Council of Europe (UK Chairmanship)

David T C Davies Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his remarks.

In February we debated the sovereignty and decision making of this House in relation to a particular judgment. By refusing to accept the sovereignty of our Parliament and the democratic decision making of this House, Europe is demonstrating a lack of legitimacy and democratic accountability, which I find astonishing given that the Council of Europe was established precisely to promote democracy. Therefore, in my view, attacking our Parliament and seeking to undermine our democracy is simply counter-productive.

The prisoner votes issue is just one well-known example of the problem—and it is still ongoing. There are other similar Strasbourg decisions, however, such as in the Sufi and Elmi case, where Britain was prevented on human rights grounds from deporting two individuals back to Somalia, despite their being responsible for a very serious spate of crimes, including threats to kill, robbery and dealing in class A drugs. We should bear in mind that such decisions can end up setting a legal precedent, so they can impact on subsequent deportation cases. In the Sufi and Elmi case, human rights were used as an excuse to allow people to remain in Britain.

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a number of excellent points. Does she agree that the human rights of violent criminals and terrorists are too often being put ahead of the human rights of law-abiding British subjects? She is right to draw attention to that.

[Priti Patel]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point so clearly and succinctly. Our chairmanship of the Council of Europe is coming up and this is a big opportunity for us to address, if nothing else, the perception issues and the fact that we need to remain vigilant on these matters to ensure that powers and decision making stay in this country.

In pulling my remarks together, I wish to emphasise to the Minister and the Government that there are issues to be addressed. Britain is signed up to a range of international agreements on human rights-related matters, which are all welcome and important. However, decisions on human rights laws must be brought back home, because having British courts interpreting British laws is a better and more democratic position than having European judges and their officials ignoring our national interest. It is unhelpful and counter-productive for them to be foisting their particular laws on us.

It is time to draw a line in the sand on many of these matters, and to free up our courts, our public bodies and, in particular, Parliament from some of the excessive intrusion and integration on human rights matters that we have seen. I hope that, through the chairmanship of the Council of Europe, the Government will take this opportunity to address these matters, in addition to the areas of priority that the Minister outlined.

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[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

May I, too, begin by congratulating the Europe Minister on a speech that I think united not just all on the Government Benches but many members of all parties? It is obvious that he intends the chairmanship of the Council of Europe to be used in a positive way and to reform the European Court of Human Rights, which I fully support. That institution was set up in 1949, as we have heard, when we had just come out of a war against dictators and other dictators were still ruling parts of Europe—as they did until well into my lifetime, in the 1970s. It was right that a country with 1,000 years of democracy and a history of supporting human rights should be part of that process, and we should be proud of what we have done and achieved. However, there are things that have come out of the Court that rightly give everyone concern. I wish briefly to mention two with which I have had a personal involvement.

First, a lady came to speak at a meeting I organised about four years ago. I have not spoken to her this afternoon, so I will not mention her name, but she has been in the papers. She was the victim of a sexual assault by somebody who had five convictions for sexually assaulting women, but who was successfully able to use article 8 of the European convention on human rights to ensure that he was not deported back to Sierra Leone. That is a very good example of the human rights of women in this country not being put first. We are putting the rights of rapists and serial sex attackers first, and that has to be wrong.

The second issue, which has also been mentioned today, is the interference in the Government’s decision to try to raise the age for marrying a foreign spouse from 18 to 21. When I served on the Home Affairs Committee under the excellent chairmanship of the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who was here earlier, we took part in an inquiry into forced marriages. We heard terrible and shocking evidence that they were widespread in some communities, and that some young women had said in private to British embassy officials, “Please don’t give this man a visa. I don’t want to marry him,” but were unable to say that in public because of family pressure. As a result, judges in immigration tribunals did not take account of evidence that had been given in private, and they granted spouse visas. That is why the Government wanted to raise the age—to protect the human rights of young females in certain communities in this country. That should be a priority.

I absolutely support gay rights and think it is totally unacceptable that anyone should be discriminated against because of their sexual orientation. I sometimes think, though, that that battle has already been won. I would not have thought that many people would think that acceptable any more, certainly in this country. I therefore wonder whether we should prioritise what I think is an even bigger issue for all of us—the thousands of young girls in this country and across Europe, and young males in some instances, who become the victims of forced marriage, domestic slavery, genital mutilation and other such completely unacceptable things.

I am not a member of the Council of Europe, although I would be more than happy to support it in any way if I were asked to do so. None the less, I look forward very much to the UK’s chairmanship of that organisation, and to seeing some of the reforms that have been mentioned today.