UN Security Council: Information Sharing

Debate between Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon and Lord Triesman

Thursday 26th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Triesman]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the recent meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, what assessment they have made of how the United Kingdom and fellow permanent members of the Security Council can improve the sharing of analysis and co-ordination with allies to ensure enhanced security.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

My Lords, the United Kingdom is committed to working through the UN Security Council to address threats to international peace and security. We will continue to share analysis with fellow members of the council through informal consultations. During this year’s UN General Assembly high-level week, our efforts were instrumental in ensuring that the international community united to adopt unanimously UNSCR 2379 to help ensure that Daesh is held accountable for the crimes it has committed.

[Lord Triesman (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response. The United States is a vital ally and a close historic friend but it is hard to share values with its commander-in-chief. During his UNGA speech, he threatened to obliterate at least one, and possibly two, other nations by nuclear means, denounced the Paris climate accords, and has on other occasions expressed his belief that torture is a normal course of events. Given the number of experienced diplomats and internationalists in your Lordships’ House, can the Government share with them how they intend to make a relationship with those at the top of the American Administration to improve our peace and security?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, the noble Lord raises an important point about international relations, and in that regard I assure him that we have a very deep and long historic relationship with the United States. It is a strong relationship because we share objectives on many fronts. Equally, the strength of that relationship determines that when we disagree on important issues, as the noble Lord has highlighted, we also make that position quite clear; climate change was one issue, as was the recent issue of the Iran nuclear deal. In both those instances, we made it clear that we believe it was regrettable that the US took the stance that it did. That position has been made clear to President Trump by our Prime Minister. However, the strength of our relationship allows us to have those very candid conversations with the US and, indeed, others, when we do disagree.