authoritative and independent political publications. Its policy is to accept advertisements 52 INSIDERS Mark Davies and David Clark recall their representing many sides of a debate from a variety of organisations. Dods takes no political stance on the messages contained within time as special advisers at the FCO advertisements but requires that all content is in strict accordance with the law. Dods reserves the right to refuse advertisements for good 58 INFLUENCE Dealing with the FCO can be daunting. reason (for example if it is libellous, defamatory, pornographic, socially unacceptable, insensitive or otherwise contrary to editorial policy). Richard Royal explains how you can get off on the right foot 62 CONSULTATIONS The key consultations currently CERTIFIED CIRCULA- open at the FCO TION: 2341 65 CONTACTS Who you need to know at the FCO JULY 2013 | THE HOUSE MAGAZINE | 3 03 FCO Guide contents.indd 3 09/07/2013 10:49:55 HISTORY Power returns to the Foreign 4 | THE HOUSE MAGAZINE | JULY 2013Office 04-11 FCO Guide History.indd 4 09/07/2013 10:53:20 William Hague’s arrival in 2010 saw the Foreign Offi ce wrest power back from Number 10. Anthony Seldon explores an often fraught relationship he Foreign and Commonwealth Offi ce is back in business. Once the most powerful department in Whitehall – or equal most powerful together with the TreasuryT – its power slipped in the 1980s when Mrs Thatcher was Prime Minister. She lacked an innate respect for civil servants at large, and had little time for silky smooth, Foreign Offi ce diplomats. In her fi rst years, when Peter Carrington was Foreign Secretary (1979-82), she was content to concentrate on domestic policy and leave the Foreign Offi ce largely on its own. But with the confi dence gained from victory in the Falklands War in 1982, and her distaste for the new Foreign Secretary, Francis Pym (1982-83), she began to draw power increasingly into Downing Street itself. The process was accelerated when Geoffrey Howe was Foreign Secretary (1983-89), whom she found increasingly irksome, especially for his pro-European predisposition. With new found confi dence gained in her defeat of Labour in the 1983 General Election, she found an increasing taste for developing bilateral relations, above all with President Reagan (1981-89), and saw little need to involve the Foreign Offi ce in her high level conversations with the USA and USSR during the crucial period from the mid-1980s onwards, which culminated in the ending of the Iron Curtain from 1989. In 1984 a key fi gure JULY 2013 | THE HOUSE MAGAZINE | 5 04-11 FCO Guide History.indd 5 09/07/2013 10:53:24 Top: Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan Bottom: John Major and Douglas Hurd Right: Geoffrey Howe 6 | THE HOUSE MAGAZINE | JULY 2013 04-11 FCO Guide History.indd 6 09/07/2013 10:53:27 joined her team, the diplomat Charles Powell, who remained at her right hand advising her on foreign, defence and security policy With the confidence until she left Downing Street in November gained from victory in the 1990. Powell was a man who knew his own mind, and that mind chimed with that of Mrs Falklands War, Thatcher began Thatcher. Together they developed a foreign to draw power increasingly policy substantially on their own. The FCO into Downing Street itself hated what was going on, above all Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe, though there was little they could do to resist the leaching of Political Secretary to Ted Heath when Prime power out of the FCO across the street into Minister (1970-74), Hurd was no stranger to Number 10. power at the top level. Crucially, he had the John Major’s arrival as Prime Minister saw total confidence of the Prime Minister, who an arrest of the transfer of decision-making had little interest in or knowledge of foreign on foreign policy and even the beginnings of a affairs himself, despite having briefly been return to the FCO. Major had appointed his Foreign Secretary himself in mid-1989. Major leadership contender, Douglas Hurd, Foreign never developed a close relationship with the Secretary, and he remained in situ for his first American Presidents, George Bush (1989- five years in power. An ex-diplomat, and 1993) or his successor, Bill Clinton (1993- 2001) on a par with Mrs Thatcher, or Tony Blair after her. He was more than happy to let Hurd make the running. In 1997, Tony Blair came to power with Jonathan Powell, an assured former diplomat and younger brother of Charles, at his side as Chief of Staff. Blair had little use for what he saw as old-fashioned advice from senior mandarins, and preferred to talk to those directly responsible for policy regardless of rank. Blair’s difficult relationship with his Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook (1997-2001), and his closeness to President Clinton, meant again major foreign policy decisions increasingly being taken in Downing Street itself and not the Foreign Office, which found itself marginalised in many of the key decisions. Blair developed a confidence, and taste, for foreign and defence policy in driving personally British interventions in Kosovo in 1999 and Sierra Leone in 2000.