Sir Edward Leigh
MP for Gainsborough · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Those of us who love the Jewish people and faith know that the reason why they have overcome all the empires that have tried to destroy them is that they are primarily people of the book and not the sword, but what is happening in the west bank is violent and egregious.”
“I am grateful to the Secretary of State for looking again at Lincolnshire. I made the point to her predecessor that the proposal for a Greater Lincolnshire authority was, in the eyes of many people, just a gerrymander. Will she look again at it and stop dividing West Lindsey and North Kesteven in half?”
“If the centre does not take action, nasty extremes will take over. The fact is that we are in acute danger. These people can now launch from anywhere on the north French coast and are escorted to our shores. Frankly, we are being invaded, and the public are completely fed up.”
“May I congratulate the Prime Minister on what he said about Ukraine and on how he conducted himself there? Our enemies should know that this House is completely and utterly united in standing behind the Ukrainian people.”
“What concerns me is the jobs of my constituents who work at Scunthorpe. That is all I am worried about; I have no ideological objection. If it is what is needed now, fair enough. As long as the blast furnaces are totally uneconomic because of high energy costs, however, it can only be a sticking plaster.”
“One of the poorest wards in the entire country is Gainsborough south-west ward. Why is the Secretary of State splitting West Lindsey in half? Why is he taking Scampton away from Gainsborough? It makes no sense. Why is he cutting away the nuclear fusion site from Lincoln?”
The complete record
Every one of 6,092 lines we hold for Sir Edward Leigh, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 21 of 122.
“I am going to proceed, if I may. Why do we need to claim that this is the worst sort of mass murderer and criminal in political history? It is complete rubbish. The fact is that when this Prime Minister took power, Parliament’s reputation was in tatters.”
“In conclusion—[Hon. Members: “Hooray!”] I am only trying to give a speech loyal to my party, which is surely no bad thing, and to the present leader of my party.”
“I know it is popular to call for tax cuts now, but we have record levels of borrowing, and we do not solve the problem by borrowing more and more. It is said that we can put the covid expense in a particular box and forget about it for 50 years, and it does not matter, but we all know in our private life that we cannot say to NatWest, “I’ve got this debt on my car—I want to put it in a different box and I won’t have to pay for 50 years.” Debt is debt. The Conservative party’s reputation is built on economic competence. We have to be careful with the economy. I personally was very unhappy about the rise in national insurance contributions. I am not in favour of tax rises. I believe that the reputation of a Conservative Government depends on low tax. We want to cut tax, but I say to the leadership contenders that we must be responsible.”
“They will say, “This new Prime Minister is unelected, or elected by a fairly small number of people.” They never said that about the previous Prime Minister, because he was elected by the people with an 80-seat majority. The problems are not going to go away .We all know that if the Labour party had been in power, the outcomes of the pandemic may not have been a great deal different. We do not know what will happen with Ukraine or with the economy, but the Conservative party, as the Prime Minister explained, is turbocharged because we believe in the power of the free economy, in freedom and in low taxation, although of course we cannot deliver that now. I say to my friends who are competing for the leadership: be responsible.”
“That is the record of this Prime Minister, and I am proud as a Back Bencher to have given him all the loyalty I possibly could, as I will give loyalty to the next leader. Of course there are challenges. Anybody would think that we lived in a vacuum—that despite the fact that we had the pandemic and the fact that we have a war in Europe, somehow the Government are to blame for all our ills. That is complete rubbish. When the next leader of the Conservative party—the next Prime Minister—comes into office, within weeks the Labour party will be calling for another general election, as we have already heard from the Leader of the Opposition.”
“Again and again the Opposition tried to force us into more and more severe lockdowns, but this Prime Minister, with his vaccine roll-out, got us out of that mess, and thousands of people are now alive because of him. Speaking for myself, I wholly regret the departure of this Prime Minister and I remain completely loyal to him to the very end, as I remained loyal to Mrs Thatcher. I think we will ask ourselves, “What have we done? What have we done to a man who gave us this 80-seat majority?” The third point is that, but for this Prime Minister—the first western leader to arm Ukraine—Kyiv would now be in the hands of the Russians. We led Europe and the world in saving that country.”
