That this House supports the work of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association; asks for parliamentary time at the earliest opportunity to change the status of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association from a UK charity to an international inter-parliamentary organisation; and calls on the Government to effect that change.
May I start by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for granting this timely and important debate? In the debate, I speak on behalf of CPA UK executive members, Members of Parliament who value the work of the CPA, and, indeed, parliamentarians from across the British Islands and Mediterranean region—the region of which we are a part in the CPA. I know that many right hon. and hon. Members here—including the Labour Front Bencher, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West), the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), who will respond for the Liberal Democrats, and many others—have enjoyed, benefited from and participated in many different CPA activities. That organisation is held dear in the hearts of parliamentarians both in the UK and abroad.
However, the CPA is at a turning point and needs the UK Government to act now to help secure its future. In the UK, only the Government can change the status of the CPA from a local UK charity to a bespoke international inter-parliamentary organisation, because the Government need to allocate parliamentary time to allow a short piece of primary legislation to be passed. It has for many years been acknowledged that the CPA’s status as a UK charity is not appropriate for an association of equals. The CPA membership includes parliamentarians from South Africa to Singapore, Ghana to Guyana and Canada to Cyprus, and all are equal members of the organisation, which is one of the oldest Commonwealth organisations.
Its status as a UK charity is completely out of kilter with the reality of the organisation’s work. The CPA was founded back in 1911 to promote the advancement of parliamentary democracy, but continuing to be a UK charity today simply reinforces an outdated vision of the Commonwealth and the UK’s place in it. Long-standing demands for recognition of its modern status as a bespoke international interparliamentary organisation reached boiling point at the general assembly meeting in Halifax, Canada, last year, where it was decided that unless substantial progress had been made to change the status of the organisation within 12 months, members would resolve to move the headquarters from the UK.
A change in status will allow the CPA to more effectively serve its members, removing damaging frictions caused by an inappropriate status, making clear that all members are on an equal footing, to reflect the modern view of the Commonwealth, and representing the CPA’s own principles of equality and diversity. In the UK, that requires primary legislation.
I congratulate the right hon. Lady on securing the debate, and I want to put on record my and the Liberal Democrats’ support for her Bill, which should be very simple to pass. From my dealings with other parliamentarians across the world, I know that the fact that the CPA is held here, in the mother of Parliaments, matters a lot to them. They feel that it is important to see how it is done by the oldest institution, and we also gain a huge amount from it. Does she agree that the loss of that would be unconscionable to this place?
Yes. Many Members here today will have known the value of meeting incoming delegations and being part of outward delegations. It gives us, as parliamentarians, an understanding of the world in which we are operating, in the same way that other organisations do, including the Inter-Parliamentary Union—we are pleased to have the chair of the British Group of the IPU, my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), with us today. These organisations are valued by parliamentarians, and we need to ensure that the Government are aware of that and take appropriate action.
I want to reiterate the reason why this change in status is so important. Countries that are members of the CPA make payments, ultimately, from their taxpayers’ money to a UK charity. Those concerns are held most strongly by parliamentary colleagues in the Africa region of the CPA. That is understandable: it is incongruous at best for them to be making payments for membership of an international organisation when it looks on their books as if they are making payments to UK charities. We have to understand that, and sympathise and empathise with it.
Other organisations have already ensured that they are structured in an appropriate way. French legislation underpins the CPA’s francophone counterpart in Paris, the Assemblée Parlementaire de la Francophonie, and the Inter-Parliamentary Union has a Geneva headquarters agreement with Switzerland. The need to follow those international examples is particularly true for an international institution such as the CPA, which is all about the importance of parliamentary democracy, and the Commonwealth charter to which we and our fellow member states are signed up commits us to that.
This Parliament’s actions regarding the CPA’s status may appear peripheral to some, but in fact, they spill over into our relations with very near family members. Other members of the British family that are involved in the CPA include the devolved legislatures in the UK, the Crown dependencies and the overseas territories. They are all active members, and they too support the need to resolve this situation. The Government need to take that much more into account, not least because those organisations are concerned that they could be damaged by association should Westminster not be able to resolve this amicably. All also look to His Majesty the King as Head of State, as do the 14 other realms. At the coronation in May, we saw the huge importance attached to the Commonwealth, with His Majesty now head of the Commonwealth in succession to Her late Majesty, Queen Elizabeth.
I am sorry to tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I have been an abject failure, but it is okay because it is not I who is going to be blamed. Sadly, it is going to be the Minister and the Secretary of State, and it is going to be on their watch that CPA International has to leave London.
Even back in 2006, when I visited India, I remember these issues being raised. In the four years that I had the privilege of being in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, working with the Minister of State, I think I had the largest number of Commonwealth countries in my portfolio, but I never took the lead, although I did advocate for making this change. When I was the chair of the CPA, prior to my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller), for around two or three years, I tried to move these things forward, but it was never the issue of the day. Let us face it: it is not the biggest issue of the day today, with Iran and what is going on in Russia, but it has to be an issue at some point.
