UN Women

Lord Boston of Faversham Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

UN Women has only just been established and is working out its strategy, but the United Kingdom is on the board of the executive and is therefore helping to develop that strategy. The organisation’s very existence is based upon the problems that the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, points to. It is extremely important that the position of women is addressed, particularly where there is conflict. That is increasingly recognised, and we have to make sure that the United Nations and the UK are as effective as possible in addressing those problems.

[Lord Boston of Faversham]

My Lords, will the Minister acknowledge that today is the anniversary of the first sitting—in, I think, 1947—of the United Nations General Assembly? I should perhaps declare an interest as one of your Lordships’ former parliamentary representatives at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Would it be too much to ask whether the noble Baroness has any plans for the UN General Assembly to resume its sittings here in London?

[Baroness Northover]

I thank the noble Lord for that. It would be an interesting development, but I cannot see that it would have universal support. However, I can always feed that suggestion through. It is clearly an extraordinary development that the United Nations exists at all. When one bears in mind the international problems that we face, we need to build on the strengths that the UN already has, make sure that in future it can do even more to resolve international conflict, and ensure that, where there is poverty, it is addressed.