Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy

Heather Wheeler Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2016 General Committees

[The Chair]

Before we begin, I will briefly outline the procedure. First, a member of the European Scrutiny Committee may make a five-minute statement about the decision of that Committee to refer the documents for debate. The Minister will then make a statement of no more than 10 minutes. Questions to the Minister will follow. The total time for the statement and subsequent questions and answers is up to one hour. Once questions have ended, the Minister moves the motion for debate. We must conclude our proceedings by 7 pm.

Does a member of the European Scrutiny Committee wish to make a brief explanatory statement?

[Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. It might assist the Committee if I briefly explain the background to the document and why the European Scrutiny Committee recommended it for debate on the Floor of the House.

The newly adopted EU action plan on human rights and democracy for 2015 to 2019 replaces the first such action plan, which covered the period 2012 to 2014. The newly adopted action plan, which is due to be reviewed in 2017, sets out the practical steps that the EU and its member states will take in the next four years to develop existing EU external action on human rights and democracy worldwide. It will be implemented by the EU External Action Service, the Commission, the Council, member states and the EU special representative for human rights.

The plan consists of five strategic objectives, based on five guiding principles and involving 32 actions. The principles broadly cover ways of improving the effectiveness and assessment of external EU human rights activities. One principle requires a focus on the most pressing human rights challenges for the action plan: combating discrimination; respect for freedom of expression and privacy; freedom of religion and belief; combating torture, ill treatment and the death penalty; promoting gender equality, women’s rights, children’s rights and economic, social and cultural rights; encouraging corporate social responsibility; and ensuring that human rights are upheld in migration, trade or counter-terrorism policies. The Government regard the document as broadly complementary to UK foreign policy, although they have taken some action on the division of competencies between the EU and member states in the plan’s implementation.

The European Scrutiny Committee recommended a debate on the document on the Floor of the House because of its evident interest to the wider House, specifically the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the Justice Committee, the Women and Equalities Committee and the International Development Committee. We shall now put to proof the Government’s position that the document is better suited to scrutiny in Committee because that affords a “longer and structured” debate. The European Scrutiny Committee requested a better and more detailed account of the document, which it had not received before this debate, and this debate can explore why.

The European Scrutiny Committee was particularly concerned that the Government have not deposited in the UK Parliament a related document, the 2014 “Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World”, which is a record of how the EU has implemented policy in this area over the past year. It is therefore useful as a benchmark for the action plan, particularly in such areas as the EU’s review of its neighbourhood policy. That is crucial because the document not having been placed in the Library meant that the Committee could not do due diligence on the background of the paperwork. That is why we asked for a debate in the Chamber.

Since the debate recommendation, the European Scrutiny Committee has tagged to the debate its reports on transitional justice as an example of actions included in the action plan; on a Court of Auditor’s report on the effectiveness of EU funding of action to oppose torture and the death penalty in third countries; and on a new and increased proposed budget for the EU special representative. The Committee wanted the Minister’s assessment of whether he considers all the actions within the current action plan to be a good use of EU funding, and how the Government intend to monitor that. Those are matters of high prominence for many Members, so the Committee requested a debate in the Chamber.

[The Chair]

I call the Minister to make an opening statement. I remind the Committee that interventions are not allowed during the statement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lidington]

To take the second question first, that will depend in part on which spending programme we are talking about, because the decision-making procedures may vary a bit accordingly. The senior-level people in the EEAS and the Commission would have responsibility in the first place for drawing up proposals and allocating funding from the budget agreed by member states under the various headings of the European Union annual budget and multi-annual financial framework. Those positions by the institutions are subject to oversight by the European Union Political and Security Committee ambassadors in Brussels, and ultimately by Ministers in the Foreign Affairs Council and the European Council.

Decisions on foreign policy are taken by unanimity, as the hon. Lady knows, so every member state has a veto, but what would happen is that a paper might be brought forward by the High Representative on foreign policy that would describe the European Union’s external actions in relation to a third country, let us say for the sake of example Pakistan. There would probably be a human rights element to that, and there would be an indication of the spending that would be involved to fund the programme. Then the member states could agree or disagree. There would be a process of negotiation, and then the final plan would be signed off.

Clearly, subsequent monitoring and auditing will be important. To answer the hon. Lady’s first question, I am always looking for ways to extract better value for money; that applies as much to UK domestic spending as to EU spending. It is a duty on any Minister in any Government. There are always improvements that can be made. Often, when I have had to deal with auditors’ reports on some of the common security and defence policy missions, I have said that we need to bring pressure to bear to deal with the shortcomings revealed by the auditor’s report. I think that the European Court of Auditors, at its best, acts in the same way as the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee here. That is the principle—we should always be looking for ways to improve matters—but by and large, I think that this area of EU activity amplifies the human rights work that the UK would be trying to do bilaterally.

[Heather Wheeler]

If we are almost drawing to a close, I ask the Minister again whether, having given us all those answers, he is not as convinced as the European Scrutiny Committee that the measures ought to have a debate in the full Chamber, as there are so many areas in it of great interest across the House.

[Mr Lidington]

If my hon. Friend looks at the track record of the current Government and their predecessor coalition Government, she will see that many more debates on documents referred by the European Scrutiny Committee have been held on the Floor of the House than was the case under predecessor Governments. It is always a difficult balance for the Government to strike in terms of the allocation of parliamentary time and we feel that we are granting a fair share of the Committee’s requests for debates on the Floor of the House. I can remember a previous Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee saying to me that he could remember being told informally by the Whips in the life of a previous Government that he could have two Floor debates a year and that he should decide which two he wanted out of the many documents that came through his Committee. We have had a lot more than two.

Any Member of the House of Commons is entitled to attend and speak at the European Committees. I take my hon. Friend’s point that a lot of Members, one would think, might be interested in human rights questions, especially given the number of lobbying campaigns to which we are all subjected by different pressure groups on behalf of human rights defenders of various countries, but our colleagues do not turn up in those numbers. The opportunity is there for hon. Members to take part if they wish to avail themselves of it.