Foreign Affairs Committee — hearing of 14 July 2026: transcript & video

00:00 - 02:44

Speaker 1

Foreign Secretary. Last time we saw you before the committee was in December last year and we're pleased to see you again to cover a wide range of issues that are currently on your desk. And we're also really pleased to see Nick Dyer for your first appearance as interim permanent under-secretary. We know that your time is tight and so we'd be grateful, we have a large number of questions. We'd be grateful if you could keep your answers as concise as possible and I will encourage the committee to do the same with questions.

What I wanted really to start with was, was the last time we saw you as I say was December the 16th and at that time you were working to the priorities of the former Secretary of State. But in March this year you wrote to us setting out your six priorities and they were security, growth and resilience, migration, development and climate, women and girls and agile alliances. And then, and then in the House in March when you were discussing the ODA cuts you said that your priorities would be Ukraine, Sudan, Palestine and Lebanon. So I looked with interest at your Chatham House essay and the Guardian said about it that it was the clearest, one of the clearest and most comprehensive pictures of the Foreign Secretary's worldview where she thinks her department should devote its attention in the coming years. Is that right?

So in the Guardian article I think that in the interview you said, I think AI is going to end up being the dominant foreign policy issue that we deal with over the next two years. But obviously that wasn't mentioned in the six points in March. And I wondered, I mean do you acknowledge that there's been a change of emphasis and priorities over that time? And so I mean I've got a member of my staff do the annoying thing of putting the 3,200 words into the computer. And if you have a look at the essay, AI comes up 12 times, NATO comes up nine times, Europe comes up 13, defense comes up eight and the word nuclear comes up seven.

So it does seem as though there's been a change because if you look at the issue of development there's only two sentences on it and if you look up Gaza there's only two sentences on it and Lebanon where we visited recently didn't come up at all. It's as if foreign policy has kind of lined up behind hard power much more. Would you mind explaining?

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