Council of Europe: Local and Regional Democracy

Lord Prescott Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prescott]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Earl on securing this debate on the Council of Europe, in which we have had some activities in the past. He referred to his concern about democracy in its national context, and I, as he knows, have been actively involved in the national democracy in one particular country, Armenia. He will recall that the elections were held for the President of that country. I was the leader of the Labour delegation and appointed to be the rapporteur for Armenia for one of the committees of the House. I went to that country during those elections to observe. I have to tell the noble Earl that the result created a riot; 10 people were killed and 130 were thrown in jail, under the threat that they were usurping the powers of the state. I was sent by the Council of Europe to see what had happened and what we could do about it.

My main influence related to the fact that Armenia had entered into an obligation under the human rights convention to observe the democratic process. I could see, on a very quick visit there, that most of those rights had not been observed. It was an eastern European country coming out of being a communist state and wanted a kind of social democratic European stature. It was therefore concerned to make the changes. I also found that I had to convince the President and the rest of Armenia’s Parliament to rewrite the laws on public protest. I got the 130 people out of jail. The election law was rewritten, as were the laws regarding the press and freedom. Even the judiciary was changed in that process. I congratulate the Parliament in that country for seeking to do those things very quickly.

What was the power and influence that enabled that to happen? It happened largely because the country had signed up to an agreement, and I was able to say, “You have an obligation under your membership of the Council of Europe, and you must observe them, or I will have to report back to the Council that you are not observing them. The Council of Ministers would have to take some kind of action”. When European rights were being used to bring about a more democratic framework, there was a stupid argument going on in the other House about whether prisoners should have the vote and whether, therefore, we should withdraw from the convention on human rights.

What may be different in this country is certainly different there. Funnily enough, in Armenia they do not give prisoners the vote, but on the prisoner issue a number of routes can be pursued. It is the people who want to make the issue to leave Europe. Most of them thought they were in the European Union. It had to be pointed out to them in the debate that this was not the European Union but the Council of Europe, and it was different. Those circumstances are a very important part of maintaining democratic accountability.

What is the position now? We have gone through all sorts of manoeuvres and changes and the Court still accepts that we have got it wrong and wants to hear an alternative from us. What is the alternative? What are the Government doing? Are they going to observe the convention on human rights? If not, they can leave the Council of Europe, because the obligation is on Britain to observe human rights. I do not know where the Government stand on this at the moment. Perhaps the noble Baroness can tell us.

Next week I return to Armenia with a delegation to observe the new presidential elections. I certainly hope that it will go much better. I certainly have more confidence that these changes will make the election more democratic than it was on the last occasion. I am encouraged by the independent group of observers at last year’s election, who reported a 62% turnout—a pity we could not get that here, but let us leave that aside—and a quiet and peaceful, vibrant election. Fabulous. I hope that will happen when I observe the presidential election. Unfortunately, one of the presidential candidates was shot in the shoulder last week, but he has insisted that the election takes place. I am waiting to see, since it will be a cold part of the year. I hope it will be a very colourful and peaceful election.

The Council of Europe can play an important part in the democratic process. Sometimes we forget that, but they have obligations, particularly in eastern Europe, to measure up to the democratic accountability that they promised. Any of us who have had influence and been to these eastern European countries—I will leave Russia out of it for the moment—know that accountability is definitely needed. The Council of Europe can fulfil that role; it is a centre of democratic accountability. It can be used effectively, as it was in Armenia. There is still a lot of work to do, but it is not going to phase itself out and is desperately needed if we want democracy to continue in all parts of Europe.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)]

My Lords, I hope that I shall be able to give your Lordships a reply. I think that I am going down with a parliamentary bug. I shall do my best but if I squeak at noble Lords, I hope they will forgive me.

First, like other noble Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Dundee for tabling this debate. It has, as usual, been a really good debate, with contributions from people who know what they are talking about and who have been closely involved in this subject. My noble friend is a significant member of the Council of Europe and the parliamentary assembly. I am enormously grateful to him because he provided me with great support during our chairmanship of the Council of Europe, when I tried to streamline—as my noble friend Lord Sheikh said—Council of Europe elements.

An effectively operating local democracy is an essential feature of every modern democratic state. Good democratic governance is a foundation on which can be built prosperous and stable societies where there is respect for fundamental freedoms, human rights and the rule of law. The issue of human rights is very germane to the Council of Europe.

