Council of Europe (UK Chairmanship)

Oliver Heald Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Emma Reynolds]

I agree that the Court needs to be reformed, and I will come to that, but I do not agree with everything that the hon. Gentleman said. Like the Minister for Europe, I have not had a chance to read my former colleague’s memoirs.

The Council today is very different from when it was first established, and Europe has changed beyond recognition. The rush of countries to join the Council of Europe in the years following the fall of communism extended its membership and reach significantly. Today, the Council of Europe has 47 member countries, covering 800 million people, and a vast land mass stretching from Reykjavik to Vladivostok—that is a tongue twister. It has led the way in protecting and promoting the rule of law, human rights and democracy in Europe. Many hon. Members, past and present, have taken part in the Council of Europe’s election monitoring to ensure that democracy is upheld in every member state, and I commend them for that. I want to join the Europe Minister in commending the work of the UK delegation to the Council of Europe.

[Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

The hon. Lady mentioned some distinguished contributions to the Council of Europe by Conservatives in past years. Does she agree that the leader of our delegation, my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Mr Walter), has played a very distinguished part in the current process to change the rules of the Parliamentary Assembly to make the way in which it operates more streamlined and effective?

[Emma Reynolds]

I join the hon. Gentleman in that view. I recognise that Members across this House have played very important roles in the Council of Europe at different times.

Despite the fact that a Conservative Government were the driving force behind the European convention on human rights, a Labour Government put those rights into UK law in 1999, and we are proud of that. The Human Rights Act 1998 gives British citizens the right to bring cases before British courts rather than having to petition European judges directly. Although we remain committed to the European convention and the European Court, we also recognise that the Court needs reform. The Government have said today that its reform should be a priority for our forthcoming chairmanship, and I support that.

As has been mentioned, the Government set up an independent commission that has presented interim recommendations concerning that reform. The commission highlighted three areas that need to be addressed: the need substantially to reduce the number of cases brought before the Court; the need to consider the remedies that the Court may grant; and the need to improve the process of selecting high-quality judges.

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[Mr Walter]

I think the hon. Gentleman knows that I am an avowed supporter of Turkish membership of the European Union, but that does not mean that I will in any way make excuses for the Turkish Government’s non-compliance with their international obligations. I also regret the Turkish Prime Minister’s statement that Turkey would not participate in any discussions with the EU should Cyprus take on the presidency of the Council of Ministers. That is a wrong decision, as I have said to many Turkish colleagues.

To return to the question of EU accession, I wish to refer for a moment to the role of the European Parliament. It has been conceded that when it comes to the question of the election of judges, the European Parliament will have the same rights as the largest member states. We are one of those five largest member states. However, the draft arrangements go on to give the European Parliament special treatment, which I think is unjustified. It will have an ex officio place on the sub-committee that interviews the candidates for the post of judge in the European Court of Human Rights. As the leader of one of the other large delegations, I ask why I cannot appoint an ex officio member to that sub-committee on the basis that I should have the same voting rights as the European Parliament.

Under its internal mechanisms, the European Parliament will have the power to veto the three candidates who are on the shortlist. No other Parliament has that power. It will also have the power to be on the sub-committee that interviews the candidates. I contend that that will create an uneven playing field, and I hope we will resist it when we come to debate EU accession.

[Oliver Heald]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one thing that is quite hard to understand for people who are not on the Council, or regularly attending it, is that some of the largest member countries are not in the EU? They are proud countries, and sadly often ones that are on the receiving end of judgments of the Court. If the arrangements that are made do not seem to be fair and equal right across the Council of Europe area, it affects how they look at the Council and its judgments. It also affects whether those judgments are enforceable and will stick.

[Mr Walter]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point, because it sums up the fact that what I have described will bring into question the legitimacy of the decisions of the Committee of Ministers when it comes to enforcing judgments that have been handed down by the Court.

I want to move on to one aspect of the United Kingdom’s agenda for our chairmanship, with which the Minister also dealt at length. It is the reform of the European Court of Human Rights, which not only we in this country but many member states across Europe welcome.

There seems to be some dispute about what the backlog of cases in the Court is at the moment. The last figure that I heard, which was at the beginning of this month from the secretary-general of the Council of Europe, was 162,000 cases, and growing at the rate of 2,000 a month. I therefore welcome the approach that we are taking as the new chair of the Committee of Ministers.

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[Oliver Heald]

By way of a rider to my hon. Friend’s point on seeking leave to appeal on a point of law, which I basically agree with, occasionally, a court in a country refuses leave in circumstances that do not hold water legally. Should there not at that point be a possibility of applying for leave to appeal directly to the Court in Strasbourg?

