The NATO Parliamentary Assembly and UK delegations

NATO Parliamentary Assembly in brief Background

70 years ago – on 18 July 1955 – 158 parliamentarians from 14 NATO nations attended a six-day meeting at NATO headquarters in Paris. This first “Conference of Members of Parliament from the NATO Countries” soon became the “NATO Parliamentarians’ Conference”.

In 1966 delegates at the 12th Conference unanimously agreed to rename the organisation the “North Atlantic Assembly”. Meanwhile, with France withdrawing from NATO’s military structure that year, NATO moved its headquarters from Paris to Brussels. The Assembly headquarters moved to Brussels two years later.

The North Atlantic Assembly was renamed the “NATO Parliamentary Assembly” (NATO PA) in 1999.

The NATO PA website has detailed information on the Assembly’s history.

Membership

With Sweden becoming a full member of NATO on 7 March 2024, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly now consists of 281 delegates from the 32 NATO Member States. Each delegation is based on the country’s size and the UK has 18 seats in the Assembly.

In addition to delegations from NATO Member States, delegates from associate countries and parliamentary observer delegations take part in Assembly activities and bring the total number of delegates to approximately 355.

Structure

The Assembly’s government body is the Standing Committee, which is comprised of the head of each member delegation, the President and Vice-Presidents of the NATO PA, the Treasurer and the Secretary General.

Seven UK delegates have served as President since the organisation was founded.

The Assembly has five committees – the Committee on Democracy and Security; the Defence and Security Committee; the Economics and Security Committee; the Political Committee; and the Science and Technology Committee – and eight sub-committees. Much of the Assembly’s work is carried out by these committees, whose remit is to examine the major security and policy challenges confronting the Alliance. The sub-committees explore policy issues in more detail.

Assembly activities

The Assembly meets as a whole twice a year: a Spring Session and an Annual Session in the autumn.

There are some 40 other activities held each year, with most of the Assembly’s substantive work carried out by its five committees and eight sub-committees. These committees produce reports on critical issues affecting the Alliance and, to inform their discussions, receive briefings from experts and senior officials from government and international organisations, as well as attending fact-finding missions.

The NATO PA also has an extensive outreach programme with non-member parliaments and activities such as election monitoring.

Relations with NATO

Although institutionally separate from NATO, the Assembly is an essential link between NATO and the parliaments of NATO Member States.

The Assembly’s decision-making body – the Standing Committee – holds annual meetings at NATO headquarters with NATO’s Secretary General and the Permanent Representatives to the North Atlantic Council.

The NATO Secretary General addresses members of the Assembly at the Spring and Annual Sessions and the NATO PA President addresses Summit meetings of NATO Heads of State and Government.

One of the more visible synergies between NATO and the Assembly’s work is the NATO Secretary General providing a written response to the committee reports endorsed by the Assembly at its Annual Session.

The UK delegation

The NATO Parliamentary Assembly is one of three interparliamentary assemblies to which the UK Parliament sends a delegation.

The UK has 18 seats in the NATO PA and delegation members are formally appointed in a Written Statement by the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs. One member is also appointed to be leader of the UK delegation.

The delegation is cross-party and filled with members from both Houses of Parliament, with membership reflecting the political party balance in the House of Commons at the time of the most recent General Election.

Delegates must be backbenchers and, consequently, some have gaps in their service to the Assembly as they held Ministerial posts in the interim.

One UK delegate – Harold Wilson MP – later went on to be the Prime Minister and eight delegates have served on the Assembly from both Houses of Parliament.

The UK delegation represents the UK Parliament, not the Government, and plays an active role in the activities of the Assembly, through membership of its committees and groups and participation in plenary meetings.

The UK has hosted several sessions of the NATO PA, most recently welcoming the Assembly for its 2019 Annual Session that took place in London during October of that year. On occasions where the UK hosts sessions, members of both Houses have opportunities to attend some meetings while not official delegates, but as members of relevant Select Committees, for example.