Sir Christopher Chope
MP for Christchurch · Conservative · United Kingdom
“When was the last time that an allotted Opposition day was withdrawn in the way that the Leader of the House is withdrawing this one? I was looking at my calendar of business, otherwise known as the Order Paper, and it says that “The selection of the matters to be debated will be made by the Leader of the Opposition (Standing Order No.”
“The Climate Change Committee has condemned the Government for failing and falling short of adapting to climate change and accepting the reality as it is, which is that by the end of this century, global temperatures will have increased to between 3.5° and 4.5° above pre-industrial levels.”
“The Minister has referred to the grooming gangs inquiry carried out by our friend, the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe), and early-day motion 380 makes a number of recommendations. Will the Minister engage with the hon.”
“The landmark 250th anniversary of the declaration of independence by the United States takes place in the week commencing 29 June. I have applied for an Adjournment debate, but will the Leader of the House enable more Members to be able to participate in marking that historic event?”
“That is exactly what I did on behalf of my constituent Paul Kenchington: I wrote to the Secretary of State about the specialist steel that he uses, and I have not had a reply.”
“Next week, can the Leader of the House produce a Government statement in response to the Hallett review on covid-19 vaccines? Lady Hallett recommended major reform of the vaccine damage payment scheme.”
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“That means that if St Ives were to have its extra form from September, five children would no longer go to West Moors Middle School. From the local education authority’s objection, one would think that the sky will fall in as a result. It talks about a middle school in Dorset having to close and about tens of millions of pounds of extra expenditure, and so on. That is complete hyperbole and an indication of how out of touch the education authority is with things on the ground. Indeed, we are now told that West Moors Middle School will be oversubscribed this coming September; parents of pupils who still show allegiance to St Ives are being warned that if they do not do something now, it will be too late for them to get into West Moors Middle in any event. What was the response of the county council to the decision of 16 April?”
“That reflected the finding that the parents of 19 out of the 23 pupils currently in year 4 would prefer their children to stay on at St Ives in September than to transfer to a Dorset middle school or a Hampshire primary. The St Ives governors recognised that that would mean that some children—perhaps as many as seven—who would normally have transferred to West Moors Middle School would no longer do so. The local authority had suggested, wrongly, that 18 children were due to transfer from St Ives to West Moors Middle this September. The school’s records show that there are only 11 in that category. Two are going to West Moors Middle in any event and four have accepted places in Hampshire should St Ives not become a primary school.”
“After initial consultation going back to the autumn, a full proposal document was put forward to all relevant stakeholders on 24 February. I submitted a letter of support referring to the fact that 98% of the parents supported the proposed changes, which would also increase parental choice. A public meeting was held at the school during the four-week consultation period. Dorset County Council attended in the person of the cabinet member responsible for those issues, who did not say anything specific at the time. However, on the last day for written responses the county council put in its objection. The governing body looked carefully at the results of the consultation and decided unanimously on 16 April, as it had the power to do, to increase the age range by one year in September 2015 and by a further year in September 2016.”
“Because Hampshire has a two-tier system, parents with pupils at St Ives have often opted to move into the Hampshire system early, to secure a Hampshire primary school place from which a transfer could be made to the Ringwood academy at the age of 11. Indeed, there are currently 141 children from the St Ives catchment area in years 7 to 11 at Ringwood academy. That shows how parents have been voting with their feet in recent years. Prior to the new flexibilities introduced by the previous Government, the school could do nothing about that problem, but last year the governors decided to increase the age range, so that St Ives would become a primary school whose pupils could transfer directly into secondary education at age 11.”
“As a recognised national teaching school, it provides school-to-school support to other schools that seek improvement. Its head teacher, Mrs Laura Crossley, who has come to Westminster for today’s debate, is also an accredited national leader of education. On 24 September last year, the Secretary of State agreed in principle to St Ives becoming an academy, and it has now been confirmed that the school will be a leading member of a multi-academy trust with five other schools, with effect from 2 November this year. For some time St Ives has suffered from turbulence and instability, because although it is geographically in Dorset, the nearest secondary school is about 1 mile away in Ringwood, Hampshire.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered plans by St Ives First School to become a primary school. My constituents are fortunate in being able to choose from some of the best schools in the country—primary and secondary in the southern part of the constituency and first, middle and secondary in the northern part. They also benefited from the previous Government’s emphasis on driving up standards while promoting parental choice—policies for which the Minister deserves much credit, and which I am delighted he is taking forward in his new post in the new real Conservative Government. Today’s debate centres on St Ives First School, a one-form entry first school, with a reception class, situated on the Dorset side of the Dorset-Hampshire border. It is rated outstanding by Ofsted, and has been for seven years.”
