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Fundamental Rights Agency (EUC Report)

No, my Lords, I do not believe that it is. I want to make progress, but I hope to address that question more fully. One big question in trying to work out what is the role of the fundamental human rights agency has been its relationship with nation states and the Council of Europe. Looking at the basis on which it is to be established, it does not have a third pillar remit as far as we and the other member states that I mentioned are concerned. That does not mean that those things are not covered in the work that we are doing. It does not mean that the agency does not have a role to play. It may not be the role that the noble Lord would want it to have; I accept that, but that does not mean that it does not have a role. That is the other balancing act to which I have been alluding. For some noble Lords, some member states and some Members of the European Parliament, such things are fundamental to how the agency can deliver and its purpose. For others, they are not. On balance, the UK Government’s view is that there is a role for a fundamental rights agency. It is not the role that the noble Lord would want, but there is a role. Who knows, if an agency can prove its worth, it may do other things. One big debate in the LIBE Committee when I attended was about ensuring that the agency we set up is not only fit for purpose—something about which my noble friend Lord Brennan feels very strongly—but has the capacity to do what we want it to do. We have a lot of sympathy about what has been said about the management structure. We need to give it a sensible series of things to do so that it can achieve, be successful and develop. One thing that I have learnt about working in the European Union is that you have to start from one place and build to where you want to get to. You have to do it in stages; you cannot always get there all in one go, although I understand the frustration of the noble Lord that we cannot do that. The second point about which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, in particular, was concerned was the charter and the relationship between that and what is proposed. He asked whether we have reference to the charter in the body of the regulation or in the recital. Noble Lords will know that the charter was to have been part 2 of the constitutional treaty, which would have given it some kind of legal force, subject to lots of official explanations that were going to be mentioned specifically in the treaty. As we do not have a treaty, of course, it is only a political declaration at this point. We do not believe that it is right to anticipate what might happen in any future treaty negotiations by implying that the charter has any status as a legal document, so we have made it very clear that we believe that it should be moved into the recitals to the regulation, and that that will be the appropriate place for it. I have to say that that view is not shared with our colleagues in the European Union, but we certainly feel very strongly about it across government. Indeed, this week, we considered the issue again at the appropriate committee in government. It was described as a showcase in my letter to the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, at the beginning of our discussions on the fundamental rights agency, and that is what we believe the charter should be. We have been putting out those very clear and strong signals and messages about the third pillar and the appropriate place at which to refer to the charter throughout our discussions with colleagues across the European Union. It is also very clear, as I have said, that we need to be certain about the relationship between the fundamental rights agency and the Council of Europe. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, referred to that. The noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, talked about being clear about the role of other organisations, and I agree that one of the most difficult and passionate debates has been how we ensure that the Council of Europe and the fundamental rights agency work effectively together but do not duplicate or overlap. There seems to be consensus now among member states on the need to ensure that a person appointed by the Council of Europe is on the management board and the executive board of the agency, and we hope that they will be able to work together to ensure that we do not have duplication, which, as I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, would agree would be a waste of resources and time. The noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, in particular asked about the management board and its independence. We have moved away from representatives on the board to independent persons, as the noble Lord knows. Negotiations are obviously still in progress, but it looks as if most member states are in favour of ensuring that the European Parliament will be consulted on the agency’s multi-annual framework, and will have a greater role than originally anticipated in the appointment of the director. I have been so strong in saying that the fundamental rights agency should put its multi-annual framework report and, more to the point, its work programme before the Council of Ministers rather than the Commission because I do not want the agency to be sidelined or ignored, which would waste resources. The best way of avoiding that is if the agency presents what it is going to do to the Council of Ministers, which would have to take note of it and be aware of what it was doing. It would probably have a greater chance of being understood, recognised for the work that it could do and resourced effectively if the Council took a view about it. Although that is a different view from those of other member states, I have been arguing that position for some considerable time. If we are going to make this work, let us make it work properly and ensure that the Council of Ministers actually takes it seriously. There will be different views of how to achieve that, but that is my personal view about what we ought to be doing. I shall now talk about the management structures and, in so doing, speak about the gender institute as well, because there are differences in the way in which the two management boards are being set up. The fundamental rights agency has independent persons on the management board, and the gender institute has representatives of member states. The fundamental rights agency