“No. Virtually everybody in this Chamber had voted to have a referendum, yet many Members were doing their level best to frustrate it. Had we not had this Prime Minister, and had we not delivered Brexit, I believe we would have had a meltdown in political trust. He got Brexit done, though I agree that personally I would have liked to have done a lot more with it, and we will do, given time. That is the first issue, and that is why the Prime Minister was given a majority of 80. The second issue is the pandemic. We have had all these insults against a Prime Minister who was working on our behalf and nearly died in office. It is a disgraceful attack. He was working flat out to save lives. Our record on the pandemic is frankly second to none.”
“Each piece has been taken apart, restored or replaced, and put back with meticulous skill, so I do not think it is fair to criticise the estates programme.”
“The Sponsor Body was planning on removing 14 lift shafts, and wanted office space for MPs cut by as much as one fifth. The programme was in danger of becoming a vast feeding frenzy for contractors and consultants at the taxpayer’s expense. A lot of those ideas were simply unrealisable, so the plans for the R&R programme that have been put forward have failed. As the Leader of the House said, we need to look at working models that have been successful, such as that used for Elizabeth Tower, which has been beautifully restored—of course, that project went over time and over budget because too little preparatory work was done, but the result is magnificent. The cast-iron roofing that the Leader of the House talked about has been an immense success. It is the largest cast-iron roof in Europe.”
“Member for Bristol West who leads for the Opposition to blame the Government and the former Leader of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), for that fact. The reason why we have had so much delay is that the Sponsor Body has come up with wildly expensive proposals, the first of which was the demolition of Richmond House. That would have been financially wasteful, with millions of pounds spent on a white elephant permanent replica Chamber; it would have been architecturally destructive, making a mockery of heritage laws; and it could have cost up to £1 billion. That proposal caused an enormous amount of delay, and I think there is a general consensus that it was right for us to do away with it. It has been delay, delay, delay. The plans for the Palace were not much better.”
“There will be ways of working creatively around us. I accept that it may well be necessary to have a decant, but we have no idea how long that decant will last. If we get rid of the Daily Mail September sittings and stop sweating the building through the entire summer recess, there may come a point where we will break in July and not come back until the following January, or it may take longer—we have no idea. However, I say with the greatest respect to my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) that we should not, I am afraid, accept an amendment that just lays down a set time. We have to look at the evidence. The new Commission will do its work, and will do whatever is necessary. There has been so much delay, and I think it is very unfair of the hon.”
“I hope we will move on from this endless debate about whether or not we have a decant. I rather resent the fact that those of us who have been arguing the case against a very lengthy decant are accused by others of just wanting to live in a comfortable place. I serve on the Sponsor Body with my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar). If we had proceeded with its plans, which would have entailed a decant of up to 20 years, that decant would not have started before 2031. I can assure the House that by 2031, I will certainly be retired and quite possibly dead, so it is nothing to do with me. What the Sponsor Body finally came up with might have been a fair evaluation of what it would cost to do a full singing-and-dancing renovation and change of everything, but it was totally unrealistic, and the Commission had to step in.”
“That was an interesting speech, although I am not sure that the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) carried the rest of the House. This is the iconic centre of the United Kingdom, and it is not surprising that the SNP wants to make it into a museum. I commend the Leader of the House for the moderate, sensible, open-minded way in which he opened the debate. I suspect that very few people would disagree with anything he said, and most of what the shadow Leader of the House the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) said was sensible, too. We all agree that we have to just get on with it. There have been too many delays, and—let us be realistic—they will probably still be working around us in 50, 60 or 100 years’ time. That is the way of these old buildings.”
“All that sort of expensive stuff is for the birds. We are going to make this building safe and fireproof, and we will do it, hopefully, with good preparatory work, within time and within budget.”
“There was a lack of awareness of MPs’ work. For example, it was suggested that MPs’ staff move to shared open-plan offices. Parliamentary politics requires privacy and discretion, and dealing with constituents’ cases even more so. Often, we deal with very sensitive information. We do not work like other entities and we have to accept that Parliament is a unique place. In conclusion, I believe that what the Leader of the House is proposing today is a sensible compromise. We are not ruling anything in or anything out. We are going to get on with it. We love this building. We are not going to put ourselves first and we are going to do the absolutely essential work to restore this Barry and Pugin masterpiece. We are not going to make it carbon neutral and fill in atriums and all the courtyards.”
