UN: Security Council Composition

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

On the noble Lord’s second point, of course I agree totally. That is indeed the central requirement and concern. With regard to the selection of Secretaries-General, the noble Lord probably knows better than I do that this is a Security Council-dominated process. We believe that the Secretary-General should have the broadest possible support from the UN membership, which of course includes support from the Security Council and the five permanent members. The matter is not entirely in our gift and hands; nevertheless, the noble Lord’s points are very valid and we will bear them very much in mind in this process.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

My Lords, will the Minister elaborate slightly on what the Foreign Secretary said at Georgetown? Are the British Government prepared to contemplate an interim step towards reform of the Security Council by having a longer-term category of members who are not yet permanent members—that would make the Security Council more representative—rather than trying endlessly to solve the Rubik’s Cube of new permanent members?

[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.