Claire Perry travels to the Council of Europe

The Prime Minister has asked me to be part of the cross party delegation that represents the UK Parliament at the Council of Europe. The Council was started in 1948 at the behest of Winston Churchill who believed that a pan-European organisation designed to guarantee peace, democracy and human rights throughout the continent but which maintained the sovereignty of individual states was the best way to guard against another European War. It is headquartered in Strasbourg, which is a highly symbolic location given that the city changed hands between France and Germany three times in the 20th Century. The Council is not the same as the European Union and has almost 50 counties as members including Russia and most Eastern European countries and it is the mother organisation for the European Court of Human Rights, which accounts for one third of the total CE budget. Given the steady encroachment by this organisation on UK law and custom I was keen to speak up during the session to reinforce the principle of state sovereignty. I did so during a debate on Wednesday when I argued that the recent European Court decision over-ruling the UK ban on votes for prisoners was wrong-headed and contrary to the sovereign principles under which the Court was founded.

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