UN: Senior Appointments

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Dubs for initiating the debate and for raising this issue on previous occasions in this Chamber. In its 70th year the UN, despite its positive aspirations, is still dogged by accusations of incompetent bureaucracy and by the undemocratic politics of its Security Council. The West sees it as bloated and inefficient; developing countries regard it as dominated by the rich. As we have heard, with the biggest refugee crisis since the Second World War and conflict in many parts of the world, it is right to ask and debate the question, “What is the UN for?”. In the Guardian article referred to by my noble friend Lord Anderson, my noble friend Lady Amos, in reflecting on her period at the UN, described it as a valuable ally in delivering UK aid, but acknowledged concerns about it being overly bureaucratic and slow in the way that it dealt with development issues.

Ten years ago Gordon Brown co-chaired a UN panel on reform. Its report said that the UN was badly failing those it was supposed to help. Its work on development was described as “often fragmented and weak”; its governance was called “inefficient and ineffective”. It proposed extensive changes to promote greater collaboration and efficiency under a programme called Delivering as One. I mention that because Ban Ki-moon has declared that delivering and working as one in the UN was the main motor of his administration. That is not necessarily the judgment of everyone. The executive director of the reform report, Adnan Amin, said that the changes proposed in the report were “fundamentally good ideas” that had not had the impact its authors had hoped for. That is what we have heard in the debate: plenty of examples of good ideas, but delivery is something on which we seek more efficiency.

It is not necessarily the bureaucracy that acts as a barrier to reform, as we have heard. Member states want the UN to have authority and the ability to act when they are behind a particular policy, but they are very jealous about its authority and initiative when they are less keen about the policy. My noble friend quoted Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, who died in tragic circumstances in 1961. His death occurred when the West and the Soviet Union were challenging each other in Africa, undoubtedly linked to the control of uranium.

We know from official records that our Prime Minister at the time, Harold Macmillan, did not want the Secretary-General to think that he had an independent role bringing together the various factions in the Congo, including leaders of the breakaway province of Katanga. The meeting set up for our Foreign Office Minister to meet the breakaway leaders on that fateful night in September 1961 led to the crash of the UN Secretary-General’s plane. We have very strong evidence of two things: first, that there was a second plane involved in the crash landing; and, secondly, that Britain was very closely connected with the white supremacist regimes involved.

I mention this now because later this month the UN General Assembly will be asked to authorise more focused action to follow up the report of the commission of inquiry organised by my noble friend Lord Lea of Crondall, which led to a UN panel corroborating the quality of the evidence that led the commission to its conclusions. I ask the Minister to respond positively to the plea of the UN in the report to the General Assembly that all nations, including the United Kingdom and the United States, which have not so far produced all the information from their archives, should co-operate fully with the UN in finalising the outcome of its inquiries from that period. There is much to learn from that episode.

As my noble friend Lord Dubs said, recent appointments also highlight the role of UN member states, with countries seeing particular jobs as theirs. As we have heard, the former job of my noble friend Lady Amos as head of humanitarian affairs is a good example. Her predecessor was British and so is her successor. It is difficult to see in such circumstances how the UN can balance the need to represent the diversity of its membership with maintaining a merit-based structure.

The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, has stated on a number of occasions when this issue has been raised in this Chamber that the current system of selection for the Secretary-General, with the Security Council nominating a single candidate to the General Assembly, ensures that the candidate receives maximum support. Although the noble Baroness also indicated that the Government would not want to see the process significantly changed, she appeared to favour the suggestion put by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, in a recent exchange, which he repeated today, that all candidates be asked to set out their ideas for strengthening the organisation. At least the world would have something on which to judge the candidates in terms of what they hoped to achieve—and it would be important in being able to measure their success in delivering those aspirations. What progress, if any, have the Government made in persuading others to adopt this in the process to replace Ban Ki-moon?

We have had an excellent debate and serious questions have been asked. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.