has two Commission members on the board, and the gender institute has three Commission members. There is also a wonderful thing called a scientific committee, which is for the fundamental rights agency and which I think formed the basis of a French proposal some time ago. We have tried to ensure that the management board and the structure of the fundamental rights agency and the gender institute do two things. One is to enable people to feel properly involved. I accept what the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Walliswood, said about the need to think carefully about 25 states rising to 27, and about how on earth everyone will be represented in reality. My preference is always for smaller management boards, but there is always the need, particularly when setting up anything new—this is pertinent not only to the European Union; it applies everywhere—for people to feel involved and, by their involvement, bound into the work of the organisation. We are a bit trapped in that whole dilemma. We want everyone to take this seriously. The recognition of taking it seriously is people being part of the management structure. I again hope that the management structure will change over time as people get used to it. I do not know of any formal plans—if I find them, I will certainly write to the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas—on how much further the UK Government can go in pushing to see how we can best work towards moving from 25 or 27 member states being represented on everything to a more sensible approach, if I can describe it as that. Again I pay tribute to Kinga Gál, who I know has spent a huge amount of time on this. At least there is some progress in thinking about how we involve people from member states, make sure that this organisation has the support that it needs from outside and is able to operate. The last thing that we want, by creating a management structure that is unwieldy, is to prevent people with great calibre from applying to become part of the agency, which would be a huge problem. We have said that we support setting up the European institute for gender equality. We hope that its purpose will be to raise the profile of gender equality across Europe and to get a much more coherent approach to obtaining information and gathering research. One of the roles for both agencies will be to make sure that we understand better what is happening across the European Union. We do not really have the ability to bring information together and do a compare-and-contrast exercise, which would be enormously helpful. It is very important that the gender equality institute is effective and efficient, and does not duplicate what is done in other parts of the European Union. The different views are interesting. My noble friend Lord Harrison took a different view from that taken by other noble Lords who talked about the need to merge the two bodies. My noble friend was keen to see them separate. We on the government Benches disagree with colleagues in your Lordships’ House on that. I take and understand what my noble friend said. I agree with him that other countries have very different experiences. But the noble Lord, Lord Lester, and other noble Lords are right. In our country, we have moved towards bringing together those issues into the Commission for Equality and Human Rights. As I think was said to me in the committee, it looks rather odd that the Government are in a different place on this. In part, we are back to the pragmatism of the UK position. As noble Lords will know, I do not deal with this dossier in the European Union. But the rest of our European Union colleagues are very keen to see a separate gender institute. I suspect that that is in part exactly because of the point raised by my noble friend about their different experiences. The issue is subject to qualified majority voting, so the UK does not have the ability to alter this very much. While I cannot speak for my colleagues who have dealt with this, if I were the Minister responsible, my view would be that you have to decide on which issues you have a chance of being successful and on which issues you push. I was very clear with the committee that I also think that, when these two organisations are developed, there may well be a value in first making sure that they can operate and do their work and then looking to the future eventually to see whether we could bring them together. As I said earlier, the basis on which the gender institute is established is Article 13(2). That is on a different basis from Article 308, the fundamental rights agency, which has different things to do. If we should think about bringing them together, we would have to reopen all the earlier negotiations on the legal base, which is not something on which we would be successful. Equally, that could delay either of them coming into being, which I am not sure would be appropriate. We have argued for close collaboration and co-operation between the two bodies. The director of the institute for gender equality will attend the fundamental rights agency management board as an observer. We expect the officials to work closely. In answer to the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, about the future, it may be appropriate that these organisations become one. On whether they will be co-located, the noble Lord, Lord Lester, is right. Many countries wish to demonstrate—the noble Lord put it in a rather negative way, but it is a positive not a negative—that they are part of the European Union by wanting to host institutions of the European Union. I have no idea where the gender issue will end up. We certainly think that they ought to be collaborative, but who knows? I have tried to cover as many points as possible and I apologise for any that I have missed. As always, I shall write to noble Lords about anything that I think should have been added. I hope that noble Lords know that I am always happy to return to the committee, to whose members I pay tribute for their work, or to your Lordships’ House to consider this further as we develop our work. In conclusion, as the noble Lord opposite pointed out, anti-discrimination issues are very important and there are many areas in which we are in agreement. We are merely arguing about the means to the end. Noble Lords know that we have tried to approach this in a pragmatic and practical way so as to end up with something that is worth having and worth putting resources into so that it can achieve what we seek for the future.