Council of Europe: 75th Anniversary

Debate between Baroness Chakrabarti and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Tuesday 16th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Markham, in particular, who is not currently in his place, for becoming impatient and intemperate during yesterday’s Oral Questions. I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton) (Con)]

I am worried already.

We value the role of the Council of Europe and we are a major contributor to the organisation. The Council of Europe’s commitment to peace, freedom and democracy is best evidenced by its swift decision to expel Russia following the brutal invasion of Ukraine and the launch of the register of damage, which will allow individuals to file claims for loss, injury and damage caused by Russia’s invasion. The 75th anniversary will be celebrated at the ministerial meeting in May.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sincerely grateful to the Foreign Secretary for an equivocal Answer to my Question. We all know that he has an awesome responsibility at the moment to practise statecraft globally and to seek to explain it at home. With that in mind, when he is considering institutions such as the UN, NATO, the Council of Europe and, dare I say it, the European Court of Human Rights, would he categorise them as international and worthy of our continued commitment and support, or foreign and worthy of repudiation and occasional contempt?

Rules-based International Order

Debate between Baroness Chakrabarti and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti]

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs what steps he is taking to champion a rules-based international order.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton) (Con)]

My Lords, an open and stable international order is in our interest. We use it to deliver on issues of domestic and global importance, such as the Bletchley AI safety declaration. We invest in it, as the fifth-largest UN budget contributor. We support reform of it to ensure that it benefits everyone, and we hold to account those who undermine it, including through steadfast support to Ukraine, sanctions against Russia and ensuring maritime security in the Red Sea. In a dangerous and uncertain world, this stable international order is more essential than ever.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Foreign Secretary for the clarity of that Answer on the importance and scale of his task. I wonder whether that task was helped or hindered by two developments yesterday. The first was fresh advice from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees that the Rwanda scheme, now updated by the Rwanda treaty and the safety of Rwanda Bill, is still contrary to international law. The second development was comments by the Prime Minister on GB News that the Court of Human Rights is a “foreign” court and that he is prepared to defy it.

[Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)]

We do not believe that the Rwanda scheme is contrary to international law. I would characterise it by saying that things like the refugee convention were written for another age, when there was not mass international travel or the ubiquity of mobile phones. We are saying that, yes, this is out-of-the-box thinking and it is quite unorthodox, but you have a choice, frankly: when you have people arriving from a perfectly safe country into another safe country, you have to deal with that trade. That requires some fresh thinking. It is not possible to put people straight back in a boat and take them back to France, which is why the Rwanda scheme is being introduced. It is within the law and it is novel, but I believe it can work.