United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

My noble friend will of course be aware that freedom of religion and belief is one of the six priorities for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Indeed, it is a personal priority of mine and something into which we have put additional resources and energy since my appointment at the Foreign Office. We are dealing with this matter on a number of levels through both the Human Rights Commission and our support for Resolution 16/18, which determined, among other things, tolerance towards minority religions. We have also instigated and chair a political track to this process. The first meeting was held at the beginning of this year and the second at the UN General Assembly in New York in September. We are proposing that a conference on freedom of religion and belief should be held in the United Kingdom next year.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, will the Minister perhaps say a word about the resources available to the High Commissioner for Human Rights? I understand that the Government have in fact found an extra £500,000 voluntary contribution—a matter on which I am still waiting for a reply from the noble Baroness, following the debate in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, some weeks ago. What are the Government doing at the UN to ensure that the resources for the High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2015 and 2016 are not constrained and reduced, as they currently are? Are we supporting an increase in those resources?

[Baroness Warsi]

I apologise to the noble Lord for the delay in responding. I did in fact sign the letter on Saturday so I know it is on its way to him. It may be on his desk this morning. In relation to funding, the noble Lord will be aware that as well as making our contribution to the UN general budget, which is about 5%, we make voluntary contributions to OHCHR of about £2.5 million a year. On top of that we make additional voluntary contributions, which can be anything between £2.5 million and £4 million. We were the seventh largest donor to the office during 2012. The 2013 figures have not yet been published but I assure the noble Lord that we are incredibly aware of the pressures on OHCHR in terms of its funding and that we do feel that it should be properly resourced. However, that does not stop us from making quite strong representations for better budget management. We are asking OCHCR to do more but we also think that it should do more with the money that it has.