“If the Secretary of State is not prepared to reject the objection on the grounds that it is out of time, I hope she will make a decision quickly on its merits and conclude that the county council’s case is unfounded in fact, is contradictory within itself and would run counter to all the new Government’s principles relating to expanding choice in education and ensuring that good schools—in this case, an outstanding school—are able to expand, where that is the will of the parents and governors. The proposal enjoys the support of 98% of the parents of pupils at St Ives school. I hope the Minister will help them to have a happy weekend by giving them some warm words of encouragement.”
“Those letters of objection raise fundamental issues relating to the ability of a school such as St Ives to increase its age range. They ask for the Secretary of State effectively to go back on the “School organisation (maintained schools)” guidance. I hope the Secretary of State will make a quick decision on this matter. The quickest decision would be to say that the objection is out of time, which would enable the school to get on with planning for the future. It would also enable other middle schools that might be implicated to make decisions as well. We are now in the second half of the summer term, and a new school year is starting in September. The education authority has said it is concerned about the implications for everybody else, but it has been dragging its feet over the whole issue.”
“I was going to refer to its inflammatory remarks about the quality of education at Ringwood School, the criticism of St Ives school governors and the school authorities for being “extremely difficult to work with and reticent to provide information”. Fortunately, Mr Minns confirmed this morning in an email to Mrs Crossley, the head, that the document was merely an internal memo and did not represent the official view of the authority. However, that is the document on which the leader of the council was relying when he objected to the proposal. On 27 May, a letter was sent to the Secretary of State objecting to the proposal, but it did not arrive with the Secretary of State until 3 June. A second letter of objection was issued a couple of days later.”
“In his response, the leader of the council referred to the lack of physical space for extra classes and raised questions about future finances. However, he said: “Officers at the Council are keen to keep open discussions with the School”. The meeting at the school on 12 May, to which I have referred, flowed from that, and I followed up the matter with the council leader with a further email on that date. Having heard nothing further, on 26 May I asked what was happening, repeating my earlier suggestion that it would be better to have a meeting to discuss things than to engage in an adversarial situation. On 27 May, the council leader wrote to me expressing his continuing concerns. He relied on a note from somebody called Jackie Groves. The content of that note was in stark contrast with the letter from Mr Minns.”
“I drew attention to the Conservative principle of promoting choice in education, and I reminded him of our Conservative manifesto, which states: “We believe that parents and teachers should be empowered to run their schools independently.” It also states: “We will continue to allow all good schools to expand, whether they are maintained schools, academies, free schools or grammar schools.” Indeed, St Ives wishes to expand by increasing its age range. After referring to the enthusiasm of the parents, governors and staff at St Ives about the introduction of a new year group from September, I sought the assurance of the leader of the council that the education authority would not seek to restrict the ambition of the school to extend educational opportunity further.”
“There has been good co-operation with other schools, but I fear that the breakdown has been with the local education authority itself. After the four weeks expired, people thought the local authority would have to go along, however reluctantly, with the proposal. On 5 May, I wrote to the leader of the council, Robert Gould, attaching a letter from a parent of a pupil at St Ives that was typical of many others I received.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend on being elected. He is absolutely right: we obviously need to have proper consultation, and that is exactly what happened. I have a letter dated 20 March from the head of Allenbourn Middle School, on behalf of the Dorset Association of Middle Schools, thanking the governing body of St Ives for ensuring that an effective consultation process took place within an appropriate time span and providing all stakeholders with the opportunity to express their views. Therefore, there was a full consultation, despite the county council’s reluctance to provide the pupil number data, for which the school had been asking for many months. The school was eventually able to obtain them only through a freedom of information request.”