“It requires good decision making, an eye for savings, and cutting out unnecessary embellishments. Serving on the sponsor body has been informative. The sponsor body’s job is to oversee and scrutinise the delivery authority, but I personally believe that the information provided to the sponsor body has often been mired in the worst kind of management speak. Operations are often totally opaque and lacking in clarity. I believe that our ability to thoroughly scrutinise work has not been fully facilitated. Every time it came across a problem, it reached for the most invasive and most expensive solution. I believe that in the end it was going to provide very bad value for money. Every time we proposed alternatives, ridiculous claims about costing and timescale were thrown back. Inadequate figures were given to us.”
“The hon. Gentleman makes his point and we just have to learn to compromise. He mentions Mr Speaker. We should congratulate Mr Speaker on his own creative thinking. The Speaker’s house needed urgent repairs, which meant he had to be accommodated elsewhere. The R&R programme drew up plans costing £20 million, to tear up a Georgian townhouse on the estate and put a lift shaft through it. Mr Speaker and the previous Leader of the House grasped the nettle, visited the site itself, and decided it just needed a lick of paint and some basic work. The right hon. Member for North East Somerset, who is sitting in his place, reported that it cost just 5% of the planned £20 million to get all three empty houses back into use. That is exactly the kind of mentality we need.”
“Will the Secretary of State confirm that support for the welfare state depends on a kind of social contract where people realise that those who are pensioners or out of work should be helped because they have paid their taxes? How is support for the welfare state improved when 60,000 people a year are pouring across the channel, paying illegal smugglers—these are not the poorest of the poor—and being kept on social security, maybe for 10 years, without ever being deported? By the way, what does it cost?”
“It is a debate about assisted suicide—helping people to kill themselves.”
“Those who favour assisted dying will get their wish: there will be a debate on the Floor of the House of Commons, and if there is one more debate, there will be others. They will go on through the years, and the majorities against assisted dying will get smaller and smaller, because of course we are up against it. Overwhelmingly, the economics are against us— [ Interruption. ] It is about economics. We have a vast, ever-growing population of people who are very frail and very elderly, who are a burden on society and know it. Therefore, I predict that, sooner or later, the House of Commons will debate this issue and, sadly, pass a law as so many other countries have done. This is not a debate about assisted dying. We all want to help people to die peacefully and painlessly.”
“] I can see people shaking their heads, but I have actually seen it happen. Is there anyone in this room who would blame a doctor who helped someone to die if they were in agony? The doctor was not trying to kill them—they were trying to ease the pain. And in easing the pain by delivering that amount of morphine, that might have hastened their demise. Let us be realistic about it. Let us try to take a pro-life view, and let us remember—”
“We have to tell everybody that they have the right to go into a hospice—a right that so many people are not given—and receive the full benefit of modern medical technology to die peacefully and painlessly. For the overwhelming majority of people, if they are given palliative care, it is an option they can enjoy. I actually watched another friend of mine die. He was my best friend and former colleague in this House. He was dying of terminal cancer; I was sitting beside him and I could see the morphine pumping through his wrists. He died peacefully and painlessly, but I have no doubt that it was the morphine that killed him. Theologically, morally and legally, there is nothing against a doctor helping me to die by pumping morphine into me, even if that is the immediate cause of my death. [ Interruption.”
“They are similar arguments to what we heard when we had the initial debates on abortion, with foetal abnormality, rape and all the other things. Then we had abortion on demand, and now we are going to get death on demand. That is what it is all about. All the pressure, particularly on the frail and vulnerable, will be about that. I want to make a theological point. A friend of mine died in the first months of covid. He died in agony. He died in a part of the country where he was sent out of hospital because the medical profession was panicking. He was not given adequate palliative care and he died in agony. It was appalling. We are all agreed that we are still not doing enough about palliative care. We have to do much more.”
“I have not had a family member do that, but we have all encountered friends and relatives who have been under intolerable pressure. Hon. Members have cited examples, and I can do so too. I simply take a very pro-life point of view. It is not from my religious conviction or my belief that everybody is beautiful and wonderful, however small, however tiny in the womb, however old or frail, how much of a burden they are, whether they are a convicted murder or whether they are one of our military enemies. I take a pro-life view, and I think so much of the misery in the world in the last 100 years has been because people are casual about taking life. Many of the arguments that we hear in favour of assisted dying are based on very appalling, horrible and extreme cases.”
“Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, once we have assisted dying in this country, it will change the whole nature of the debate between GPs and old people? At the back of every GP’s mind, and for every old person, there will be that question: “Should I end it?” That is not a burden that we should place on GPs.”
“Ukraine is by far the most important issue facing us, not least in terms of preventing mass starvation in Africa. One cannot help noticing that unlike all the other fluff in the newspapers every day, nobody dares criticise the Prime Minister’s resolute leadership on Ukraine. What concerns many of us is that some of our allies do not seem to be as resolute as he. While they will give full support to Ukraine not to lose this war, they are not that keen on Ukraine winning this war, because they do not want to humiliate Putin. Can the Prime Minister make clear that it is the absolute commitment of NATO to defeat Putin once and for all?”
“The single greatest motor of world prosperity is free trade. Although it is allowable to have trade remedies to deal with unfair dumping or subsidies, they must be strictly temporary and must be based on the clearest evidence. Will the Secretary of State proclaim once more that this Conservative Government are fully committed to world free trade?”
“We had a submission from the Institute of Development Studies, which notes that Pakistan requires special attention regarding freedom of religion but reports that “not many resources have been dedicated to this” within the then Department for International Development’s work on Pakistan. It adds: “There is some focus on it through education programmes,” but that has been “a very small part of its overall programmes.” Can the Minister update us on whether that is still the case? When we are doling out so much taxpayers’ money, why are we so supine when it comes to using our influence? What is the point of funding Governments that either run roughshod over freedom of religion or refuse to lift a finger to support it? I want to be completely fair and deal with persecution of Muslims as well.”
“Let us give asylum here to people who are genuinely being persecuted, and let us deal with the economic migrant issue. The more economic migrants who are breaking the rules and pouring into the country, the fewer genuine refugees we can take. Pakistan is a very important issue. Between 2015 and 2019, Pakistan was the largest recipient of direct UK aid, so we must have enormous influence. I really must ask the Minister if we are using it. Last year, we had the report by the International Development Committee on UK aid to Pakistan, which is an important issue.”
“It may be that there are politics involved and that it does not want to irritate the Pakistani Government because of matters of global importance, such as dealing with the Taliban and all the rest of it. I do not know, but this poor girl and her entire family are in one room and nothing happens. Meanwhile, 60,000 people a year are pouring across the channel. They are already in a safe country; they are not being persecuted in France. They are all very nice people and I have nothing against them individually, but they are obviously economic migrants. They are pouring across while there is one girl who apparently we cannot get into this country, although I would have thought she has a rock-solid asylum case. We go on and on as a Government saying how we have a wonderful record on asylum seekers.”
“I received absolute assurances from the Home Secretary that she was fully cognisant of the case and was going to take action. Lord Forsyth went to see her a year before that and got the same answer. An excellent charity, Aid to the Church in Need, is willing to fly Maira and her family to the UK, help them get on their feet and make sure that they are integrated within the British-Pakistani Christian community here. If ever in the whole of history there was a case where asylum was justified, here it is, so why has there been no progress? I suspect that there has been no progress—this is an allegation, which may be untrue, but I think I have to make it—because our high commission in Pakistan is not looking at the case with sufficient seriousness.”
“I want to illustrate the problem with just one case. I have gone on and on about it, but the only way to make any difference in this place is to make yourself a crushing bore on a particular subject. Maira Shahbaz is a Christian girl in Pakistan, who was just 14 years old when she was bundled into a car at gunpoint by three men and then drugged, raped, and filmed and photographed for use as blackmail. She was forcibly converted to Islam and forced into marriage with one of her abductors. Four months later, she managed to escape. She has faced death threats for supposed apostasy and for abandoning her supposed husband. An imam has certified that the wedding was invalid but the case in the civil court still drags on. On 13 July—almost a year ago—I took a delegation to see the Home Secretary, no less, about the case.”
