Council of Europe: Local and Regional Democracy

Lord Kirkhill Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kirkhill]

My Lords, I rise with considerable pleasure to thank the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, for introducing this debate. We do not talk about the Council of Europe often enough in this Chamber. Indeed, we do not talk about external organisations often enough. The debate gives us an opportunity to say something about this important body. I emphasise at the outset that the Council of Europe does not, as such, have a statutory authority, but it is the guardian of the Convention on Human Rights and there is, of course, the court in Strasbourg.

A glance at the recent history of the Council of Europe gives an indication of its place in the scheme of things today. In 1989, which is going back a bit, President Gorbachev made his first major European speech. He made the speech in Strasbourg and his theme was that the Council of Europe could become Europe’s common home. What prompted him to develop that theme? Simply put, Europe’s new democracies were a considerable distance from membership of the European Union which was, without doubt, their ultimate aim. It still is, although most have now been able to join. It therefore fell to the Council of Europe to monitor their political and legal aspirations, to keep in touch with the new development and to attempt to assess the legal difficulties some of these new democracies faced, to which end the Committee on Legal Affairs traversed most of Europe much of the time, perhaps for too many months in my own case.

I am getting past making relevant contributions in your Lordships’ House and I forgot to say that the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, has played a significant role in attempting to develop within the European framework a prison system that is tolerable and humane. He has pushed very hard for change in certain areas. It is correct publicly to state that and to commend the noble Earl for those endeavours.

The recent UK chairmanship of the Council gives an opportunity to decide on future regional and local initiatives. Does the Council envisage an association with the Maghreb states? Do the Government envisage the geographic delineation of the Council to move further eastwards than it presently extends? Does the Council feel that its local government—that is to say bringing together the difficulties envisaged by some local authorities and placing the question to others for amelioration—has always been rather cumbersome and not likely to achieve any positive result? These matters should be discussed.

The Council of Europe now finds itself in a position where most of the aspirant states that were young democracies have now been able to join the European Union, which was always their principal aim. They are now much more interested in supporting initiatives of the European Union than they are of the Council of Europe. This diminishes the current role of the Council and its European responsibilities, other than maintaining and underpinning the court in Strasbourg. It is important to understand that the Council of Europe today is more criticised, rather than supported, than was ever the case in the past. These are defining days for the Council of Europe and I await with interest the Minister’s response to these few remarks.