“Would the Minister extend some of his words of wisdom and advice to education authorities? He has put the emphasis on schools that are coming forward with these proposals, but would he emphasise that there is a need for the education authorities to engage constructively and in a timely fashion so that, as far as possible, such issues can be resolved by consensus, rather than in the adversarial way in which this application has been dealt with?”
“May I come back on one other aspect of what the Minister said? He referred to West Moors Middle School having raised an objection, but as I pointed out, that school is over-subscribed for the coming year, which reflects the fact that it is improving. Its latest Ofsted inspection resulted in a change of status from being in need of improvement to being a good school, which has added confidence. The consequence of St Ives First School’s decision is that people who have children there would still be able to opt into the middle school system in Dorset if they wanted to. The decision is not closing down choices and options, but expanding them.”
“May I press the Minister a bit further on the timescale? We are now in the second week of June and people need to know the decision of the Secretary of State sooner rather than later.”
“Did the G7 agree that the situation in eastern Ukraine has gone from bad to worse, and if so, why has not more been done to say that there should be increased sanctions against the Russian Federation rather than just a rolling over of existing sanctions?”
“Does my right hon. Friend remember that he and I were the only participants in the debate on the business motion on Tuesday? Will he explain why he did not take that opportunity to say that he would bring forward changes to Standing Orders, bearing in mind that, in the absence of a written constitution, our Standing Orders are effectively our freedom and democracy—our unwritten constitution. The proposals before the House today would effectively change that constitution without proper notice. Why is my right hon. Friend going along with that?”
“T2. In joining the tributes to my right hon. Friend for his sterling public service, may I ask what else he could have achieved in the past five years had he been a member of a real Conservative Government?”
“This matter is topical, not least because a series of public petitions is due to be presented later today by a host of my right hon. and hon. Friends on the issue of English votes for English laws. It would be a big mistake if we were to enter the general election campaign without having this matter properly clarified, at the very least in the form of a draft Standing Order attached to a motion brought forward by the Government without notice.”
“413.] Those changes to Standing Orders could be introduced in the form of a motion, no notice of which would be required, under the provisions of paragraph 1(c) of the business of the House motion that we are now considering. I hope that I am not being unduly optimistic in asking my right hon. Friend to confirm that that is indeed his intention, and that that is why he has included in the motion a reference to motions being able to be brought forward by Ministers of the Crown without notice. I have not yet seen any record in the Official Report of a ministerial statement altering the commitments that my right hon. Friend has already made on English votes for English laws, so I hope he will take this opportunity to introduce the changes today.”
“Friend told me that he intended ‘later’ in February to set out the draft changes to Standing Orders to implement English votes for English laws. Why was he not able to meet his own target deadline of the end of February? May I seek an assurance from him that he will meet it before his final departure from this place?” He responded: “My right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young)”— who I am pleased to see is in his place— “asked about this last week. It is true that February has stretched into March, and I am conscious of the commitment that was made to my hon. Friend, so I do intend to publish the proposed Standing Order changes.” —[ Official Report , 12 March 2015; Vol. 594, c.”
“Friend publish the draft changes to Standing Orders that will be necessary to implement English votes on English issues?” He replied: “That is a party matter, rather than a Government matter, since there are different policies among the coalition parties. However, it is important to show the detail, so I intend later this month to set out how the proposal that I made earlier this week can be implemented in Standing Orders.” —[ Official Report , 5 February 2015; Vol. 592, c. 426.] I was very pleased with that response. Unfortunately, nothing had happened by the end of February, so I returned to the issue on 12 March, again during business questions. I said to my right hon. Friend: “On 5 February at column 426 of Hansard , my right hon.”
“Friend has in mind in paragraph 1(c) of the motion, which states: “At today’s sitting and the sittings on Wednesday 25 March and Thursday 26 March…no notice shall be required of any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown and any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown may be proceeded with, though opposed, after the moment of interruption and shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House”. Does one of the motions that he intends to bring forward under these provisions relate to the commitments he made to me and to the House in recent weeks? On 5 February, I asked him: “When will my right hon.”
