mr president i abstained along with the british conservative delegation on the lambsdorff report on the priorities for the un general assembly sixty-fourth session
my party strongly supports the work of the un although accepting it is an imperfect organisation in need of reform
however there were a number of issues mentioned in this report where british conservatives disagree strongly such as the role of the icc and the abolition of the security council permanent seats of the uk and france to be replaced by a single permanent seat for the european union
we also believe the application of the death penalty on adults is an issue for an individual member's conscience and we do not have a party political line on this
so we abstained overall
