EU Charter of Fundamental Human Rights

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

Baroness Ashton is an office holder, in accordance with the treaties, as both vice-president of the Commission and High Representative of the European Union. She can speak out on foreign policy issues in that capacity; what she cannot legitimately do is express a view purporting to be the commonly agreed policy of the European Union, and therefore on behalf of all 27 member states, unless the decision to adopt a common position has been taken by those member states.

In practice, what happens is that a common foreign and security policy position is adopted. An incident may then occur—another outrage in Syria, for example. Nobody quarrels with the idea that Baroness Ashton would comment on that, just as my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary would; the test is whether the statements are in line with the foreign policy position that has been unanimously agreed. In my experience, Baroness Ashton has observed very well the requirements of the treaty and the importance of unanimity for a commonly agreed position.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Is the Minister aware of the widespread concern among Members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe? We already have a perfectly good commissioner for human rights. Given that the Government’s rhetoric is all about avoiding competence creep by the EU and that we already have a perfectly good person doing a perfectly good job on behalf of nation states throughout Europe, we cannot understand why we are going along with the measure. The Minister has to reassure us further that in no way will it go against British national policy.

[Mr Lidington]

I have explained why the measure does not cut across British national policy, but I will come in greater detail to the relationship between the EU special representative and the Council of Europe.

I turn to the action plan. The European Scrutiny Committee noted that it is a comprehensive text and suggested that it constitutes a departure from the approach outlined in the previous joint communication. The High Representative has described human rights as

“a silver thread that runs through everything that we do in external relations.”

That is very much how the Government see human rights, too. In 2010, early in the Government’s life, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said that

“values are part of our national DNA and will be woven deeply into the decision-making processes of our foreign policy at every stage.”

The action plan is comprehensive, because integrating a human rights perspective across all areas of the EU’s external action is the best way to ensure that the European Union maximises its influence on these issues.

We did not just agree to the action plan on the nod. We conducted a line-by-line assessment of the items, and we are content that what is proposed is in line with our policy objectives and does not pose a risk of competence creep. In addition, the Council has formally agreed that the action plan will fully respect the existing division of competencies. Although it is a comprehensive document, it both builds on the original joint communication and has been examined closely by the Government on precisely the question of competence that concerns my hon. Friend.