“It does not seem possible to do justice to those provisions on behalf of all the people who could be affected by the Bill by considering it for only six hours and at relatively short notice. Given that we knew that we were approaching Dissolution, I hope that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will explain why the arrangements were made in such a way as to allow so little time for the Bill. In the past, as I recall, a shorter Finance Bill has been introduced at this stage, with provision for a second Bill to be introduced after the general election to deal with matters in more detail. In that way, it has been possible to scrutinise the important changes that affect businesses and individuals up and down the country. I fear that we shall have no such opportunity this time. I should also like to tease out what my right hon.”
“I am glad to have the opportunity to participate in this debate, and I am disappointed that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has not chosen to speak to this very important motion. We are in a fixed-term Parliament. The Government have known for the best part of five years the date of Dissolution, yet this motion is expressed in terms that suggest there is some sort of emergency requiring the Finance Bill to be considered tomorrow in all its stages in a maximum of six hours. It may well be that Opposition Members are indifferent to this, but having seen the Finance Bill, which was printed only today for the first time, I notice that the explanatory notes extend to some 258 pages. There are some 127 clauses covering 121 pages, and 21 schedules covering a further 220 pages.”
“If my memory serves me correctly, a very short Finance Act followed the Budget in 1992, with the main, substantive Finance Bill being brought forward after the general election.”
“On 5 February at column 426 of Hansard , my right hon. Friend told me that he intended “later” in February to set out the draft changes to Standing Orders to implement English votes for English laws. Why was he not able to meet his own target deadline of the end of February? May I seek an assurance from him that he will meet it before his final departure from this place?”
“The answer is contained in article 8: “Any member of the Council of Europe which has seriously violated Article 3 may be suspended from its rights of representation and requested by the Committee of Ministers to withdraw under Article 7. If such member does not comply with this request, the Committee may decide that it has ceased to be a member of the Council as from such date as the Committee may determine.” My first question for my right hon. Friend the Minister, whom I am delighted to see is responding to the debate, is, has the Russian Federation seriously violated article 3 of the statute? My view is that it certainly has, which I think is a view shared by all 18 members of the UK delegation and the 18 substitute members.”
“All have signed up to the aims of the Council as set out in chapter I, article 1(a), which provides: “The aim of the Council of Europe is to achieve a greater unity between its members for the purpose of safeguarding and realising the ideals… which are their common heritage and facilitating their economic and social progress.” Article 3 of the statute provides: “Every member of the Council of Europe must accept the principles of the rule of law and of the enjoyment by all persons within its jurisdiction of human rights and fundamental freedoms, and collaborate sincerely and effectively in the realisation of the aim of the Council as specified in Chapter I.” If one recites the text of article 3 and sets that against the recent actions of the Russian Federation, the question immediately arises of what sanctions there are against members that are in breach or violation of article 3.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Brooke. I think this is the first time I have had that privilege and I fear that it might be the last, because of your impending retirement. This is a great opportunity to discuss the importance of the Council of Europe and of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. I am delighted to see a number of my colleagues from the Parliamentary Assembly here today, along with the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mr Hancock), who was a long-serving member of the Assembly until he retired at the beginning of this year after some 18 years’ service. The statute of the Council of Europe was agreed in London on 5 May 1949. There were 10 founding members. Today, 47 countries belong to it, and Russia is one of those, having joined in 1996.”
“I will go on to explain exactly why. It is not just the view of all the UK delegation’s members that the Russian Federation has seriously violated article 3; it is also the view of a substantial majority of the Parliamentary Assembly, as evidenced by the decision in January this year to impose sanctions against representatives of Russia, and of the European Conservatives group in the Assembly, which I have the privilege of chairing. It also must be the opinion of the Committee of Ministers, which has made various declarations calling on the Russian Federation to do this, that and the other, all of which have been ignored.”
“Indeed, I think it has now left the organisation. Zimbabwe was suspended in March 2002. That resulted in its leaving the Commonwealth in December 2003. There are well established precedents for exercising the power of suspension from an international organisation when a member of that organisation is manifestly in breach of the principles.”
