Lords Committee hears from experts on the UK’s involvement in multilateral organisations

Tuesday, 21 July 2026 09:05

Tomorrow, on Wednesday 22 July the House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee will hear from two UK-based experts about how the UK should position itself in response to a changing multilateral environment. The session will also consider in which areas the UK should focus its future engagement in multilateral organisations and whether the concept of middle power order is a useful one. The session will start at 10.30am and can be watched live or on demand at...Request free trial

Tomorrow, on Wednesday 22 July the House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee will hear from two UK-based experts about how the UK should position itself in response to a changing multilateral environment. The session will also consider in which areas the UK should focus its future engagement in multilateral organisations and whether the concept of middle power order is a useful one.

The session will start at 10.30am and can be watched live or on demand at Parliament TV or in person inCommittee Room 3, Palace of Westminster.

Giving evidence will be:

Professor Stefan Dercon, Professor of Economic Policy at University of Oxford; Former Development Policy Advisor to the Foreign Secretary (2020-2022) and Chief Economist at the Department for International Development (2011-2017); and
Professor Ian Goldin, Professor of Globalisation and Development, University of Oxford; Former Vice President of the World Bank (2001-2003).

Questions will include:

From a UK policy perspective, how would you characterise the key challenges within the multilateral system? Is it in crisis, as many would suggest?

In an increasingly contested geopolitical era, what should the UK's role in major multilateral organisations look like over the next ten years?Are there trade-offs between being supporters of multilateral cooperation and advocating for UK national interests?

As international problems proliferate and UK diplomatic and aid funding is tightened, what core policy areas should be prioritised by the UK Government when it comes to multilateral engagement? Are there specific areas where the UK has outsized influence?

To what extent is the concept of middle power order, as formulated by Mark Carney at Davos, a useful one for UK policy makers? Is such a vision quixotic, or essential?

For a state with a wide-ranging engagement in multilateral politics such as the UK, is it important to have some wider strategic understanding of what we want to achieve from our multilateral engagement? Or is the system too diffuse to make it suitable for centralised strategic thinking?