Council of Europe: House of Lords Members’ Contribution

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I join in the universal thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, for securing this debate today. I declare an interest as a member of the parliamentary assembly. It is my third time. I was there in the 1980s and the early 2000s and here I am again. In fact, every time I get kicked off the Front Bench, the Government or whatever, I seem to find my way to Strasbourg.

The history and the role of the Council of Europe are not always understood—certainly not by the public and not by Parliament, as was said earlier. Nor by some of our colleagues as well: I shall try to work on my noble friend Lord Adonis. The Council of Europe represents this great post-war vision, which placed such value on human rights, democracy and the rule of law. It is not widely known that we in the parliamentary assembly, Members of Parliament from these 47 countries, elect the judges to the European Court of Human Rights. Would it not be good if we in the United Kingdom elected our judges? It is a democratic organisation—people are a bit doubtful about that, but it might be—and we elect the human rights commissioner as well. These three things are still the priorities of the Council of Europe.

I say to my noble friend Lord Adonis that the Council of Europe is the Carlsberg of European institutions—it reaches the parts of Europe that other organisations do not, such as Russia and Turkey. He did not mention Azerbaijan. The reason that Belarus is not a member is that it has the death penalty, so that is something, as my noble friend admitted. It also helps member states to recognise the steps they have to take, not just when they apply for membership of the European Union—which is important and we should remain; my noble friend and I agree on that—but it also presses them in the right direction. Its founding purpose is as relevant today as it was in 1949. The 47 countries still there spread all the way from Iceland to Turkey, from Portugal to Russia, including Switzerland and a range of different countries.

I shall talk briefly about what some members are doing. I have the pleasure of sitting on the culture, science, education and media committee—it was mentioned earlier—and I am the general rapporteur on media freedom and the safety of journalists. I am producing a report that will be published by the end of December and I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, that I had the great pleasure and privilege of attending a global conference organised by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. It was the inspiration of Jeremy Hunt. It is a pity he is gone; he was a great Foreign Secretary. It was a fantastic conference, attended by 1,000 people down at Canada Water. I went along to explain the work of the Council of Europe and more than 250 people came to the session I spoke at. I explained to them that under Article 30 of our human rights charter, media freedom and the safety of journalists are essential. We have this platform, as described earlier, where 12 trade unions and human rights organisations put their information and it is publicised by the Council of Europe. It puts pressure on the countries imprisoning journalists to do something about it. It names and shames those countries.

We are doing something, but we recognise that we have more to do. My socialist colleagues are working hard. As someone said, my noble friend Lord Anderson has done a great deal of work on the legal affairs committee. My noble friend Lady Massey has done a great deal of work on violence against children, helped by my noble friend Lord Touhig. We must not forget my noble friend Lord Prescott, who was our leader with great distinction for many years. He recently completed a report on climate change, which included recommendations on how member states should oversee the implementation of the Paris agreement. I also acknowledge the work of the noble Lords, Lord Balfe, Lord Blencathra and Lord Russell, the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, and the noble Baroness, Lady Eccles. She cannot be here today, but I can testify that she does an excellent job on the committee with me. They make great contributions and the great contributions of the British delegation are really respected by the other countries. The way they react to us is very impressive. I have had the great pleasure of making contact with senators and members of parliament from all over. In fact, I am going to Italy tomorrow, as the guest of Senatore Roberto Rampi, to look at the working of the Italian Senate. Lots of things come out of this.

I hope we are not leaving the European Union—I hope we can stop that—but, although we anticipate leaving it, I want to ask the acting Foreign Secretary, as we understand he is now, to take this opportunity to make a commitment from the Dispatch Box that, whatever happens, we will stay in the Council of Europe. The work we are doing there will be even more important if we, sadly, come out of the European Union. It would be an absolute tragedy if the United Kingdom were not to participate fully in the work of the parliamentary assembly and the Council of Europe as a whole.

Finally, I echo the thanks of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, to Nick Wright and the staff for the work they do to get us there and back safely. I also pay tribute to Sir Roger Gale. I never usually pay tribute to Tories, but he conducts and leads our delegation with tact and skill and involves all the parties. I thank my colleague Martin Whitfield, who is now leader of the Labour group and who works, as I do, with the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, who is about to ask me to do what I am about to do, which is to sit down.