G8 and G20 Summits

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We have supported—and, indeed, before the election we put forward a case for—gender pay audits, particularly based on those companies where any unfairness is found. The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point, quoting from my FT article, which is that that is one of the structural reforms that we in the west in the developed world should be carrying out in order to increase our growth rates, and as the right hon. Gentleman is being so friendly, I shall have to take away his thoughts and think about them again.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

Whether it be Afghanistan, the global economy or, indeed, tackling climate change, the G8 and G20 summits are becoming useful vehicles for tackling global issues, but they make decisions that are then passed on to an organisation created just after the war, the United Nations, which is woefully out of date. Were there any discussions about updating the United Nations so that it can tackle these issues much better?

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s question. The UN Secretary-General was, of course, at the G20 meeting and made a number of contributions, but my hon. Friend is right that the architecture of international relations is badly out of date. We have the rise of India, we have the enormous strength of Germany and Japan, and we have the great growth of Brazil, yet none of those countries is on the Security Council. We have to recognise that it is all very well all of us—we all do this—saying that we must share global leadership with India and China, but if we are going to share global leadership we need to change these institutions. This was discussed. It is fantastically difficult because people have so many vested interests—as, indeed, do we—but I do think that it is absolutely right for countries such as India and Brazil to have the sense that they should be on the UN Security Council.