Mikheil Saakashvili

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

I can certainly assure the noble Lord that that is exactly our approach. We will continue to raise this directly and with key partners, including in international fora such as the Council of Europe.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, following on from that question, is the Minister aware that monitors from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe visited Georgia last month? They have returned and said that is absolutely vital that the two main parties overcome the extremely polarised political climate. They are Georgian Dream and the United National Movement, which is Mikheil’s own party.

Will the Minister make particular use the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and specifically ask our ambassador to the CoE to raise this issue at the Council of Ministers meeting, so that multilateral action can be taken? As I said during another Question earlier in the week, this kind of multilateral approach is much better than a government-to-government approach, which is sometimes misunderstood.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord and as I have said to him previously, I look forward to working with him directly on this agenda and I pay tribute to his valuable work within the Council of Europe. I am looking specifically at the work of the Council of Europe and will take forward what the noble Lord suggests. Whatever we do in the multilateral fora, as I said to the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, it is also important that we complement, consolidate and strengthen it through our bilateral representations.