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Council of Europe (UK Chairmanship)

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.