Brexit: UK International Relations

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, I am privileged to serve on the International Relations Committee and I add both my good wishes to our chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Howell, and my thanks to the clerk and policy analyst who supported our first inquiry on the UN and the UK and the priorities for the new Secretary-General, António Guterres, who I most warmly welcome into his new role.

In this very wide-ranging debate I will focus just on some of the recommendations concerning the organisation and management of the UN, which is not nearly as dry and dusty, or as peripheral to the big issues, as it might sound. On the contrary, at a time when the role and actions of the Secretary-General could prove to be decisively influential in a number of scenarios around the world in a way that those of no other individual could be, it is important that he is able to operate with the strongest possible network of support and coherence within the leadership, culture and structure of the UN—but this is not currently what he has. He will need the active and committed backing of the UK to make some fundamental changes and I hope that the Minister will assure the House that the UK will build on its most welcome support for the limited reforms which so improved the process of selecting him, and go on to achieve the wider reforms which are now needed to allow Mr Guterres to fulfil the potential of his position and of the UN as a whole.

First, the increased transparency that we saw around the selection process should be made permanent, with agreed explicit criteria and qualifications for the role. The report recommends that the UK should take the initiative in getting this ball rolling, as well as looking carefully at the proposal that a single seven-year term should replace the current five-year renewable term. Like my noble friend Lord Hannay, I feel that the Government’s response is too negative on this last point and I ask the Minister to reconsider whether the Secretary-General really should be spending time and effort towards the end of a first term standing for re-election: whether this really does increase his accountability as the Government argue, or whether it is in fact an unnecessary distraction from the time and energy that should be devoted to world affairs, not internal positioning.

Secondly, the reforms in recruitment and selection should not stop with the Secretary-General. Greater cohesion and quality of leadership could be achieved if a whole range of positions within the UN Secretariat and agencies, and in senior leadership positions in UN peacekeeping, were also subject to more transparency and accountability. Many of these positions will be coming vacant during Mr Guterres’s first term, so it is important, as the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, said, that action be taken quickly. I hope that the UK will do more than express its support in principle, at the Geneva Group and elsewhere, and will table specific proposals designed to make change happen in time to be effective for this Secretary-General, not his successor.

Thirdly, our report recommends that the Secretary-General should be allowed more autonomy in managing the budget, while of course remaining accountable to member states. At present he has only limited authority over the size of the budget and is highly restricted as to how he may allocate it. This works to stifle accountability and puts process before purpose. Witnesses as distinguished and experienced in the affairs of the UN as the noble Lord, Lord Malloch-Brown, and Sir Emyr Jones Parry strongly advised radical reform in this area.

Finally, the UN should launch a new communications strategy, including a distinct focus on young people, and the UK should support this. People under 25 currently make up 45% of the world’s population and witnesses including the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, stressed that the UN needs to be much more proactive in its engagement with them in particular. It should not just be an information-giving exercise but a genuine strategy to create mechanisms by which they can be consulted about what the UN does. I would welcome from the Minister a little more detail than is mentioned in the Government’s response to the report about what the UK is doing to support this engagement, particularly through social media.