[Mr Walter]

My hon. Friend is right to raise that point. We must strike the right balance—strike out spurious claims but not genuine ones. In some cases, those making genuine claims could be refused leave to appeal for, if I may say, political reasons, when their case should go to the Strasbourg Court. In this country, I have every confidence that the Supreme Court or any other lower court would act in the interests of the law and equity, but I might question the courts in a number of other member states—I will not name them in the Chamber.

My third point concerns the competence of the Court and its relationship with national Parliaments and sovereign member states. That the House debated and voted overwhelmingly against prisoner voting rights showed that we in this country feel that somebody committed to jail for an indictable offence should have their voting rights taken away while in prison. That is at variance with the judgment of the Court. I am not a lawyer, but in my view it is absolutely right that a court can sentence somebody to prison and so deny their liberty in several areas. In sentencing them to prison, we are not infringing most of their convention rights—for example, we are not infringing their right to life or imposing on them inhuman and degrading treatment. Instead, we are deciding to deny them certain liberties—for example, by not allowing them to go home to their family every night, we are denying them the right to a family life.

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[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr Gale). Having been in the Council of Europe, and in this House for so long, and having watched his endeavours in the Council of Europe at the moment, it is amazing that he is still enthusiastic about searching out the right wording and practice in the things he is involved in. I am sure that he was the same 25 years ago. My hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne) referred to me as enthusiastic, but I have been here for a mere 19 years. I hope that when I have been here for as long as the hon. Gentleman I am still as enthusiastic for the fight.

The fight is for the correct implementation of the principles behind the Council of Europe. I may not always take the example of the hon. Member for North Thanet on how he approaches things, and hopefully we will be at the meeting seeking the compromise that I suggested might be found between him and the author of the original report, which was deeply flawed in the way it was expressed. I hope that we will work together across the party divide on these matters.

It is a pity the hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) has gone. I am not sure whether she is a member of the delegation, but certainly some members on the Government side do not take up their place, and she might be able to learn quite a lot by volunteering to take one of the places that are not being actively filled at the moment. I am sure she would find it enlightening and educational, as we all do. The delegation, although we may come from different angles, is genuinely still the bedrock of debates in the Council of Europe. Delegates are often there at the beginning; they are there at the end of the day, which might be 8 o’clock at night; and they are often there on Friday when most people have decided to go home. We want to take part in debates and make our views known.

[Oliver Heald]

The hon. Gentleman will recall that he and I were both there on the Friday of the last part-session, disagreeing with each other. I thought he would like to know that I am here, and that I do not entirely agree with him today.

[Michael Connarty]

We came in together, and hopefully they will carry us out together. I recall that we also came to the House in the same year.

It is absolutely incredible that a court as important as the Court of Human Rights is clogged up by a type of bureaucracy that could not be imagined in the most disorganised country in the world. The simplest cases that will clearly never be correctly allocated to the Court have to be judged by a full bench of judges before they can say, “No, we can’t deal with this.” There is no sifting process and no filter process. No Committee in this House would run if every Member had to gather every day, look at every paper proposed, and come before the Committee to decide whether it could even discuss it. That is what the Court is about at the moment. Anything we can do under our chairmanship to bring in a filtering system whereby one judge or some other method is used to say, “This is still correct to stay on the list and others must be sent back to the courts of the national jurisdictions or rejected”, is long overdue.

I will talk later about the Human Rights Act 1998 in the context of individual countries. It is a myth that the Court can make a country implement its judgment just by lifting the judgment made in the Court and transposing it into the Acts of Parliament of this country. It is not the European Union, after all. I see that the Minister for Europe is here, and he recognises that that can happen with European Union regulations and all the other things that come in, and we have to just get on with it because we have signed away some of those rights—but not at Council of Europe level. It has to come back and be looked at by this sovereign Parliament, which then makes a judgment on what amendments to make that would implement it. I hope that we never move away from that.

There is lots of talk saying that our Human Rights Act is somehow a transcription of the convention on human rights and the judgments of the courts. I hope that it is, in fact, an attempt by this sovereign Parliament to implement the human rights that we all hold so dear for our country and for every other country. If it is not correct and needs to be amended in some way, that is our right as a sovereign Parliament, but we must not get into the situation where we can overturn the human rights that are available to people in Council of Europe countries just because we believe that it will satisfy the feelings of our constituents.