“When we started all those years ago, the Foreign Office took great care to be completely equidistant and say, “Oh, well, there’s persecution of Christians on the one hand, but on the other hand,” and so on. It is more proactive now, and we have had the Bishop of Truro report and my hon. Friend’s office has been set up, so more work is being done. Gradually, we are raising interest in this subject. The fact is that more Christians are being persecuted in the world, either through outright persecution, such as in North Korea or parts of north Africa, or by having their human rights severely limited, as in countries such as Saudi Arabia. This is a huge issue. I am not just going to talk about Christians; I am also going to talk about the difficulties faced by Muslims and by religious people around the world.”
“These debates go back a long way—over 20 years—and I have taken part in most of them. I remember a debate when Keith Vaz was sitting in the Minister’s place. I instituted a debate on the persecution of the Karen people in Myanmar, and that persecution is still taking place. The lack of progress can be depressing, although I remember Keith Vaz telling me afterwards, “Who would think a small debate in Westminster Hall could actually make a difference?”, and it has in that case. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) for all the work that she does and for ensuring that once again we have a debate on freedom of religion. There has been progress with the Foreign Office.”
“I agree entirely—that is the purpose of these debates. As we are only a group of Back Benchers, we ask our Government to raise the issue up the agenda and talk about all these minorities, wherever they are in the world, and view it as an important part of the Government’s work. We have seen casual violence against Muslims in India, a country with which we hope to have very close and friendly relations. I hope that our Ministers are raising that issue.”
“To be entirely fair, I have also pestered Ministers about Mr Mubarak Bala, the head of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, who is facing 24 years in prison for leaving Islam. That is another case that we should perhaps try to pursue.”
“However much it departs from our comfortable, western, liberal mentality, the fact is that there is outright genocidal persecution of Christians by extremists in Nigeria. Members do not have to listen to me; the Catholic Bishop of Ondo, in whose diocese the attack took place, clarified that: “To suggest or make a connection between victims of terror and consequences of climate change is not only misleading but also exactly rubbing salt to the injuries of all who have suffered terrorism in Nigeria.” We need our Ministers and civil servants to be honest. This is communal hatred and violent persecution. It is not about water supply or irrigation. It does not just affect Christians, although they are the canary in the mine.”
“It is obviously a very worrying situation. I do not want to go into too much detail on it, partly because I am not sufficiently briefed. However, the fact is that this casual violence is there. We should be concerned about that, in what is the largest democracy in the world. The situation in Nigeria is dire. Just this month, a Catholic church in Owo was stormed by militants, leaving 50 dead. Imagine that: 50 people killed in a church. Bureaucrats here and in other western countries try to blame the violence in Nigeria on climate change and the competition for resources. I have heard their excuses again and again—“There are different tribes; there are hunter-gatherers; there are arable farmers.”—but it simply does not wash.”
“Our Government should be the leader in the world in speaking out in favour of religious minorities and their rights. The Government should expand the office of the special envoy for freedom of religion or belief and resource it properly. I welcome the appointment of David Burrowes as deputy to my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton. I hope that, just as we have acted with so much vigour in Ukraine, we can act with equal vigour to protect religious minorities of whatever faith, wherever they are in the world.”
“The Government could help UK business and industry to pivot away from China, even if it takes years, if progress is not made on the persecution of the Uyghurs. If a business’s factory is in China, move it to Malaysia, Indonesia or Africa. If its research and development is in China, move it to Israel or Singapore, or perhaps even to Manchester, Dundee or Belfast. Our influence is limited, and my point is also directed at our own companies that are sourcing products from the area where the Uyghurs are being persecuted. What is going on there is a disgrace. Although our influence is limited, what influence we have we should use. We should not be afraid to speak out, whatever the impact on trade might be. Freedom of religion or belief is one of the most essential human rights. It is under enormous threat all over the world.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for that very helpful intervention. We have been very good at isolating Russia. We have heard about the complications in Ukraine, with the appalling violence by Russia against Ukraine and the churches that have been destroyed by bombing. Frankly, we have not been so good at taking on China over the persecution of the Muslim Uyghurs, which has reached dystopian genocidal levels. It is a disgrace. I am all in favour of good relations with China, maximising trade and promoting prosperity. I understand that our influence with the Chinese Government—the Government of a very large, proud country—is limited, but we cannot shirk our duty, despite the economic impact. Perhaps the Minister could comment on that.”
