To celebrate and acknowledge UNESCO’s 80th anniversary on Sunday 16th November 2025, the newly formed World Heritage All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) held a debate on the following Tuesday.
The debate was Chaired by Peter Dowd MP and opened by WH APPG Chair Jonathan Davies MP. Below are Jonathan’s opening and closing remarks. Other MPs who contributed included Dr Allison Gardner (Stoke-on-Trent South), Anna Dixon (Shipley/Saltaire WHS), Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd/Slate Landscape of NW Wales WHS), Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry), Jim Shannon (Strangford), Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar/St Kilda WHS), Shockat Adam (Leicester South), Julia Buckley (Shrewsbury), Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West/the Old and New Towns of Edinburgh WHS), Shaun Davies (Telford/Ironbridge Gorge WHS), Joe Morris (Hexham/Hadrian’s Wall WHS), Julie Minns (Carlisle/Hadrian’s Wall WHS), Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse), Rachael Maskell (York Central/York Tentative List Site), John Whitby (Derbyshire Dales/Derwent Valley Mills WHS), Martin Rhodes (Glasgow North/Antonine Wall WHS), Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove), Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East), and Seema Malhotra (The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs).
“I beg to move, that this House has considered the 80th anniversary of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing time for this debate. It is a great joy to see so many colleagues from across the House here with us today.
I want to begin by touching on UNESCO’s founding vision and the achievements that followed, which show why it is uniquely placed to help drive the national renewal the Labour Government rightly seek and to restore Britain’s leadership role on the world stage. Sunday marked 80 years since UNESCO was founded here in London. Considering the age of some UNESCO sites and the artefacts it seeks to be a custodian of, those 80 years are a mere speck in time, yet, emerging as it did out of the ashes of the darkest and most destructive chapter of human history — World War II — it is nothing short of remarkable that UNESCO’s mission has endured for those 80 years.
Rab Butler and Ellen Wilkinson, for whom I know the Minister has a great deal of admiration, were Tory and Labour Ministers respectively, and they played a crucial role in UNESCO’s establishment. They worked alongside Governments in exile from across the globe. All had witnessed the bombing of medieval cathedrals, such as in Coventry, the burning of national libraries, such as in Serbia, and the destruction of ancient temples in Asia, and much worse atrocities still in the domain of fascist policies dressed up as education and science — education that was mobilised to teach hatred, and science corrupted in the service of the most depraved and evil ends.
If culture, science and education had been abused in the service of hatred and conflict, they now had to be mobilised in the cause of peace. That is part of UNESCO’s founding principle — to build peace through international co-operation in science, education, communication and culture. In the words of Clement Attlee, “since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed”.
Britain and its territories have been a proud supporter of UNESCO, although there was a 12-year separation between 1985 and 1997, when the UK left the organisation. Perhaps sometimes it takes a little bit of time apart to appreciate what you have.
My energy for UNESCO comes through the Derwent Valley Mills UNESCO world heritage site, which runs through my Mid Derbyshire constituency. It is a great joy to see here some of the other MPs who have part of the site in their constituencies — my hon. Friends the Members for Derby North (Catherine Atkinson) and for Derbyshire Dales (John Whitby).”
“It is the greatest pleasure of my professional life to be the MP for Mid Derbyshire. That is particularly true today, when we have been taken on a magical mystery tour of the best places across the UK and further afield. I thank colleagues for bringing their insight, knowledge, experience and passion for their communities to the debate. It is through those sites and the values of UNESCO that we understand what it means to be a human being. That has sat very much front and centre of the debate today.
I am sure the Minister has heard that passion and I hope she has seen that the opportunities that these sites offer and UNESCO’s values cut across the Government’s five missions. By joining up our understanding of what these sites offer across Government Departments gives an opportunity to maximise their role in driving the national renewal that our country desperately needs.
I thank World Heritage UK, which represents all the sites in the UK, for its services, and particularly its president Chris Blandford OBE, who is in the Public Gallery today. My final comment is that we have a very active all-party parliamentary group for UNESCO world heritage sites in the UK, and I hope to see colleagues at one of its meetings in future.”