I held a very excellent debate about human rights and family rights. On family rights, yes, there is no doubt that people are angry because that is used as a plea for someone not to be sent back to some other country. But when we come down to the fundamentals and someone is asked, “Do you think that family rights are due to all of us?”, most people would say yes. We then have to decide why it is not applicable to someone who may come from another country. Sometimes, if we throw out that basic judgment that family rights are available to all of us, and must therefore be available to anyone under our jurisdiction, we destroy something very important in what we have fought for, for political gain and for a feeling of anger rather than for a judgment of what is correct.

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[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

Having heard about the worthy deeds of the Council of Europe, I shall start on the question of value for money. I was struck by that as I thought about the worthy deeds of the police and the fire service in my area, as both the police station and the fire station are being closed down. Of course there are arguments about the Government’s economic policy, but all Members recognise that there has to be a level of cuts. That means—whoever is in government—that we have to prioritise what needs to be cut in the light of what we regard as valuable. There is a consensus on that.

It therefore seems strange to me that the Government do not appear to be proposing any cuts at all in respect of any of the international institutions or our contributions to them. I personally believe that a 30% cut for the European Union would amount to a pro-European case, and that it should be cut to the same degree as our police service and our fire service are being cut over the next four years—and not just in my area. That would seem to me appropriate.

I am, of course, arguing that cutting the police and fire services is the wrong priority, but in developing that argument I would not claim that the Government are either intellectually or ideologically anti-police or anti-fire service. I think that the cuts are being made in the wrong place, and I find it odd, in the light of those cuts, that the Government have not yet specified—they have the ability to do so with their six-month chairmanship of the Council of Europe—how appropriate cuts will be made to the budget of such organisations. I am not entering into a dialogue over whether that body should exist—

[Oliver Heald]

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has researched the Council of Europe at all, but its budget is being cut in real terms. What is more, it is on a pretty slim budget anyway. It is not like the European Union—nowhere near.

[John Mann]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, but I would say, “Count the pennies and we’ll have the pounds.” I would like the Government to explore the notion of whether there needs to be any base in Strasbourg at all, or at least whether some functions could be combined. [Interruption.] There is certainly an overlap of functions between the European Union, the Council of Europe, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. [Interruption.] I hear from sedentary comments that some Members do not agree; they are entitled not to agree. My point is that at a time of major cuts in many nation states, including this country, the Government should be looking to ensure that there is a commensurate cut in such bodies and in our contribution to them—and that with the chairmanship, they have the opportunity to drive that through. I look forward to seeing how it will be done.

In announcing their priorities in a written ministerial statement yesterday, the Government said that they would

“promote an open internet, not only in terms of access and content but also freedom of expression.”

The statement continued:

“We will support the adoption of the draft Council of Europe strategy on internet governance, and the implementation of the principles it has adopted to uphold freedom of expression on the internet”.—[Official Report, 26 October 2011; Vol. 534, c. 10WS.]

I want to put some questions to the Minister and to make some points about that priority. Like every other Member, I am aware of the importance of freedom of expression on the internet. There are countries both in Europe and beyond where a lack of freedom of expression on the internet is a severe curtailment of the workings of democracy or, in some countries, of the real options for democracy. The two go together. It would be worthy and appropriate for the Government to take that work forward. There is, however, always a counter-side and a balance in these issues. Freedom of expression on the internet is not always a good thing. The Americans have a clear view on the matter, which their Supreme Court has expressed many times, including recently. For example, when a church in the United States decided to picket the funerals of gay service men who had died on active duty in Afghanistan, the Supreme Court ruled that that constituted freedom of expression.

There are differing views on how far freedom of expression should extend, but it is a fact that in this country, under the present Government as under the last, there have been successful prosecutions of people who have used the internet for the purpose of hate crimes, and I applaud that. Successive Attorneys-General have worked hard to ensure successful prosecutions of those who abuse their ability to express themselves freely on the internet and, in so doing, stir up hatred and restrict the freedom of expression of others, including the victims whom they target.

I chair the all-party group against anti-Semitism. Under the last Government, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) was the Minister, and, this year, under the present Government—I cannot remember the constituency of the culture Minister, the Prime Minister’s mate who is responsible for these matters—

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[Oliver Heald]

The point being made was how on earth can the hon. Gentleman criticise the Council of Europe about this issue, when the Council of Europe, and especially the Parliamentary Assembly, is trying to address these issues right across Europe? I serve on the committee on culture, science and education at the COE, and we are currently working on a report on this very topic.

[John Mann]

The hon. Gentleman is a very good parliamentarian and he used to be my MP, but he sometimes gets over-excited. I am not criticising the COE. I am proposing a cut in its budget, and in the budgets of other international institutions. That is not a criticism of the COE; rather, it is to do with the economic realities. If the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues wish to prioritise certain areas of expenditure, such as by red-circling overseas aid, they are perfectly entitled to do so. What I am saying is that the Government should use their chairmanship of the COE to implement a small cut in its budget—and that the budgets of other EU and international bodies should also be cut.