“On Monday, Her Majesty the Queen, as head of the Commonwealth, attended the annual service at Westminster abbey, and her message for Commonwealth day was that the organisation’s values are “more important and worthy of protection than perhaps at any other time in the Commonwealth’s existence.” The same is true of the values of the Council of Europe. The principles of the Commonwealth were set out in the Singapore declaration of 1971 and restated in the Harare declaration of 1991. In essence, they talk about peace, democracy, liberty and the rule of law. Nigeria was suspended from the Commonwealth in 1995 for breaching the Commonwealth principles. It was reinstated in 1999, when it had a democratically elected President. Fiji was suspended in September 2009 for being in breach of the principles and is still suspended.”
“In addition to all that, there have been multiple breaches of the accession document that Russia signed when it joined the Council of Europe. As Russia is still in deliberate breach of its obligations under article 3, why is nothing being done by the United Kingdom Government to trigger action against Russia under article 8? Indeed, one might ask what the purpose is of belonging to an organisation that manifestly shows so little respect for the values espoused in its founding statute. There are precedents for suspension or expulsion from international organisations, and I want to touch on what happens in the Commonwealth.”
“1 Enemy”, is, according to the inside cover, “a searing exposé of the wholesale whitewash by Russian authorities of Magnitsky’s imprisonment and murder, slicing deep into the shadowy heart of the Kremlin to uncover its sordid truths… With fraud, bribery, corruption and torture exposed at every turn, Red Notice is a shocking but true political roller-coaster that plays out in the highest echelons of Western power.” On the back of the book, which, not surprisingly, has been banned in Russia, there is a quote from Bill Browder: “I have to assume that there is a very real chance that Putin or members of his regime will have me killed some day… If I’m killed, you will know who did it.” That is, sadly, rather reminiscent of what Boris Nemtsov’s mother said before his assassination in Russia last month.”
“The fourth charge that I levy against the Russian Federation is that it has refused to honour its obligations under international law to release from custody Nadiya Savchenko, who was an elected Member of the Ukrainian Parliament and a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. She was illegally abducted from Ukraine last July. Then there is the Magnitsky case. That is a case of the Russians exercising impunity in relation to the killers of Sergei Magnitsky. A recently published book by Bill Browder, “Red Notice: How I Became Putin’s No.”
“Thirdly, Russia has brazenly defied the rule of law by harbouring Andrei Lugovoy, one of its own MPs, who was involved in the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006. As has become clear at the public inquiry currently taking place, Lugovoy achieved a score of minus 2 when asked during a polygraph test in Moscow in April 2012 whether he had handled polonium, yet at the time Russia claimed that the test had emphatically established his innocence. To add insult to injury, on Monday this week, President Putin awarded a state honour to Mr Lugovoy for what was described as “services to the fatherland”. That is putting the proverbial two fingers up to all the other members of the Council of Europe. What are those members doing in response?”
“He goes on to say that the Parliamentary Assembly’s reference to the events in Crimea was unlawful and that “‘97% of Crimean residents voted for reunification with their motherland’”. The article continues: “Following the logic of those who call this historical event an annexation, the Federal Republic of Germany annexed East Germany, Naryshkin stated.” We now know, from Putin’s words a year later, that he ordered that, so all the subsequent bluff and bluster were lies, as we knew they were at the time, and as most of us on the Parliamentary Assembly realised. The second thing that I hold against the Russian Federation is that it has deployed Russian troops across the border in eastern Ukraine who have used and continued to use heavy weapons against the Ukrainian people. I ask the hon. Gentleman, is that not enough?”
“However, as recently as January this year, Mr Putin’s poodles in the Russian state Duma were trying to equate Crimea’s referendum with that the one that took place in Scotland last year and to say that the annexation was equivalent to the Federal Republic of Germany’s annexation of East Germany in 1989. The hon. Member for Portsmouth South asked what is new, and I have here an article from a Russian newspaper, dated 28 January 2015, with the headline “Russian lawmakers to consider declaration on 1989 ‘annexation of East Germany’”. It states: “Sergei Naryshkin, the speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, has asked the parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs to look into the possibility of adopting a declaration which denounces the reunification of Germany in 1989”.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for putting that on the record. I know that within the Socialist group, strong, differing views have been expressed, but the UK delegation in the Socialist group has been solidly supporting the notion that we must have application of the rules of law to the Russian Federation’s membership of the Council of Europe. What has the Russian Federation done to put itself in fundamental breach of its obligations? First, it has illegally annexed the territory of another member country of the Council of Europe through the use of armed aggression. To make that worse, its President this week finally admitted that he ordered that annexation, and that there was no free will involved on the part of those living in Crimea.”
