Through its programme of activities, the BGIPU seeks to engage Parliamentarians in key global issues and works to expand awareness and understanding of foreign relations and the contribution to be made by the UK Parliament to consolidate parliamentary democracy worldwide.
Here you can read the reports of our activities, including our Outward Delegations, IPU conferences and events and inward visits to Westminster.
You can search for specific reports by using keywords, themes, categories or date using the fields on the right.
The IPU is co-organizing a Pre-COP26 Parliamentary Meeting in Rome, Italy on 8-9 October 2021 with the Italian Parliament as part of a series of pre-COP26 events hosted by Italy, followed by the Parliamentary Meeting at COP26 in Glasgow, co-organized with the British Group of the IPU on 7 November 2021. The Pre-COP Parliamentary Meeting […]
Some 70 parliaments representing all the regions of the world attended the First Global Parliamentary Meeting on Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Turning the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic into opportunities for parliaments to achieve the SDGs this week. The IPU and the House of Representatives of Indonesia organized the three-day virtual event from 28-30 […]
The first major international in-person event held by the IPU in 18 months, the Fifth World Conference of Speakers of Parliament, took place in early September in Vienna, Austria. The event’s success in bringing 900 people safely together from all four corners of the world was a result of extensive planning and close coordination between the IPU, […]
On 20 September, UK Parliamentarians met virtually with members of the Hungarian Parliament. The meeting was hosted by Chair of the Hungarian All Party Parliamentary Group Craig Mackinlay MP, and Dr Richárd Hörcsik Chair of the Hungarian/British Friendship group. Dr Hörcsik welcomed and introduced the Hungarian members and noted they had been running slightly behind due […]
On 20 September 2021, BGIPU hosted a virtual bilateral meeting with Members of the National Assembly in Madagascar. The meeting was chaired by Tim Loughton MP, who had previously led a BGIPU delegation out to Madagascar in 2017. He was joined by Alex Sobel MP, Baroness Sheehan, Baroness Walmsley, Lord Thomas and Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Madagascar, David Ashley. […]
In honour of the International Day of Democracy, on September 15 the IPU held a virtual discussion on the theme ‘Is democracy really in crisis?’ It is a timely question, given a rising number of authoritarian and repressive regimes, attacks on parliaments and a backlash against traditional political parties and processes around the world. In […]
On Wednesday 15 September, to mark UN International Day of Democracy, BGIPU hosted its first in-person event after eighteen months of reduced parliamentary activity. BGIPU invited a panel of experts on democracy, including Franklin De Vrieze, Senior Governance Advisor at Westminster Foundation for Democracy, Sarah Birch, Professor of Political Science at King’s College London and […]
The world’s top legislators gathered in Vienna, Austria this week for the first major in-person international parliamentary meeting in over 18 months. The Fifth World Conference of Speakers of Parliament brought together close to 100 Speakers from some 115 national parliaments and the heads of over a dozen regional and other parliamentary organizations. Afghanistan, climate change and […]
The Fifth World Conference of Speakers of Parliament, the world’s largest gathering of the highest level of parliamentary representation, will take place in Vienna, Austria on 7-8 September. Organized jointly by the IPU and the Austrian Parliament, in cooperation with the United Nations, this in-person segment of the conference follows a virtual session held in August 2020. […]
The office of Speaker is an ancient one, with its beginnings going back to the origins of the British Parliament. The Speaker role is an essential feature of the parliamentary system, and of all the Westminster parliamentary traditions, the Speakership has proved to be one of the most durable. The first Speaker There is historical […]
