Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, on securing this debate. He has described the situation in the OSCE so clearly that all I can do in my remarks is supplement some of the things he said, rather than repeat them. I have been a member of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly for some years. It has been a great privilege and opportunity, even if, inevitably, I have some criticisms of the organisation.

Let me say a little more about the noble Lord, Lord Bowness. He is widely respected across the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. He has a superb reputation, and he enhances our reputation as a country because of the key part he plays. If he had wanted to stand for president, he would have been elected pretty well unanimously, but he did not want to. I say to the Minister with all sincerity that, given that the previous lead of our delegation had to stop after he became a government Whip in the Commons, I think the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, would be the best person to resume leadership of our delegation. I am a friend of his, but I think it would be good for this country and our delegation if he were to do that. He is so well-regarded across all members of the OSCE.

Our membership is important because it is yet another way in which we maintain international links, in this case with parliamentarians not just across Europe, but from North America and Asia. There are some positive and negative aspects, one of which is that we from the UK and some other countries are there as parliamentarians, not as messengers from the Government. We are there as independent parliamentarians, who come to our own views. We can be critical of our Government; we seldom are, but we reserve that right. The delegations from some countries see it differently—this is not a criticism of the way it works—and regard their members as being there to speak on behalf of their Governments. It is a sort of government handout, which nullifies the benefit of the parliamentary assembly because it means we are simply getting the party line from some countries, but not all because many members are independent.

Let me give you an example. There was once a resolution to a plenary that was critical of a regime in central Asia. The ambassador from that country came to see me and demanded that I vote against the resolution criticising his Government. First, I said, “I don’t think so”. His Government was accused of human rights breaches. Secondly, I said, “It’s interesting. The only time you want to see people like me is when there is a criticism of your Government. The OSCE is not meant to be the voice of Governments.” Since then, I have been inundated with emails from him, but that is my punishment for having said that. That shows the way in which some countries see it in a way which we do not. Of course, parliamentarians from many countries act independently and reserve the right to differ from their Governments.

I appreciate the helpful Foreign Office briefings we get before plenaries. When we meet in Vienna once a year—the other plenaries tend to be in different countries—our ambassador to the OSCE hosts a helpful working dinner, to which he brings his senior people, so we get a pretty good briefing on all the key issues. I hope the Minister passes on our appreciation for the work that is done, the time put in and how helpful that is.

There are several committees within the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. I am an active member of the migration committee, which is especially effective. It is well-serviced by excellent OSCE staff, and it carries out an overview of migration issues in Europe and beyond. When we visit sensitive areas, which I do not always have the time to do, we get good access to government Ministers and others so it is a useful effort. The migration committee of the OSCE is one of the great successes of the parliamentary assembly, and I am privileged to be a member of it.

The plenary sessions are less useful sometimes, as they tend to get into traditional areas of dispute. Whatever the theoretical topic, of either the full plenary or the human rights committee, which is also large, they tend to get into traditional arguments about Cyprus, Armenia, Ukraine and so on. Whatever the topic, parliamentarians tend to have a go at each other, which is a pity because it does not add much value to the plenary. Within that structure, there is also an opportunity to raise issues of concern. I have been involved in debates on human rights, detention in Guantanamo, freedom of the press and anti-Semitism.

Sometimes there are what we in political parties call fringe meetings as an addition to the plenary which take place in the same venue in the gaps between plenary sessions. An American senator initiated a very useful discussion on anti-Semitism and hate speech generally. We have also had discussions on the Magnitsky sanctions and Bill Browder spoke. In fact, one of the first times I heard of him was when he came to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and we had a plenary. Within it, we had a fringe discussion about what had happened to Bill Browder, the terrible stories of what happened to his friend and his argument that there should be Magnitsky sanctions. These arguments have now been much more widely adopted as a way of punishing countries that are in great breach of human rights.

Another useful activity is election monitoring. Again, there is not as much time to do this as I would like, but I have been on some very interesting election monitoring visits. Although we do not uncover enormous scandals, the fact that we are there keeps the process cleaner than it would otherwise be because they know we are going to go to a polling station. They know which town we are allocated to, but we chose which polling station we go to. We just appear there and have a look at it.

The tricky thing in some countries is that they open the ballot boxes at the start of the counting session, then at the end of the election when the polls close—at 8 pm or whenever it is—the votes are counted in the polling station. So we not only monitor the way in which the ballot papers are checked when they arrive at the polling station before the polls open, as all sorts of things could happen if it was not kept under close control, but also the counting. I have seen counting that has gone very efficiently. It is normally inefficiencies in the process that I have noticed rather than any breaches of the electoral regulations in the country. It is an interesting process. Election monitoring also has a benefit in that one sees parts of the country one is monitoring that one would not normally see in the normal course of events. I have really enjoyed, for example, going to eastern Turkey. I have done monitoring in Serbia and in other countries.

I value my membership. I very much appreciate the privilege of being there and being able to meet parliamentarians from many countries. As the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, has said, I would like to feel that we are not beneath the radar of the Government, and that the Government pay tribute to the important work that goes on in the OSCE and to the importance to the United Kingdom of our activity in the OSCE. It is a useful forum where we can express our views. I think we are pretty well respected by OSCE countries for the contributions we make, so it is up to the Government to respond positively.