“The most important thing in all this is peace, and getting power sharing up and running. Will the right hon. Gentleman acquaint the House with the discussions that he has had with the DUP on the solution to the problem, given that the DUP refuses to rejoin power sharing unless the protocol is dealt with? I am sure that he has discussed this with the DUP.”
“The Secretary of State has just mentioned that we lack total self-sufficiency in wheat production. Presumably, given the skyrocketing prices in the wheat market because of what is happening in Ukraine, the Government food strategy is more about producing more of our own wheat. I do not ask him to comment on a particular planning application, but what does he think of an application to build a solar farm covering 7,000 acres of good agricultural land in my constituency? I am not asking him to comment on that proposal around Gainsborough, but will he consult his colleagues to ensure that we maximise food production on our farmland?”
“Following decisions by the House Commissions in February, the sponsor body paused its work on producing a business case for the restoration and renewal programme. The two Commissions have now proposed a new approach for how the programme should be governed and delivered. The hon. Lady will be pleased to know that the Commissions recommend that a priority area for the work should be “Conservation of the building fabric including stonework.” It is intended that the new proposals will be put to Members of both Houses for debate and decision before the summer recess.”
“That is an extremely good question. As I sit on the sponsor board, I can say that that is an absolute priority for everybody working for the delivery authority. A huge amount of work has already been done in listing and understanding every part of the fabric and every piece of artwork; the hon. Lady can rest assured that, once the works commence, every effort will be made to remove those artworks so that they are not in any way damaged.”
“However, it rather makes the point that the Council of Europe has a core role in dealing with egregious human rights abuses, and that putting somebody on a safe flight, going to a safe hotel in a safe place, is not an egregious abuse of human rights.”
“The Council should not start nit-picking with demonstrably democratic western powers. We saw that in the row over prisoners’ voting rights and we are seeing it even today—this is a hot topic—in the very late intervention of the European Court of Human Rights that resulted in the flight to Rwanda not being able to take off with any people. The European Court of Human Rights said that one Iraqi man faced “a real risk of irreversible harm.” What is the real risk of irreversible harm? The real risk—the immoral thing—is to allow people to go on crossing the channel and possibly drowning. The European Court of Human Rights, the Church of England and all the critics of the Government’s policy on Rwanda have to ask themselves: what is their solution? This may be a temporary intervention by the European Court of Human Rights. I hope that it is.”
“Friend the Member for Henley, has acted with great vigour in this latest crisis, but that was not the case last time. After Russia took over Crimea, it was expelled for a time from the Parliamentary Assembly. Then, because people at the Council of Europe needed the money, it was allowed to dribble back in. That must never happen again. We must proclaim what is right, and not be deterred from doing what is right because we need its money. I am grateful to the Minister for ensuring that, with other western powers, we are filling the financial gap made by the Russian expulsion. My point is that the Council of Europe has to concentrate on its core role, which is dealing with egregious human rights abuses in places such as Russia. Other countries such as Azerbaijan and Turkey also have some difficulties.”
“As a former chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Russia who has sought to understand, but not condone, Russian politics, I think there is absolutely no excuse for what Russia has done in invading Ukraine. Ukrainians have a right to self-determination, and I do not believe for a moment that Mr Putin believes that there is any threat to Russia by NATO; I think he is trying to establish the Russian empire. No doubt it is very sad for some Russians that the Russian empire is over, but it was presumably sad for some Turks when the Turkish empire was over, sad for some Brits when the British empire was over, sad for some French people when the French empire was over, and likewise for any other empire. We all have a right to self-determination. The Council of Europe, under the guidance of people such as my hon.”
“The Council of Europe was founded in 1949 by the treaty of London. It was founded to combat fascism, Nazism and communism, and played an extraordinarily positive role in doing precisely that. Perhaps its greatest hours of glory were during the break-up of the Soviet Union and the welcoming of new democratic states in eastern Europe. Whereas the EU is centralising, the Council of Europe is welcoming. With 46 member states, it has real power—for instance, on the European convention of human rights, about which I will say a few words in a moment. As my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) has said, we now have a new and very important role in the Council of Europe, given the appalling behaviour of the Russian Federation. I personally feel betrayed by what Russia has done.”