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[Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

May I start by congratulating you, Mr Deputy Speaker, on being made an honorary member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which is well deserved? Of course, many of us are very sad that you are not so frequently there, partly because we now have to speak on Fridays, and you were always extremely good at that.

I agree with much of what my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) said. The European Court of Human Rights has a very important function. The European convention on human rights was designed by English lawyers and expresses what were seen to be the fundamental rights of English common law—the right to a fair trial and so on. It is therefore ironic that the introduction of the Human Rights Act, which incorporated the convention into English law, has somehow been seen as a new departure and used to extend the law, which I think is the mistake. It is the way in which it has been incorporated that is the problem.

I am chairman of the executive of the Society of Conservative Lawyers, which for some years has produced publications and pamphlets arguing for a British Bill of Rights. The secret of why that approach is the right one is that it would be possible to have some kind of route map explaining how the rights should be interpreted in English law, which is what is needed. I welcome the fact that the Government have established a commission to consider that. At the Conservative party conference the Home Secretary talked about the immigration rules and how they comply with the convention. She made the point that it is not the rights themselves that are the problem, but the way they are put into English law in the immigration rules. She is now going to change those rules to ensure a more sensible approach that explains the interaction between the right to a family life and the national interest, which I think is the right way forward.

The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) should spend a little more time researching what the Council of Europe does, because although it is an unusual creation, it is an important one. It is multi-layered: it has the Parliamentary Assembly, which does one sort of work, and the organisations allied to it, such as the group of states against corruption; it also has a congress of local and regional authorities, which involves local government across the 47 countries; then there is the Court, which deals with matters that have been presented by individuals complaining about how countries are implementing the convention. He should look at the effect of all those institutions acting together, because he will find that they are doing a very useful job. The Council of Europe is not an expensive institution in the way the European Union is—I agree with his criticism of the lavish expenditure on the EU and the need to cut it considerably.

The issues that the Council of Europe as a whole addresses, such as migration, are the great issues of the day. My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) has just expressed his concerns about migration. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), who is chair of the Council’s committee on migration, refugees and population, recently produced a major report on migration and how we should tackle it right across the Council of Europe area. It is easy to think that that is the same area as the EU, but it absolutely is not: the Council includes Russia and Turkey and so covers a vast area. As a result, it is able, if its reports are implemented, to have a serious effect on the problem of migration. It is an institution that can cope with that sort of big issue. Equally, the culture, science and education committee is looking into the very issue that the hon. Member for Bassetlaw is concerned about: the internet.

If all 47 countries sign up, it is possible to effect change. The hon. Gentleman should not think of the Council of Europe as an institution like the EU; it is not. The Council covers a wider area, it is multi-layered and, as the hon. Member for Mansfield (Sir Alan Meale) said, its Parliamentary Assembly also has peace missions. If we think back to the Russia-Georgia conflict a couple of years ago, we find that it was the Council of Europe that sent in a team to try to broker peace in that very dangerous situation. The Council also monitors elections. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch was in Tunisia last week doing valuable work. The Council is spreading democracy and tackling some of the big issues as only it can, and the hon. Gentleman ought to take a more serious view of it. He spends a lot of time planning mountaineering expeditions—indeed, I once met him at the top of Scafell Pike—and he ought to do that sort of preparation on this subject.

[John Mann]

The hon. Gentleman has spent too much time on top of mountains, I think; he needs to listen a little more carefully. Election monitoring is also done by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and by the European Union, so there is some overlap. It is not a criticism of the work of the Council of Europe to suggest that it can take a bigger haircut along with everyone else; indeed, it is the pro case, just as it is the pro-European case to suggest a big haircut for the European Union. A credible organisation like that can get away with a haircut—because it is credible.

[Oliver Heald]

The hon. Gentleman made his speech, and I have disagreed with several points that he made, so we will probably have to leave it at that.

The Government are right to make Court reform a priority, however. With a backlog of 162,000 cases, there is a need for a filter to provide some way of getting through them, and we are right to try to introduce more subsidiarity. I agree with our delegation leader, my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Mr Walter), that we should have a system in which one needs leave to take a case to the European Court of Human Rights, although personally I think that one would need also the right, if leave were refused, to apply directly to the Court. That would not open a great floodgate of cases; it would just mean that, if a particular case were decided for political reasons, which is what can happen in some countries, there would be a further way through.

