Council of Europe (UK Chairmanship)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 5:19 pm on 27 October 2011.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of James Clappison James Clappison Conservative, Hertsmere 5:19, 27 October 2011

It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend Damian Collins. I am sure that football supporters throughout the United Kingdom would echo his remarks—as an England supporter, I certainly endorse what he said—and I am sure that everyone shares his concern about how our beloved game is being administered internationally.

I have already paid tribute to my hon. Friend Mr Walter for his sterling work in leading the British delegation to the Council of Europe, but I would also like to pay tribute to Opposition Members who have led the delegation while I have been a member of it. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend Mr Chope, who is the chairman of the Council of Europe’s migration committee, on which I have the pleasure of serving, for all his hard work in that capacity, and in such an important field. It has been instructive and interesting for me to see how other European Union member states and their representatives view migration. For my part, I am concerned that the questions of who should be permitted to cross borders, who should be permitted to reside in countries, settle in them and become citizens, and who should be removed from them should principally be a matter for member states’ Parliaments and not determined by European law. We must be careful to ensure that the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights does not obtrude unnecessarily in the field of migration.

I want to make three points about what lies ahead for the British chairmanship of the Council of Europe. The first concerns the European Union. I have already made one speech in the Chamber about the European Union this week, and Members might feel that one is enough for a week—I certainly feel it is. However, it is not me who is bringing the European Union into this debate; rather, the European Union is bringing itself in. It seeks to accede to the European convention on human rights and wants Members of the European Parliament to participate in some of the Council of Europe’s activities. I have many reservations of principle about the accession of the European Union to the Council of Europe and the European convention on human rights. I am not clear on what basis the EU seeks to accede to the convention, because every other member of the convention is a nation state and the EU says that it is not one. I am not clear as to whether the change is needed, because the member states of the European Union are already members of the Council of Europe and the European Union already has a charter of fundamental rights, to which the treaty of Lisbon gives legal effect, covering much the same ground as the European convention on human rights. As a result, the prevailing legal position on human rights in Europe could be complicated by the two sets of conventions.