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European Court of Human Rights (Immunities and Privileges) (Amendment) Order 2005

I do not intend to cause particular difficulty over this order, but, as the Minister will be aware, a number of us have on previous occasions challenged the extent to which full diplomatic privileges need to be extended to members of the growing number of European bodies under the European Union and the Council of Europe—and we may expect more to emerge in the coming years. The system of full diplomatic privileges was developed in the 18th century under the Westphalia system as a means of providing security for representatives of—often hostile—states while on each other’s deeply insecure territory. One or two Members of this House think that to be in France or Germany is to be on hostile territory. That is not commonly the situation nowadays, and, to many of us, it seems that we should adjust our assumptions about what is needed for setting up European agencies to take into account this transformed situation. I should declare an interest: my wife works for one of these European agencies and therefore benefits from many of these unjustified diplomatic privileges, including not paying full taxation, which bitterly upsets me. The question of whether spouses and minor children really need these privileges, even in the larger Council of Europe circumstances, needs to be begged. I am grateful to the Foreign Office for providing me with a note which tells us that the United Kingdom Government have now raised this question within the European Union. I very much hope that the question will be taken further. I should like to hear from the Minister how they see progress within the European Union proceeding and the changing assumptions about how diplomatic privileges need to be extended. After all, next on the agenda we have the establishment of a new European Forest Institute; I am conscious that there is a new European food agency in Parma and a new European chemical agency is about to be established in Helsinki. These will not be the last. For each of them these questions will arise. Therefore, it is absolutely the duty of Parliament to raise questions on whether these things are needed any longer. I raise a second issue—on which I have also given notice to the Minister—on the application of these orders to the Crown territories. In the Explanatory Memorandum for this order there is reference to the terms on which they will be extended to the Isle of Man. I have tried on several occasions since I joined this House 10 years ago, to understand the exact relationship between the Crown territories and the United Kingdom. Indeed, many years ago, when I was a young academic, I served as an adviser to the commission on the constitution—the document to which one is always referred nowadays when one asks what is the situation in relation to the Crown territories. One goes back to it rapidly. I have re-read that document. It is not entirely clear itself. I conclude from this that there is an element of deliberate obscurity in the relationships between the Crown territories and the United Kingdom. I was once briefed within the Department for Constitutional Affairs on the relationship and came out not much the wiser. It seems to many of us that the Crown territories are allowed to cherry-pick which items of the British legislation should extend to them. I put the Minister on notice that my group within the House of Lords will wish to pursue this further. Indeed, it is something we think the Government should be concerned to re-open on broad grounds in the near future. I say that particularly in the light of some of the changes in taxation taking place in the Crown territories in response to European Union legislation. That takes us a little wide of the order before us, but I am conscious that the obscurity of the Explanatory Memorandum on this point does at least give one a lever. Further, as I have remarked to the Foreign Office, I note that the degree of confusion about the exact relationship between the Crown territories and the United Kingdom extends even to Ministers. I looked up the response made by the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, to a Question I asked on 6 July. As a supplementary question my noble friend Lord Avebury asked her whether the United Nations Convention Against Corruption order would apply to the Channel Islands as well as to the United Kingdom. Her reply was: ““My Lords, as noble Lords will know, the United Kingdom includes all those parts of it””.—[Official Report, 5/7/05; col. 625.] That suggests that the Minister is herself is rather confused over whether the Channel Islands are or are not part of the United Kingdom. I make that comment simply as a marker for future occasions as well as now. This is an area of deliberate obscurity. It should be the job of this Parliament to seek clarification.