Russian Membership of the Council of Europe

Debate between Alan Meale and David Lidington

Wednesday 11th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)]

I echo the comments of my colleagues who welcomed you to the Chair, Mrs Brooke, and I wish you well after you step down from the House of Commons at the forthcoming election. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) on securing and leading what has been throughout an extremely serious-minded and thoughtful debate about not only Ukraine, but the more general relationship between the United Kingdom and the west and Russia and how we should address the challenges that we currently face.

I rather agreed with my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) when he said that there has been a tendency in the west to underestimate the extent to which people in Russia see the era of Gorbachev and Yeltsin as a national humiliation. Nevertheless, I do not believe that that suggests that the west has provoked President Putin and the current Russian Government in the way that he sometimes tries to claim. When looking back over the past 10 years or so, we see an effort by western countries to try to involve Russia in those international organisations that are the core of a rules-based international order. We have seen Russia brought into the G7, which became the G8; into the World Trade Organisation and the OECD; and into organisations such as the Council of Europe, which has been at the heart of today’s debate.

The right hon. Member for Warley (Mr Spellar) was correct to remind the House that we are looking not only at Ukraine, nor even only at Ukraine and Georgia, but at a number of areas where, in recent years, Russia has demonstrated a more aggressive pursuit of its national interests and posed a greater challenge to a rules-based international system—or at least, a system that we had hoped was rules-based. He mentioned cyber attacks and the increase in air and naval activity. I could add to that list the abduction of an Estonian official from Estonian soil. He is still in prison in Moscow, where he has been for six months without evidence being brought against him. I could also add the use of energy and strategic investments as a weapon of Russian power, the 2007 suspension of Russian participation in the conventional forces in Europe treaty and the fact that, only yesterday, Russia announced that it would suspend its participation in the Joint Consultative Group, the committee in Vienna that monitors the CFE treaty.

[Sir Alan Meale]

Perhaps the Minister could add to that list trade with Armenia. Recently, Armenia agreed to move closer to the European Union, resulting in a direct threat from Russia that if it continued to move away from the Commonwealth of Independent States, Russia would instead trade with nearby partners.

[Mr Lidington]

The hon. Gentleman puts the point well, and one could add other items to that list.

We face not only a crisis over Ukraine, but an issue of principle. After the break-up of the Soviet Union, the international community, including the Russian Federation, recognised the republics that then became independent states as sovereign and entitled to determine their own future. The question now is whether we believe that that is an important principle that should be upheld for both legal and political reasons, or that Russia is justified in trying to exert some kind of informal imperium over those countries that used to be part of the Soviet Union.

Council of Europe (UK Chairmanship)

Debate between Alan Meale and David Lidington

Thursday 27th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Meale (Mansfield) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Lidington]

I will give way one last time, and then I must make progress.

[Sir Alan Meale]

Will the Minister confirm a bit of information? As he touched on earlier, there are about 800 million people, comprising 47 nations, in the greater European area. I hope that he will confirm for Members on both sides of the House that, on all the judgments that the Court has made so far, this country has never refused to endorse the Court’s findings.

[Mr Lidington]

Yes, the hon. Gentleman is right.

The convention played an important role after the second world war in re-establishing democracy and the rule of law across western Europe. It played a vital role after the cold war in leading the former states of the Soviet Union and its satellites to start adopting the principles of democratic liberalism. The convention remains crucial in tackling the murder of journalists in Russia, for example, or questions of religious freedom in Turkey. There are also telling recent examples of its relevance here at home—for example, in preventing the misuse of stop-and-search powers.

The problem is not with the fundamental principles of human rights expressed through the convention, but there are real issues that rightly cause concern in this House and more widely—issues that, as my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) pointed out, matter to all countries that are party to the convention and members of the Council of Europe. Those relate to the operation of the Court in Strasbourg. The United Kingdom is a strong supporter of the Court and recognises its important role, but it is not working as it should, for at least two reasons.

First, as my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds rightly said, it is struggling under a huge workload, and drowning under a backlog of more than 150,000 cases, which is growing by roughly 20,000 additional cases each year. The eightfold increase in case loads since 2001 shows that a sensible refocusing on what really matters is not a subject that can simply be deferred for another day; it is an urgent priority.