On the Human Rights Act, I have mentioned my support for a British Bill of Rights, but the other issue is the quality of the judges. I have been a member of the Council’s Parliamentary Assembly for only two-and-a-half years, or perhaps three now, but that problem has been raised in the Assembly throughout that period. Some judges just do not know the Court’s law base, and there is a concern that some countries’ candidates are just not adequate. We should find ways to improve the quality.

[Sir Alan Meale]

Will the hon. Gentleman confirm, so that the House is not left with the wrong impression, that we refuse candidates at every session? If they do not meet the language, experience and gender balance criteria, we do not appoint them. We send them back, time and time again to some countries.

[Oliver Heald]

Yes, and of course the answer is not to find a way of letting unsatisfactory candidates through; it is to secure an improvement in the quality of candidates. Knowledge of the Court’s key languages is vital; otherwise it is not possible for the judges to interact with it.

My impression of the European Court of Human Rights is that it takes a slightly diplomatic approach to its cases and almost sprays round the judgments a bit. There is a need to act entirely on the basis of serious human rights abuses and not to feel that every country of the 47 must have a judgment against it. More focus on serious abuses of human rights would meet the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) and other hon. Friends.

I support Secretary-General Jagland’s programme of reform, which will save money—the hon. Member for Bassetlaw will be pleased about that—and streamline the organisation, reducing the number of committees. It is worth giving credit to Mr Mignon, who is rapporteur of the committee on rules of procedure, immunities and institutional affairs, and involved with the Assembly’s bureau. He has played a major part, and his report on changing the rules is a major piece of work. My hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset played a big part in that. Those changes will improve how the Assembly works.

The rule of law is an important priority for the Government, and I want to mention two issues. The first is migration. If we are to tackle migration, it is important to follow the approach that the committee on migration, refugees and population set out in its recent report, when my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) was the rapporteur. That involves sticking by the Dublin agreement. Asylum seekers must apply for asylum in the first country they arrive in; otherwise they may be sent back to that country. There is talk in the Council of Europe about flexibility and shared responsibility, which suggests that some people who apply for asylum could be waved through to other countries for their case to be dealt with, but that would drive a coach and horses through the regulation of migration in Europe. Many people already cross external borders illegally. It is important to stick by the Dublin agreement. We should also have better arrangements for patrolling the Mediterranean, and I know that the Government are supporting moves in that direction. I support the idea that our Government could send officials to help to deal with immigration cases in Greece and Italy, rather than going for the shared responsibility, wave-them-through approach. I hope that the Government will continue to offer that support to our southern neighbours in the hope that there will be no weakening of the Dublin agreement.

On extraordinary rendition, Dick Marty, the Swiss parliamentarian, recently produced “Abuse of State Secrecy and National Security: Obstacles to Parliamentary and Judicial Scrutiny of Human Rights Violations”. It is his last report, because he is standing down from the Council of Europe. I pay tribute to his long-standing commitment to human rights, and his campaign against extraordinary rendition. In his latest report, he pays tribute to the all-party group in the House that deals with the issue, and describes its efforts as untiring. It is right to pay tribute also to the all-party group.

The key point about Mr Marty’s report is that it builds on what we have been doing in this country. He says that legislation should not be a cloak for wrongdoing and highlights the importance of parliamentary scrutiny of the work of secret services, as we do here—although, obviously, there may room for improvement in that. He points to the need for courts to develop procedures where secret information can be used without damaging state security. He also addresses the settling of the cases that arose out of Guantanamo and the report that is being produced by the special inquiry led by Sir Peter Gibson. In doing so, he acknowledges that this Government are taking the issue seriously and approaching it in a way that could be a model for other parts of Europe.

The committee on culture, science and education is in the process of producing a report on internet governance. There has been and continues to be a good deal of argument about exactly what the report should contain. I am glad that the Government are making the issue one of their priorities. I hope that when the report comes out, assuming my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr Gale) gets his way on exactly what is in it, the Government will take it seriously and use it as part of their approach.

Finally, I welcome the Government’s concentration on tackling discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity. What we do in this country is very seen much as the model for the rest of Europe. Some other countries are way behind—examples have been given with which I agree. It is good that our Government are going to build on the work that has been done in this country and try to spread it across the 47 countries of the Council of Europe.

In conclusion, it is very wise of the Government to have reached agreement with Ukraine and Albania—the countries whose periods of chairmanship are on either side of ours—because that means that, over an extended period of 18 months, the chairmanship can concentrate on some issues and get a result. I wish the Government well and hope that the Interlaken process is the success that it should be. The fact that 47 countries are involved, the largeness of the geographical area covered, and the way in which the organisation is led mean that if something is done right in one country, best practice can be spread right across Europe.