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Angus Robertson: On the question of Buggins's turn, does the hon. Gentleman concede that following that logic, it would make sense to reform the Security Council so that there would be no need for the UK and the other four permanent members to have a permanent seat and a veto? Does he foresee that as being part of his analysis against Buggins's turn?
Mr. Blunt: In a sense, the hon. Gentleman is extending the point too far, beyond the reality of today's world of international relations and security. It is undoubtedly true that the nations with the largest economies make the greatest contribution to world security, and historically those are the countries that have had the veto. There is now a debate about extending permanent membership and whether the nations that will become permanent members will come with a veto. But I am jumping ahead, so if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me I shall deal with the secretariat before considering the Security Council itself.
I commend what the Government said about initiatives such as targeted training, funding internship programmes, support for graduates—particularly from developing countries—and addressing appraisal systems. One would hope that, if the UN is prepared to be self-critical in the manner of Martti Ahtisaari's report, such self-criticism could be extended to the personnel management of the entire UN. On term limits for senior posts, two four-year terms is usually the sensible limit, but the Government appear to be suggesting that that should be reviewed and the terms made longer. It is plainly in everybody's interests that
the UN, even in respect of its most senior posts, should begin to acquire people whose only loyalty is to the UN, so that they do not then return to whichever country they came from. The UN career path should attract the best and brightest of the world's graduates. The UK's best and brightest used to join our own diplomatic service, and the best and brightest of the globe should be attracted to the UN.There is a horrifying contrast between the language that the Government used about the secretariat, and that used about reform of the Security Council. The Command Paper states:
- "The United Kingdom remains committed to a Security Council that is representative of the modern world, efficient and transparent."
We know that, like the previous Government, this Government want the Security Council to expand. The Prime Minister has put on the record—as have other Ministers and the previous Administration—the difficulties in achieving that, but it is self-evident that the nations that make the greatest contribution to security ought to be permanent members of the Security Council. That plainly means India in the first instance, which not only has a huge population but has made a very significant contribution to UN security operations around the world. It almost certainly means Japan and Germany, given their economic weight, and Brazil. People are wondering whether, if an African country is to join, it will be South Africa or Nigeria, and in some senses that is a difficult call. South Africa has a global reputation and appears to have a rather more accountable and satisfactory Government, yet Nigeria is the most populous nation in Africa and is a regional power in its own right. Here, we hit the difficulty of making qualitative judgments between different candidates for permanent membership of the Security Council.
Are we really proposing to give all those nations a veto? We need to reflect much more on the whole question of the veto. It is worth looking ahead 40 or 50 years, by which time the economy of India might be as large as that of the EU as a whole and the economy of China might, on current projections, be even larger. In those circumstances, the British and French veto may come to look a little odd. We shall have to contemplate the enlargement of the Security Council and a rather more internationalist outlook than we have to date. The world is changing and it will take an awfully long time to secure a satisfactory position for the reform of the UN. We must take a much longer-term view.
Plainly, there are British interests—as there are French—to protect, but we must examine how the veto has operated and what value it has to the United Kingdom. The fact that we are prepared to consider that issue, which goes beyond the position that any Government have adopted until now, might begin to open up a debate about the future of the UN and the
future structure of the Security Council. If we, as a country committed to international security and one that has made and will continue to make a huge contribution, are prepared to acknowledge that such a debate should take place, that does not amount to an abandonment of the British position. It does not necessarily mean abandonment of the veto if what we secure in return is unsatisfactory. However, if we are not prepared to begin to deal with the issue—including Buggins's turn in relation to posts—and face up to how the world will look 30, 40 or 50 years ahead, it is difficult to see which other nations will lead the debate.The UK has, because of our history, our heritage and our inheritance of the Commonwealth, a particularly proud record as a contributor to global affairs. We have contributed all around the globe over the past 200 years. We have had special relationships with countries as diverse as New Zealand and Hungary, for example, and we are the second biggest investor in Mexico. The UK has an outlook on the world and a huge amount to contribute to the debate on reform of the UN. I hope that the Government will be prepared to engage imaginatively in that debate and perhaps go slightly further and consider options other than those that might be viewed as the most politically safe back home.
4.53 pm
Tony Worthington (Clydebank and Milngavie): I am pleased to follow the hon. and gallant Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt). I have never before experienced having three gallant Gentlemen sitting on the Opposition Benches and I think that I shall report it to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds—[Interruption.] It is a strange experience.
Let us not get carried away in congratulating ourselves on having this debate. Other than a debate in Westminster Hall a couple of months ago, this is the first time in 16 years that I can remember having had a debate on the United Nations on the Floor of the House. How many debates have we conducted on the UN over the past 60 years? Would we need more than one hand—or even one finger—to count them? Is this the first?
We are very poor at dealing with international issues. I congratulate the Minister on this debate and on the annual report, which is a step forward. I recognise what the Foreign Secretary says in the preface—that the report necessarily requires more background and history than subsequent ones will need—but it reads as if it has been edited by a particularly strict primary school head teacher who does not want to frighten the children. Some lively bits have been squeezed out. I shall refer to them in my speech, but we should have been given the whole truth, and not the edited version.
As well as looking at the reform of the UN and its family of organisations, we should look at how we—as a country, and as people—relate to the UN. We are told repeatedly, and correctly, that the UN is merely the sum of its members. I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Colman) is not here, but we rely on bodies such as the UNA to keep us abreast of UN activities.
I am pleased to say that my hon. Friend the Member for Putney has returned to the Chamber. I can tell him that I was just paying tribute to Putney, and saying that we need to build support for the UN, through Parliament as well as the UNA.
