Plans to slash spending at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office are likely to damage the UK’s standing within the United Nations and play into the hands of China and Russia, MPs have warned.
A report from the Foreign Affairs Select Committee says that an expected 65% reduction in the programme budget for the FCDO’s Multilateral and Human Rights Directorate will have wide-ranging consequences.
The cuts, which were set out in the FCDO’s annual report and accounts for 2024-25, are due to take effect over the current financial year. They come against the backdrop of longer-term plans for a headcount reduction of up to 25% at the department, which permanent secretary Sir Olly Robbins set out to the committee in July.
The FCDO emerged from June’s Spending Review as the department facing the largest spending cuts over the whole three-year period, when controversial reductions to official development assistance are factored in.
MPs suggested in their report that the Multilateral and Human Rights Directorate, which oversees the UK’s relationship with the UN as well as other multilateral and human rights organisations and associated programmes would face “significant financial reductions”.
“The funding cuts to the directorate will impact on the effective operations of not just the UK Mission to the UN in New York, but the entire multilateral system and will surely limit the government’s ability to be a leading multilateral player with a strong reputation in resolving global conflict,” the committee said.
“This could, in turn, lead to the perception that the UK is an unreliable partner at the UN and in the resolution of conflict, a sphere the UK has long dominated.”
MPs added that the planned funding reductions could “impact the high-quality calibre of staff” in place at the UK’s missions to the UN. They pointed to a National Audit Office review of 2020’s merger of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development, which flagged a “severe” risk of skills and expertise being lost.
Committee members said: “We do not wish to see a similar loss of key skills and expertise which would undermine the UK’s place in the multilateral order.”
According to the Foreign Affairs Committee, FCDO currently has between 110 and 130 staff based in New York and approximately 20 to 30 staff focused directly on the UN Security Council.
Their report – which was published on Sunday, the same day on which the UK government formally recognised Palestine as a state – called on ministers to produce a “clear strategy” for how expertise would be retained in the UK’s missions to the UN.
Committee chair Dame Emily Thornberry said the world needed the UN Security Council more than ever before.
She said it is “quite clear” that Britain plays a crucial role in the Security Council, but that such important work may be threatened by cuts to the FCDO.
“Whilst the UN is not without its flaws, it is an utterly unique and irreplaceable forum through which nations can come together, make collective decisions and take joint action,” she said.
“However, our report found we either use it or lose it, and the UK and its allies must properly re-engage with the UN if it is to survive. The UN is only as effective as we want it to be.
“Our inquiry found that cuts to the FCDO and the directorate responsible for multilateral organisations such as the UN, are a gift to China and Russia, who seek to exert malign and disruptive influence and control at the UN.”
Thornberry said that, to date, the UK had been “far too cautious” in calling out China and Russia.
The report concluded that the staff cuts at the Multilateral and Human Rights Directorate “risk ceding further influence to China and Russia within the multilateral system”, adding: “Indeed, such detrimental measures open the door, willingly, to our competitors and adversaries.”
Civil Service World sought an FCDO response. It had not provided one at the time of publication.