12:42

The UN is in great need of reform and the UK has a responsibility to tackle those reforms, international development minister Rory Stewart has said, warning that support for the institution could sap because of the similarity of the UN to the European Union.

Speaking at a fringe event, Stewart said politicians must “be aware that there are aspects to the United Nations which, for some people, will remind them in some ways of some of the issues we had around Brexit. Supranational government, bureaucracy, the way in which money is spent.”

Stewart, who was a senior coalition official during the Iraq war, said the UN needed to make itself increasingly relevant, especially in the current global landscape.