Council of Europe: House of Lords Members’ Contribution

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, for initiating this debate. As he pointed out, many of the contributors to this debate are delegates to the Assembly. I rise as one of the few contributors who is not a delegate, and I will come back to that point in a moment.

As the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, pointed out, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe goes back 70 years. It is a precursor to the European Parliament. Unlike the European Parliament, it is not directly elected, although it is very much the reason why the European Parliament was established—that goes back to the idea of Pandora’s box letting out Trojan horses. The view when the European Coal and Steel Community was set up was that if the Council of Europe was to have an assembly, there needed to be a democratic element to this new European community as well.

Almost immediately, the European Parliament—or the common assembly, as it was known—saw delegates sitting together not as representatives of their own member states in national groups, but in parliamentary groups working on a cross-national basis. Gradually, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe did the same. Therefore, the British delegates do not sit as British delegates but as members of cross-party or parliamentary groups. This is important, because it enables representatives of the British Parliament to talk to fellow parliamentarians from other member states as parliamentarians. At the time of leaving the European Union—assuming that we do—the UK will remain part of the Council of Europe and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Brexit or no Brexit, deal or no deal. This will be one of the fora that places greater emphasis and importance on parliamentarians speaking to their opposite numbers: to fellow European parliamentarians.

Clearly, the appointment and the role of parliamentarians is a matter for Parliament, not for Her Majesty’s Government per se. We have a new Prime Minister, and I am delighted that the Minister is still in his place at the moment—it is 6.25pm. We very much hope that he will remain there, not only because he is an excellent Minister but because we would, I suspect, like to conclude this debate today. However, I have some questions for him to send back to the Prime Minister and the other place. If our contribution to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is to be important, may I suggest that the Minister point out to the Prime Minister and his colleagues in the other place that representation is important and that in order to continue having the sort of influence the Prime Minister suggested this afternoon on the steps of No. 10 that he wants to have for global Britain, it will be important to send the right people to participate in the Assembly. That is important for parliamentary reasons and party reasons—but far be it from me to suggest who the Tories ought to send.

The noble Lord, Lord Balfe, pointed out that some parties are not represented in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The first party in the European Parliament to come together with its fellow parliamentarians was the Liberal family. At present there are no Liberal Democrats in the assembly because the appointments are made on the basis not of the election results per se or the composition of Parliament, but of the composition of the House of Commons. I wonder whether the Minister might consider this. After the next general election, which we are led to believe might be quite soon, the composition could be designed not on the basis of the number of MPs a party has but on its percentage vote in the most recent general election. That would perhaps be a little more representative. There may not be a Liberal Democrat representative in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe at present, but, my Lords, we will be back.