“We would be sending a message to those other countries that we were on their side and would help them to stand up against their bully-boy neighbour.”
“There may be parallels. I defer to my hon. Friend’s superior knowledge of what happens in the Commonwealth. However, if we and the other founding members of the Council of Europe do not stand up for our belief in the principles of the Council of Europe, we make things much more difficult for other countries, particularly those that were formerly in eastern Europe and part of the Soviet bloc. It is much more difficult for them to try to comply with the principles of the Council of Europe if they can see that the bully boy next-door to them is being treated with impunity, which is exactly what is happening with Russia at the moment. We could send a very strong message if we took effective action and used sanctions against Russia.”
“Gentleman and to an extent with myself—in which we as elected members say that we are not necessarily four-square supporting our Government but are standing up for the values of the Council of Europe against our Government. What happened in that case was that the members of the Russian Federation delegation and members in the European Democrat group were actively undermining the principles of the Council of Europe and actively engaged in supporting the illegal annexation of Crimea and were thereby breaching the principle that the Council of Europe stands for the territorial integrity of all its member countries. That is the short history.”
“The answer to that is that the abuses that I have been describing have not been going on for the last 18 years or so. What has happened is that things have got very much worse within the last year. That is why the European Democrat group, as it then was, decided to take sanctions against the Russians, as members of that group, for being in manifest breach of the Council of Europe. What was the straw that broke the camel’s back in that respect? It was the motion, passed in the Russian Duma by elected members of the Parliamentary Assembly from Russia, supporting the illegal annexation of Crimea. It was not a situation, as sometimes happens in the Parliamentary Assembly—this has happened with the hon.”
“Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb) chaired the Joint Committee on the draft Voting Eligibility (Prisoners) Bill, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muiznieks, wrote to him on 10 October 2013: “Thus, my message is clear: the Court’s judgments”— Mr Muiznieks was referring to the European Court of Human Rights— “have to be executed and the automatic and indiscriminate ban on voting rights for prisoners should be repealed. If the Court system is to continue to provide protection, there is no alternative to this for member states, other than leaving the system itself.” He goes on to say: “I think that any member state should withdraw from the Council of Europe rather than defy the Court by not executing judgments.””
“It was not expelled immediately, because everyone was using the same arguments as are now being used in relation to Russia: “Isn’t jaw-jaw better than any alternative?” However, there comes a time when, if someone continues to be in complete defiance of the principles, we need to take, in my view, the only sanction that is available under the rules. We are already in danger of being accused of double standards. When my hon.”
“The hon. Gentleman takes us back to what happened in relation to Georgia. He may recall that at that time there was a Labour Government in this country and one of the first international statesmen who spoke out in support of Georgia was none other than our present Prime Minister, so I do not think that we can be criticised for being slopy-shouldered in relation to what happened in Georgia. That was part of a continuing scenario. When it comes down to it, we have to face the fact that in Mr Putin we are dealing with a dictator and a tyrant. That is the scenario. In the same way, we have been dealing with a dictator and a tyrant in Zimbabwe. Eventually, patience ran out and Zimbabwe was expelled from the Commonwealth.”
“No, he has not, and that is where the double standards come in. We are being told that, because of our failure to implement an interpretation of the European convention on human rights which is in breach of the original terms of the convention—originally, it was clear that they did not apply to prisoner voting, but the interpretation has been extended—the United Kingdom should expel itself from the Council of Europe. Meanwhile, the commissioner has not said anything to the Russians about their membership.”
“Of course it would be, but the point that I am making, and the reason why I have secured the debate, is that everything suggests that the reverse is true. In relation to the Court judgments, on 13 December 2013 President Putin praised the Russian Constitutional Court for upholding the Russian constitution by effectively stating that the Constitutional Court’s authority was superior to that of the European Court of Human Rights. As a result of that, did the Commissioner for Human Rights tell Russia that it should withdraw from the Council of Europe, as he told my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton that the UK should do? No, he did not. Has the commissioner said anything similar about the various actions that Russia has taken in defiance of its obligations under the statute?”