Hancock loses UN job on a technicality
Former minister told he cannot take up Covid recovery role after outrage in Africa at appointment
MATT HANCOCK has lost his new job at the United Nations just four days after being appointed, following outrage from figures who condemned the “jaw-dropping” decision to appoint him as a special representative for Covid recovery in Africa.
The UN’s Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) said his appointment was “not being taken forward,” after officials ignored a rule that prevented politicians being hired by the UN.
Mr Hancock was told by the UN it was forced to rescind the appointment because he is still a sitting MP. Last night he told The Sunday Telegraph: “I was honoured to be approached and appointed as special representative.
“The UN have written to me to explain that a technical UN rule has subsequently come to light which states that sitting members of parliament cannot also be UN special representatives.
“Since I am committed to continuing to serve as MP for West Suffolk, this means I cannot take up the position.”
Mr Hancock, who resigned as health secretary in June after he was pictured on CCTV kissing an aide, had said he was “honoured” to take up the role.
He was congratulated by senior Tories including his successor, Sajid Javid, and foreign office ministers Liz Truss and James Cleverly.
Vera Songwe, a UN under-secretary general, pointed to his “success” in tackling the UK’s pandemic response.
But campaigners and politicians said his appointment was “the definition of a colonial hangover” and showed the UN was not taking the continent’s recovery from the pandemic seriously.
Dr Ayoade Alakija, co-chair of the African Union’s Africa Vaccine Delivery Alliance, said the decision was “jawdropping”, adding: “It harkens back to what used to happen in the days of the British Empire, when badly behaved children of the upper classes would be sent off to India or wherever because they were in disgrace at home. Has he ever even been to Africa?”
Jess Phillips, the Labour MP, said the appointment showed he was “failing up”, while Nic Cheeseman, an expert in African democracy at Birmingham University, said it “beggars belief ”.
Mr Hancock added the position to his LinkedIn page and tweeted a copy of the letter he had sent to the Commission, accepting the appointment.
The MP for West Suffolk has kept a low profile after resigning earlier this year, following an exposé of his affair with Gina Coladangelo, a married former colleague at the Department of Health and Social Care.
He has since left his wife, Martha, and is understood to be pursuing a serious relationship with Ms Coladangelo.
Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, an NGO, said: “It is right for the UN to reconsider this appointment.
“If Matt Hancock wants to help African countries recover from the pandemic, he should lobby the Prime Minister to back a patent waiver on Covid-19 vaccines. If he’d done that when he in government, tens of millions more people could already have been vaccinated. The last thing the African continent needs is a failed British politician. This isn’t the 19th century.”
It is understand the UN was willing to overlook its own rule on sitting politicians being appointed as UN employees in 2012, when Gordon Brown became a special envoy for global education.
Mr Brown retired as an MP in 2015 and remains in his role at the UN.
A UN spokesman said: “Mr Hancock’s appointment is not being taken forward. ECA has advised him of the matter.” Mr Hancock has spoken just five times in the House of Commons since his resignation on June 27.
Most recently he proposed a debate on the British horse racing industry, where he spoke about the industry in his Newmarket constituency.