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2.54 pm
Valerie Davey (Bristol, West): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on initiating our second debate on the United Nations since the summer recess, and on his strong commitment to it. I also congratulate the Government on their report on the United Kingdom in the United Nations, a valuable document to which I am sure we shall often return.
That document uses the word "revitalisation" rather than the word "reform" when referring to the UN's future, and I too prefer it. Within the last few years various proposals have been advanced, and various groups have expressed concern about how the UN could be re-established to meet the needs of the 21st century; but none of those involved anticipated what would follow in Iraq, or indeed the more immediate results of the attack on the UN itself in Baghdad on 19 August.
As has already been pointed out, our debate takes place on an auspicious date. To hold it on Armistice day is indeed fitting. The hon. Member for South-West
Devon (Mr. Streeter) reflected on the UN's history, but the crisis we now face and the challenge posed to so many people associated with the UN were brought sharply into focus by the 19 August attack. I was shocked to the core that that building, and the UN's work, had been challenged in such a way. As the days passed, there arose a sobering reflection on the understanding of the UN by the perpetrators of the act—and whether the UN itself fully aware of the difficulty it had got itself into. Was it prepared? Had it done enough work? Was it allied too closely to the coalition groups? A range of questions emerged from the incident, serving as a catalyst for the wider questions that we have all been asking for years.That focus, as it were, led to many personal tragedies, and in particular to the death of the individual sent by Kofi Annan, Sergio Vieira de Mello. I shall say something shortly about his life and his contribution to the UN.
All of us who are here today are committed to reform and revitalisation of the UN. But before becoming involved in what is potentially a fairly arid debate on the number of seats on the Security Council and the order in which its members sit, where buildings will be sold or relocated, or the nature of the General Assembly, let us pause and reflect—as my hon. Friend the Minister did—on the reasons for the UN's establishment, and on its new nature. What is to be its role in the 21st century?
I think that the millennium projects have given a lift to the concept of the UN, and given it a new focus and priority that are to be welcomed; but, like my hon. Friend, I am concerned about intervention in sovereign states where human rights have been virtually abolished and humanitarian aid for large numbers of people is disintegrating. What should the protocols be? We know how complex and difficult the situation is, but the UN must be prepared to view it as a new aspect of its work.
Many people—I admit to being one of them—are ever hopeful that the UN will prevent war, will stop war when it has started and, when war has ended, will be there to pick up the pieces, provide humanitarian aid and re-establish democracy. That is a huge agenda, given that at the same time we want the UN to deal with natural disasters by doing all the humanitarian work for which it has such a good reputation. I readily accept that none of that will be done without reform. Tedious, painstaking committee work will be essential for the reform of the United Nations. I commend the work that the Government are doing to bring that about.
Last December, in a speech in the General Assembly, the Polish Foreign Affairs Minister said that he was looking forward to what he called "a group of sages". Whether Kofi Annan reflected on that and whether his new panel of international statesmen—I gather it is all men, unfortunately—is a reflection of the Polish Minister's consideration, I do not know, but the Polish Minister was certainly reflecting on the need for fresh impetus to be given to the work of the United Nations and for a reinforcement of the basis for the United Nations mandate. No one is asking for the basis of the United Nations charter to be changed, but many people around the world are looking for a reinvigoration of the claims on each individual nation, within the concept of
a multi-nation, multilateral organisation. In his speech, the Polish Minister asked that the group of sages draft a document to
- "provide an inspiration to and a basis for the work of the United Nations".
Often following a tragedy, I gain huge inspiration from obituaries, and that was the case following the death of Sergio Vieira de Mello on 19 August. I understood the work that he had done. According to commentators, he was a hugely accessible, non-bureaucratic, hard-working and inspirational United Nations administrator. He was a Brazilian educated in France. He worked for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva, made links and did work in Bangladesh, southern Sudan, Cyprus and Mozambique. He then represented the UNHCR in northern Latin American countries, went to the Lebanon, Vietnam, Cambodia, Bosnia and Kosovo before going to East Timor and Iraq, where after a short time he met his death.
The life of Sergio Vieira de Mello should be capturing the imagination of others, particularly young people, and inspiring them to take on that work. I hope that in this country we take on board the fact that civics is not just about the state within Britain and Europe. We should teach young people the context of the United Nations. The UN flag used to fly at schools and public buildings on 24 October. I did not check whether it did so this year; I think that I may have been disappointed. We need to allow young people to see that the United Nations is a key factor in many of the things in which they are interested.
Recently, to my delight on the doorstep, a young person asked me in rather longer terms than I shall express it whether, if she wanted to be involved in aid, she should go into charity work or politics. That young person of 14 has since visited the House and she is thinking that she will be an aid worker first and perhaps enter politics later. We should inspire with the work of the United Nations, too, because I would like young people to be challenged by that work. The UN is not just UNICEF, a charity to deal with those concerns. It does not just meet the needs of the many destitute people of the developing world. It is not just a humanitarian organisation. It is a hugely political organisation, whose role we need to clarify. It should inspire young people.
