To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have for Wilton Park.

My Lords, following a review of Wilton Park in 2008, the Government have committed to ensuring the success of Wilton Park as a centre for the resolution of global challenges. We are reworking our strategy, including a new mission, new objectives, new financing mechanisms and new governance arrangements. The Government are also recruiting a new chief executive and chair to lead Wilton Park.

My Lords, that is very good news indeed. However, given that Wilton Park performs a valuable function, as the noble Lord has explained, can he give greater assurance that there will be continuity of funding to ensure that this programme of reorganisation and redevelopment takes place over the period that he has envisaged? Perhaps in addition—I declare a somewhat well-known interest—could he encourage the chief executive to have more conferences on Latin America?

My Lords, we have assured core Foreign Office funding for Wilton Park over the next three years. This replaces the fact that Wilton Park was going to different parts of the Foreign Office to get funding for different conferences, which had a huge labour and transactional cost to it. We hope that the provision of this core funding will allow the leadership of Wilton Park to go out and find new clients, so that it will be able to put itself on a much more stable footing for the long-term future.

My Lords, I declare an interest: my wife is a former member of the Wilton Park council. This is a very good example of soft power in British diplomacy, which the Foreign Office values a great deal but which the Treasury does not seem to understand. There are similar issues over Commonwealth scholarships and a range of other things. Can the Foreign Office have a much more constructive, broad dialogue with the Treasury about these soft-power elements in British diplomacy, which have been cut back so vigorously in recent years? Wilton Park is only one of a considerable number of immensely valuable links with other countries, providing a way of influencing the debates in those countries in a way that we have found so useful.

My Lords, the conference centre, when it works well, is an extraordinary success in today's world. In the UK we have the examples of Ditchley and Chatham House here in London, which the noble Lord also knows well, and more globally we have things such as the World Economic Forum. But to succeed in this highly competitive world, even an institution such as Wilton Park needs to find the right niche with a sharpened mission and focus in terms of the kind of conferences it seeks to attract. We are betting on its success and as we secure that success we will certainly defend it against the Treasury.

My Lords, as a former member of the council of Wilton Park, may I attest to the great value of that setting both to the people of this country and especially to those from developing countries? To put it crudely, there are very few places on this planet where people can safely go and think out aloud in trying to find solutions to immensely important problems.

My Lords, it is an extraordinarily important feature of Britain for all those who have been lucky enough to visit it, and even for us poor Labour Ministers. It is the closest we have been to a house with a moat around it.

My Lords, will the Minister accept that I have visited Wilton Park many times but have never noticed a moat? Will he also accept that we strongly support and welcome these moves to ensure the continuity of Wilton Park, which has been extremely well run? It is particularly valuable in bringing together representatives of some of the smaller nations of Europe and of the Commonwealth to discuss issues of common interest and to do that particularly valuable thing of promoting not only our own interests as a nation but also promoting the interlinking and global togetherness which will ensure stability and peace throughout the planet.

My Lords, I certainly agree with all that the noble Lord said. I think that it could even hold a few more conferences on the Commonwealth. On the issue of Britain as a nation that networks effectively between small and big nations, between NGOs and Governments, between think tanks, and in the general debate on ideas in international affairs, Wilton Park is a critical part of the soft-power architecture of what makes Britain effective in the world.