---

Council of Europe (UK Chairmanship)

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—