Mr. Crispin Blunt (Reigate): While I entirely agree with the hon. Lady about the need for the UN and the UN ideal to be an inspiration, does not the tragic example of Mr. Vieira de Mello illustrate the problem? She has made clear the inspirational quality of his life and mentioned his obituaries, yet according to the UN report on what happened in Baghdad, he ignored advice from two teams of UN security specialists to move his office to a safer place, saying that
- "he would leave the matter to his successor".
Valerie Davey: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. He underpins exactly what I was intimating in terms of 19 August. That tragedy showed that the United Nations had huge questions to answer about the single building that it was occupying in Baghdad, let alone about the buildings in Washington, London and elsewhere. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that huge mistakes were probably made, which allowed, in part, that tragedy to take place. I accept all that, but the inspiration of the organisation and many individuals within it would enable young people to come together and to do the work. Dialogue is simply one to one; we need the group factor. We need people from different countries, especially young people, to be inspired to take on that work.
I do not know in what way Vieira de Mello's life will be commemorated, but the idea of scholarships, and of young people getting to know the work of the United Nations better and sharing in some of its work, would be a fitting tribute. I want to ensure that in all the education work we do, and in all the scholarships we offer, the United Nations is an integral element. It should not be a matter of saying that the United Nations is over there. We are a strong member. We are, we hope, leading the way in Europe. We should also make an important contribution to revitalising the United Nations.
3.7 pm
Mr. Michael Moore (Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale): As the hon. Member for Bristol, West (Valerie Davey) said, it is fitting that we should have this debate on Armistice day and reflect on the causes that gave rise to the need for a United Nations organisation. I also welcome the hon. Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter) to his new position and commend him for participating in the spirit in which many of the debates on the issue have been held in the past few months, fresh from the difficulties that the House had during the Iraq debates.
Two months ago, when we debated the United Nations in Westminster Hall, the Minister promised that the occasion was to be an annual event, in response to which there were cross-party pleas that in future the debate should be held in the main Chamber. I do not think that a Minister has often responded so positively or so quickly, and he deserves appropriate credit for that.
Liberal Democrats hold a deep-seated commitment to the United Nations and a belief that the United Kingdom, as one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, must give a firm lead on matters of international peace and security. The UN remains the only truly global institution with universal membership and universal principles, which bestow upon it a unique legitimacy. Its remit is vast. Beyond peace and security, the UN and its agencies work diligently to improve the economic and social condition of people across the globe. The UN has also performed a valuable and unique role in assisting countries in transition in recent years. However, in the past year the UN has rarely been out of the headlines, often for the wrong reasons, as the world has grappled with the situation in Iraq. The organisation has had to come to terms with the August tragedy in Baghdad, where it found itself in the front line
and lost 22 of its personnel. As the hon. Member for South-West Devon said, this House and the country should never lose sight of the danger in which members of the UN organisations put themselves daily. In response to that terrible event, one commentator reported that the grief at UN headquarters was heightened by the sense that those who died were not simply working for an institution, but rather serving a cause. That encapsulates the complexities of the UN, which adds up to more than the sum of its intergovernmental parts. It also illustrates the difficulties we face in contemplating reform of the organisation.The Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, has set out his concerns more boldly than most. In a press briefing in September, he said that, on peace and security, he was not sure
- "whether the consensus and the vision that the Millennium Declaration expressed are still intact. Member States have been sharply divided about some of the most fundamental issues that this Organization was set up to deal with . . . I think all States need to take more account of global realities, and of each other's views and interests. They must set a higher priority on finding common ground and agreeing on common strategies, rather than striking out on their own. And if they do not want others to strike out on their own, they need to show how multilateral systems really can deal with the problems that are of concern and worry to others."
The Secretary-General highlighted key institutions such as the Security Council as being in need of reform. Never mind the recent difficulties that have been much debated; the world has changed and, to a large extent, the UN has not. In nearly 60 years, the UN has increased its membership from 51 countries—when the world population was 2.5 billion—to 188 countries, with a world population somewhere in the region of 6 billion. In that time, the institutional structure of the UN has barely changed. The need for reform is self-evident.
Liberal Democrats have long supported the expansion of the Security Council. We support the enlargement of the Security Council to include Germany and Japan and to include an additional member each from Latin America, Africa and Asia as new permanent members. We would add the caveat that any new members must have a clean bill of health at the UN and have no outstanding UN resolutions with which they have not complied.
The work of the UN has changed, as has the world in which it operates. The Security Council has on occasion become more proactive and has undertaken field missions to Indonesia and East Timor, Kosovo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This trend is to be encouraged, but such missions must be adequately resourced and member states must follow up on the recommendations of the Security Council. The Security Council must give conflict prevention a higher priority in its work, and must develop a more systematic and professional approach to the prevention of conflicts.
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