Relations with Europe

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I will focus my speech on the Council of Europe. I suspect I am preaching to the converted because the Minister and I actually met as joint members of the Parliamentary Assembly for the Council of Europe in 2018. Since then, I have had the privilege of being the lone Cross-Bench non-political member of the parliamentary assembly.

I would describe the last six and a half years as witnessing a state of not particularly benign neglect by previous Governments, and I think that there is now a chance for a real reset. We were a founding member of the Council of Europe in 1949. We are one of the four “grand payeurs”, those who pay the most money into the organisation, together with France, Germany and Italy. We have an excellent track record in front of the European Court of Human Rights, despite whatever at least one of the contenders for the leadership of His Majesty’s loyal Opposition appears to believe.

However, we have had a very limited focus and attention from previous Governments on our membership. There has been what I would describe as a somewhat indiscriminate choice of members. In the case of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and others, at the time I joined most of them were chosen because they were not supporters of the then leader of the Labour Party, and it was a convenient way of getting them out of Westminster for certain weeks during the year. In my experience, the majority of MPs who are on the parliamentary assembly, from whichever party, have little interest and rarely even bother to come or participate. If they do wish to do so, it is particularly disappointing when, in my experience, the Whips in another place do not give people slips to go and do their duty in the parliamentary assembly.

The Council of Europe gives us a real opportunity to exercise a high degree of soft power rather effectively. Most of the key elements are not well known. The European Court of Human Rights is well known, as is perhaps the council’s support for Ukraine, but it is also the repository of about 200 or more conventions on a whole variety of areas, excluding defence. These include cybercrime and anti-money laundering—I suspect these are subjects close to the heart of the noble Baroness, Lady Hodge, and she would be a very welcome member of the parliamentary assembly if she was chosen by her party. It covers artificial intelligence, anti-doping in sport, anti-corruption, prevention of torture, data protection, criminal law co-operation, the quality of medicines and avoiding counterfeit medicines, the environment, the protection of wildlife and habitats, human rights and, of course, the Istanbul convention.

My plea to the new Government is: for goodness’ sake, please take the Council of Europe seriously. We should be extremely proud of having been a founder and we really should take it more seriously. I appeal to the Minister to tell the Chief Whips in both Houses—Sir Alan Campbell in another place and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, in this House—the Minister for Europe, Stephen Doughty, the Lord Chancellor, Shabana Mahmood, and the Attorney-General, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hermer, who is in this House, that we need a complete and utter reset. We need quality people on the parliamentary assembly and, from the party in office, really strong leadership, not dissimilar to the leadership Sir Roger Gale gave very effectively prior to 2019.

I end with a tribute to those in Strasbourg, our ambassador Sandy Moss and his outstanding team, who support and give the United Kingdom a voice probably beyond the degree of input that we give it. I also pay tribute to Nick Wright and his team here in Whitehall, who enable us to take part so effectively.