UK–EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement: Foreign Workers

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Wednesday 10th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

Well, I think I explained our obligations to the noble Lord, Lord Hendy. We continue to place great value on the role of the Council of Europe in advancing work on human rights, democracy and the rule of law across Europe. It has been and will continue to be important to the UK’s human rights and foreign policy agenda.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, the new Justice Secretary is on record for calling the Council of Europe’s convention on human rights “feckless” and “undemocratic”. Now the Government have signalled that they wish to dilute the commitments under the Council of Europe’s Social Charter. Is this part of an agenda to seek trade agreements with countries that do not adhere to all eight of the ILO conventions and to the Social Charter? Will the Minister state clearly whether we will have stronger or lesser labour rights as a result of these moves?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, we will have an immigration system in which, wherever in the world you come from, there will be fairness. We are not considering withdrawing from the charter and I have explained about the human rights aspect. The CESC allows us to denounce all the charter or specific provisions. There is a huge list of countries, so we would not be alone in not implementing Article 18(2).