It is a cliché to say that the world is becoming more globalised but, like many clichés, it is substantially true. More global institutions are being set up to cope with what is going on in the world. In my remarks, I subsume the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation. We should consider ending the strange anomaly that means that we talk separately about the Bretton Woods institutions and the UN organisations. They belong together, and we should see them as our collective response to common problems.
Our scrutiny of the vast family of organisations in the UN is inadequate. The debate has been valuable, as it has allowed the House to hear from people with specialised perspectives. For instance, the hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) displayed specialist knowledge of UN mines operations. We must use expertise such as that.
I am pleased that the public are waking up to these matters, and demanding that we perform better in matters such as debt and world trade. About two years ago, the Trade Justice Movement campaign mounted the biggest lobby that this House has ever experienced. The House must recognise the importance of such events, or risk being seen to be irrelevant.
It is sad that so little time in the Chamber is devoted to international affairs. I applaud the fact that we now have Westminster Hall, and consider it a great step forward, but we must use this Chamber more effectively as well. Remarkably, for all the discussion about the reform of Parliament, little has been said about how we can relate better to the UN and its very substantial son and daughter bodies.
It seems extraordinary that nothing requires Ministers from the Department for International Development to appear in the House of Commons from one year's end to the next, apart from departmental Question Times. We tried to insert a requirement in the International Development Act 2002 for an annual DFID debate. Although the legislation was the first for decades, we failed to get that commitment. Yet DFID is important, because it is the Department that relates to many of the UN organisations.
Our relationship with UN organisations can have strange consequences. Are we reacting satisfactorily? Like other hon. Members, I shall use personal examples to show how that question has struck me.
To his credit, my hon. Friend the Minister said in his opening speech that there was appalling genocide in Rwanda nearly 10 years ago, when about 1 million people were slaughtered. How did the House respond? House of Commons activity consisted of a few parliamentary questions, and two Adjournment debates that I was lucky enough to obtain by lottery. Have hon. Members considered the propriety of debating—or not debating—genocide by lottery? Could it happen again? Yes, it could. There was no response on that matter from either Front Bench, and the UN Security Council, with our active involvement, was strenuously finding a way to do nothing about Rwanda while the slaughter continued. If anyone doubts that, they should read the books of Linda Melvern and Fergal Keane. We cannot be satisfied that our response to an international event of that magnitude was to do nothing.
We have done nothing in other places in the world. I am one of the few Members to have visited Liberia. I went there years ago and the place horrified me. The problems went on and on and nothing happened; we did nothing about Liberia.
It is not just during catastrophes such as the one in Rwanda when we should exert more influence at the UN. Although the annual report is a valuable step forward, there has been a general failure to report. Many highly significant issues remain—for example, the International Criminal Court, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Mr. Moore). Labour Members were proud when, just before the last general election, we passed the International Criminal Court Act 2001. At last there was a standing court that would bring the most evil men in the world to justice. We ratified the UN treaty and, at almost record speed, the necessary 60 nations were signed up to bring the ICC into existence.
The court is working on its first cases but, as the hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale said, it is under siege from the United States, which not only does not want to sign up to the ICC but is actively trying to bring it down by bribing and bullying smaller states. We have mounted less than rigorous opposition to such acts. We have been accused, whether fairly or unfairly, of accommodating the United States in that respect. The British Government have not uttered a word; no statement has been made.
I said earlier that a primary school head teacher seemed to have taken everything of interest out of the annual report. There are about three pages dealing with various special courts—the Khmer Rouge tribunals, the international tribunal on Rwanda and so on—with only three lines about the International Criminal Court. There is no reference whatever to the fact that there was a major row in the UN Security Council about the ICC and bilateral treaties. We must have a better mechanism for reporting back on what our Government are doing. The annual report provides that to some extent, but we need to find out what is happening in each of the UN organisations, with a report from our representatives.
I belong to Parliamentarians for Global Action, which recently celebrated its 25th birthday. The organisation campaigned vigorously for the ICC with—I am delighted to say—the support of the Foreign Office, which provided funding so that, as the UN Security Council said, the PGA was a key factor in getting people involved. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Putney, I get my information about what is happening at the ICC from Parliamentarians for Global Action, which is based in New York, rather than from anything that goes on in this place. There must be accountability to the House.
There is a general trend towards the establishment of such parliamentary organisations. My hon. Friend the Member for Putney and I also belong to the Parliamentary Network of the World Bank. The World Bank recognised that it could not go on being isolated. It could not go on simply relating to Governments; it had to relate to parliamentarians. One of things that we are doing is setting up a parliamentary implementation watch, whereby we report back on various World Bank and other international conference decisions, so that
parliamentarians around the world know what is happening. At the moment, it is very difficult to know about such things.Let me give another example of the international bodies that many hon. Members may remember. I have always had a particular interest in population, development and reproductive health, so I belong to the all-party group on that subject and to the European group, and so on. The annual report states that the UNFPA—the United Nations Population Fund, which is the body to which we in Europe relate—
- "has been an effective and outspoken champion for reproductive health and rights, but has been the victim of attacks and unsubstantiated allegations from religious conservative groups who take a different view on these issues."
The US Government withdrew all their funding from the UNFPA, withdrawing services to hundreds of thousands of people around the world. To counteract that, the EU and the British Government stepped in to ensure that the UNFPA had the same funds as it would have done if the US had contributed. I hope that those points will be made in future annual reports, because we want to know about them. We want to know not just what the organisations were set up to do, but what the areas of contention are.
Many parliamentarians in the House and in other Parliaments are working together, for example, to set up an e-Parliament. I do not know whether that will come to anything, but it is intended to use the resources of global technology to keep parliamentarians in touch. My hon. Friend the Member for Putney visited Albania with the parliamentary network and parliamentarians from other countries to see how the poverty reduction strategies were working there.
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