It is for each individual state to decide its own governance arrangements, taking into account its own circumstances, traditions and culture. Across Europe there is, rightly, a wide diversity in the form that local and regional democratic governance takes, but throughout there are common principles at heart. This is the context in which states can work together to improve, strengthen and update their own democratic governance. All speakers today have demonstrated why that is important.

As noble Lords know, and have said, the Council of Europe is potentially well placed to provide a framework and mechanisms to support this development of democracy. We referred to the Government’s chairmanship of the Council of Europe. There were two main areas in which we wanted to achieve success. Our top priority was to reform the European Court of Human Rights, the importance of which we recognise. We successfully agreed measures to improve the working of the court.

The second was to streamline the Council of Europe’s activities on local and regional democracy. As the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, said, the great thing about the Council of Europe is that its three elements managed to work entirely separately, not coming together at all. In many cases, these elements were doing exactly the same thing without joining together. It was becoming really important, to get the best out of them, to try to bring them together. Their usefulness was seriously impaired through a lack of co-ordination and collaboration between the three elements: the Committee of Ministers, the parliamentary assembly and the congress.

As noble Lords have heard, these weaknesses were not straightforward. As has been said, there are now 47 member states in the Council of Europe. To try and get 47 member states to agree wholeheartedly to anything was not the easiest thing that we have ever done. In fact, the most we could do was to try and ensure that streamlining took place and that there was far more co-ordination and co-operation between them. The noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, made a powerful speech about what we were trying to do to ensure that everything came together.

Tribute has been paid to Keith Whitmore, who was president of the congress. He was particularly well regarded and helpful when we were trying to do what we wanted to do. Bearing in mind that he was president of the whole congress, he was not able to do anything politically, but he helped us sensibly and sensitively with what we were trying to do. We cannot underestimate what he did. Keith never lost sight of the big picture and that is very important. I also want to put on record how we were helped by the UK delegation to the parliamentary assembly, particularly my noble friend Lord Dundee, and by the contribution of the honourable Member for Mansfield in the other place.

Concerns were raised by the noble Lords, Lord Prescott and Lord Kirkhill, about where we go from here. I accept that there is still considerable room for improvement in the way in which congress and the Council of Europe work together. All the elements are now in place to make things better. The noble Earl asked about the future. The 47 states, through their ambassadors and after more than a year of discussion, agreed in November the programme of intergovernmental work on local and regional democracy. That implements much of the substance of the Chavez report, which was set in train by the Council of Europe precisely to see how it could work better. We have been co-operating with that, and there is now the prospect of Committee Ministers co-operating better in the future. With our influence still there in congress, I believe that we can continue to make progress.

There have been so many stirring speeches. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, strongly drew attention to the lack of democracy in some parts of eastern Europe. I say to the noble Lord that one of the elements of the work of the Council of Europe is to educate emerging nations in democracy. The fact that they are sucked into the Council of Europe is becoming absolutely essential, because it gives them confidence and security not to be blown off-course and sucked back into the communist system. That is really important for us all for the future.

The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, referred to the Baltic states; they all need their confidence boosted, they all want to be part of Europe, and they all want to have the same sort of democracy. One of the roles of the Council of Europe is do just that and to provide that support. Many things have happened in Europe over the last 50 years which we would all prefer had not happened, and that we can never forget about. If the Council of Europe and the European Union help with that, they are making a major contribution to our future.

We intend to continue to assist in Europe by supporting the work of the Council. We are still working with Andorra. The chairmanship passed from Ukraine to us, and from us to Andorra, and there is a sort of seamlessness about it which I hope will continue.

The new congress president, Mr van Staa, has also decided that he wants a better arrangement in the congress. One of our Belgian friends, Mr Lambertz, is committed to improving the structures, but the structures are only important because of the work that the congress and the Council of Europe does. That is going to affect all the things that people have talked about. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkhill, mentioned President Gorbachev’s role, and he asked about the widening of the geographical area of Europe. It is probably as wide as it can go and we cannot take it too much further, but it does not mean that the Council cannot be encouraging.

I was very interested in the influence of the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, in Armenia. That is not somewhere I would have connected with him, but it is good that it was there. He asked for my views on prisoner voting. It would be fair to say that we are still considering our position on that, and I am not going to be able to give him a firm answer to that question today.

[Lord Prescott]

We in this country have been in breach of our human rights obligations; it has been confirmed twice by the courts. Are we not doing anything about it?