That urgency is illustrated further by the fact that more than 90% of cases before the Court, when they finally get to the top of the queue and are properly considered, or found to be inadmissible, simply do not come within the scope of the convention, or the procedural rules are found not to have been observed. For cases involving the United Kingdom that figure is higher. Roughly 97% of cases brought against the United Kingdom are found to be inadmissible—and that is before we get on to whether in the other cases—the minority—the finding is for or against the country alleged to have broken the terms of the convention. The backlog is the first reason why there is an urgent need to reform the court.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lidington]

With respect, I may correct the hon. Gentleman, because the chairmanship proceeds in alphabetical sequence, so the Albanians will take over from us. I can certainly assure him, however, that the Foreign Secretary and I remain completely committed to doing all that lies within our power to work for an outcome in Cyprus that brings about the creation of a bi-zonal and bi-communal federation, with equal rights for all communities, and in compliance with the relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions. It is not for the United Kingdom to determine what happens in Cyprus, because the process has to be Cypriot led if it is to work and if there is to be an enduring accord, but we give what support we can to the communities in Cyprus and to the work of the UN Secretary-General and his special envoy, Alexander Downer.

[Sir Alan Meale]

rose—

[Mr Lidington]

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will not give way, because he has had one bite of the cherry and I want to make progress. I do not want to be sidetracked into a further debate about Cyprus, which I am sure the House will have an opportunity to discuss in the future.

We have a unique opportunity to secure improvements to the Court, to enhance its credibility, the rule of law and the protection of human rights and to ensure that the legitimate decisions and traditions of national courts and legal systems are properly respected.

Hon. Members will be only too aware of the domestic backdrop to the programme, about which there is great interest abroad. The House will know, too, that the Government have established an independent commission with a remit to investigate the creation of a UK Bill of Rights, which would incorporate and build on all our obligations under the convention. I hope that the commission’s work will assist in bringing clarity to an area of contentious debate, and indeed it has already advised the Government very usefully on Court reform, but to avoid any doubt let me reaffirm that in the Government’s mind there is no question of the UK leaving the European convention on human rights. The coalition’s programme for government makes very clear our commitment to the convention and to the values it embodies.

The Attorney-General, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), commented on this subject very eloquently on Monday just gone, saying:

“The United Kingdom signed the Convention on the first day it was open for signature...The United Kingdom was the first country to ratify the Convention the following year. The United Kingdom will not be the first country to leave the Convention.”

I have spoken at length about Court reform, but our goals for our chairmanship touch on other significant matters, and I would like to close by turning briefly to them.

Cyprus

Debate between Alan Meale and David Lidington

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Lidington]

No, it does not. The hon. Gentleman draws me on to comments that I was about to make.

Far be it from me to criticise a distinguished elder statesman such as the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), but I am happy to make it clear that the Government’s position is to support a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation with political equality for a united Cyprus. We do not support partition. As the hon. Member for Wansbeck has said, as one of the guarantor powers, we are bound by treaty not only to resist but to prohibit any step that would lead either to the partition of Cyprus or to its unification with any other country. The new British Government remain in support of that position on the present and future status of Cyprus.

[Mr Meale]

Does the Minister agree that there would be a great danger if Britain’s policy moved away from the one that he has expressed? If we break the treaty signed in the ‘60s that gave independence to Cyprus, it would break all other parts of the treaty. That could affect the British bases on the island.

[Mr Lidington]

As a general principle, if one signs and ratifies a treaty, one should stick by its obligations. That is what we intend to do.

Important British interests are at stake in the search for a settlement in Cyprus. The amount of human misery in Cyprus, whichever community we are talking about, would in itself justify making the search for a settlement a political priority; but there are also hard-headed British national interests at stake. Although a peaceful and lasting settlement in Cyprus would not, as others have said, remove all obstacles to Turkish accession to the European Union, it would remove one of the most significant blocks to that process. I believe and the Government believe that Turkish membership of the European Union is in the interests not just of the UK, but of Europe as a whole. A settlement would also make possible the effective co-operation between NATO and the European Union that has been impossible for so many years, because of the stand-off between Turkey and Cyprus over the events of 1974 and what has happened since.

I hope that both sides in the negotiations and especially at the forthcoming meeting in New York can continue to show both flexibility and leadership. The leaders have the full support of the international community and they need to grasp the opportunity to find a solution before that window closes.