§ 3.5 p.m.
§ EARL WINTERTONMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government if they will instruct the British Representative at the United Nations to call the attention of the Assembly of that organisation to cases of default on the part of member nations of payment of their subscriptions.]
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF HOME)My Lords, Her Majesty's Government consider, and will continue to make their view clear in debates in the United Nations, that it is essential to the future of the Organisation that these obligations should be honoured. The cases of default to which the noble Earl refers will come, to the attention of the General Assembly when the expenses for the United Nations operations in the Congo for 1961 are considered during the present Session and also when the Budget estimates for 1962 are discussed al the next Session. Her Majesty's Government's representative will make it clear beyond doubt that we hold that there is a binding obligation upon member Governments to pay their assessed contributions.
§ EARL WINTERTONMy Lords, may I ask my noble friend (I do not ask him to give an answer now because no doubt the question must receive consideration) whether Her Majesty's Government would not go a little further, and, if these defaulting members do not pay their contributions, whether our representative would move in the Assembly that they be excluded from membership?
THE EARL OF HOMEMy Lords, as I have told my noble friend on a previous 950 occasion, under Article 19 of the Charter, countries can be expelled from the United Nations if they are in arrears in their subscriptions to the extent of two years. No country in the United Nations is at present, in arrears to that extent, and so Article 19 could not be said to apply to any nation at the present time in the United Nations.