19 NOVEMBER 2009
Lord Hannay raises UNA-UK priorities in debate on Queen's Speech

UNA-UK Chair Lord Hannay of Chiswick raised a number of UNA-UK's top priorities in a foreign affairs debate on the Queen's Speech held today in the House of Lords. The debate was opened by FCO Minister Baroness Kinnock, who said "it is because we take seriously our duty to protect and promote the interests of the British people that multilateralism will remain central to our foreign policy perspectives and action", adding that "the UN remains the only international organisation that is truly representative of the breadth of the world's countries". Kinnock reiterated Britain's support for the creation of a single UN entity to address gender issues and announced plans to publish draft legislation to make binding the UK's commitment to spend 0.7% of GDP on official development assistance from 2013. She also stated that the House would be considering the Bill that will pave the way for ratification of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. UNA-UK has been pushing for UK ratification of this crucial convention since the government signed the treaty in December 2008.

In his wide-ranging speech, Lord Hannay outlined UNA-UK's positions on:

Nuclear disarmament: "if a first, essential bilateral step towards nuclear disarmament is successfully achieved by the US and Russia next month, at some point further down the road, nuclear disarmament will need to become multilateral. It is welcome that the Government have expressed their readiness for that. Now they will need to prepare for it and to act in the meanwhile - for example, over Trident replacement - in a way consistent with the overall objective. There will be a need, too, to move into serious negotiation on a fissile material cut-off treaty."

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference: "It will be a crucial stage in the process that I have described of moving towards a world free of nuclear weapons, but by no means its destination. That conference will need to endorse the International Atomic Energy Agency's additional protocol as a universal standard, made mandatory if necessary. It needs, too, to open the way to internationally guaranteed supplies of enrichment and reprocessing services so that the expansion of civil nuclear energy, highly desirable on environmental grounds, can take place without increasing the proliferation risk."

Climate change: "If the Copenhagen conference comes up with inadequate or quasi agreements; if it fails to establish a framework for legally binding, even if differentiated, constraints on future emissions by all; if it fails to provide the support in finance and technology which developing countries need if they are to accept such constraints; and if there is no adequate institutional machinery in place to address the implementation of the commitments entered into at Copenhagen, then we shall soon enough see the evidence of this shortfall and the damaging consequences that will flow from it. The Government's record so far in these negotiations has been pretty good, but the hardest part remains and they will need to use all their determination and influence within the EU and more widely in the period ahead."

Trade and development: "So far, despite some backsliding, the economic crisis has not been accompanied by the disastrous slide into protectionism which characterised the 1930s. Unemployment is still rising, however, and protectionist pressures are there. To put them definitively behind us, successful completion of the Doha development round of trade negotiations needs to become a central feature of any exit strategy from the crisis. Our Government, along with their G20 partners, have been liberal with words to that effect but, so far, remarkably short on action. Surely, 2010 needs to be the year when those becalmed negotiations are brought safely into harbour."

UK funding for multilateral institutions: "No one doubts the need for a sensibly rigorous approach to public expenditure at the present juncture, but to spearhead that approach by squeezing the Government's contribution to peacekeeping, conflict prevention and the support of multilateral institutions on whose effectiveness we crucially depend is surely an example of false economies. It may save a few candle ends, but at what a cost. Having fought long, hard and unsuccessfully against an increase in the IAEA's budget, we now appear to be in the vanguard of resistance to a tiny increase in the UN's regular budget."