UN: Security Council Composition

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

That is a possibility. The noble Lord was a member of the high-level panel—a very eminent member of a very eminent panel—which put forward various models. We would like to go forward with reform but, as he knows, first, there is resistance from some existing permanent members, who do not want any change at all, and, secondly, there is resistance from another group of members, who are not on the Security Council but who are opposed to any change for other reasons. It is therefore difficult to advance even to the interim arrangements that he so expertly described. Anything that can unblock the system and move forward to a modern and—dare I say?—fit-for-purpose United Nations structure, rather than the one that we inherited from the 1940s, would be a great improvement.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, the British and French Governments declared in 2008 that they would jointly move towards the intermediate arrangements of which the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, spoke, but the Foreign Secretary’s speech made no reference to that. I wonder whether the official position of Her Majesty’s Government is that they have abandoned that as a means of moving forward. I am sure that the noble Lord would agree with me that for us to say that Brazil should come in and for the United States to say that India should come in would hardly be a means to getting consensus, as we cherry-pick certain countries.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

No, we have not abandoned that position. We continue to work very closely with the French. We are completely committed to enlarging the Security Council and including India, Brazil, Germany and Japan as permanent members. However, in the absence of agreement, which it would be nice to see, together with France we have suggested the intermediate model, which has already been referred to.