In April, when I stood in for my right hon. Friend in a Westminster Hall debate, I said that, if we did not do something in April when everyone met in Gibraltar, the CPA would hardcode in a process that involved having to leave the United Kingdom. That process is now hardcoded in. People are coming forward—whether it is the Malaysians; South Africa, perhaps with the support of other African countries; or Canada—and there are very credible propositions to take the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association International branch away from the UK. This is not just a matter of pride. With the King being the head of the Commonwealth, it brings something closely located to the monarchy, to the British tradition and to this Parliament—a safe, secure place, through which people travel on a regular basis. It can conduct CPA business while doing other things internationally, which might not be the case if it were located in a country a little further away.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller) on securing his debate. I want to make three specific points regarding the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association: first, the governance arrangements; secondly, the role of inter-parliamentary organisations; and, finally, the work that the CPA leads on in the very important world of modern slavery, on which it is a great leader.
Starting with the governance arrangements, I absolutely support my right hon. Friend in everything she has said. I attended the Commonwealth parliamentary conference in Halifax last year, where this was the No. 1 topic. This is not a bluff being called or a suggestion we will all get over. This is a matter of central importance to members of the CPA globally. They really do find this an incredibly sensitive issue, and we need to show sympathy and respect for that position and help them.
I thank my right hon. Friend for raising the issue of our conference last year, and she has reminded me of some of the conversations I was having with Members of Parliament, particularly from places, such as Canada, where we are negotiating trade agreements. It is these Members of Parliament who want to see consistency from the UK around our relationship with them as nations, but also as members of the Commonwealth.
I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. I think there is a statement that the UK Government could make here, which is about taking leadership and about demonstrating that we want to be active and sympathetic players in global events.
On not being able to take this step—this very simple step—I think my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (Sir James Duddridge) is a former Whip, as I am, and I recall opposed private business evenings when, after the day’s business had finished on a Wednesday, three hours were set aside for opposed private business. I doubt this would be opposed. I think we could get this through incredibly quickly, and we would not be asking the House to take much of its time to approve this measure. But it is such an important step, and I urge my right hon. Friend the Minister and the Whip on duty—the Vice-Chamberlain of His Majesty’s Household, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill)—to really press this point home with the business managers. A piece of legislation is ready to go, and it has universal support in this House and in the other place. It would be such a great thing if those of us going to Ghana this year for the CPC could stand up, hold our heads high and say, “We listened and, as the UK, we took the steps you asked us to take.” That would make an enormous difference.
My second point is around the importance and value of multilateral organisations, particularly those for parliamentarians. As the chair of the British Group Inter-Parliamentary Union and an active member of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association UK, I want the House to know that those organisations present such important opportunities. Looking around, I do not think that anyone here has not been on a delegation for at least one of them. We also have the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, which I am very honoured to co-chair, the British-American Parliamentary Group, and we now have our new EU friendship group. These things are very important. If we do not understand what we are doing here as parliamentarians and understand what is happening in other Parliaments, we simply are not going to develop and learn or be able to tackle important global issues.
Before I begin my speech, I want to put on the record my thanks to Jon Davies, who is our retiring chief executive of the CPA. CPA UK has benefited enormously from Jon’s diplomatic skills and diligence over the years. Like you, Mr Deputy Speaker, I should perhaps declare an interest as a member of the executive committee of CPA UK.
I have only just spoken, so I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. He reminds me that we heard about Jon Davies’s incredible diplomatic skills at yesterday’s AGM. We also heard from our hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) that Jon Davies is able to remove bird poo from Members of Parliament in the most discreet way imaginable. I think we should put on the record that that is a great skill, and one that CPA UK has valued. [Laughter.]
I do not think there is anything that can be said in response to that particular point, but I know Jon to be multiskilled from my own experience of him.
I begin by slightly disagreeing with my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (Sir James Duddridge), which I have of course never done previously, in that this issue does impact on major global issues, particularly Russia. My experience, having twice led a delegation to South Africa, is that Russia very much wants to extend its influence into South Africa and into Africa. It is exactly the inertia of the UK and its colonialist views that are used to take that forward. The delegation I led was denounced in the South African Parliament by the Economic Freedom Fighters, which to be fair is an extreme group. Its members stood up and decried our delegation as neo-colonialists and condemned the Commonwealth and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.
Not acting on this issue gives succour to people making that argument, and it gives succour to Russia, which fanned the flames of that argument. Last year, I met the Deputy Speaker of the South African Parliament as part of the delegation, and that was the first issue he raised with me. A year later, I met him again, and what had we done? My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger) had had a debate and effectively had a brush off, but we had done nothing to move this issue forward. We are not able to convince Commonwealth colleagues that we are taking this issue seriously if we simply do nothing. We can have this debate today, where we are placated at the end and nothing happens, but action is required.
I intervene not to compliment my right hon. Friend on his tie, but to make a more serious point on the meeting yesterday, which was attended by Mr Speaker, who, like you Mr Deputy Speaker, has a passion for these things. I am not sure how these things operate, but is there an opportunity to have some type of Speaker’s conference or an informal meeting where Mr Speaker brings together the Leader of the House and the Foreign Secretary, gives them tea and maybe chocolate biscuits, locks the door and does not let them out until we have resolved this issue?
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To assist the Government, I have retabled a short Bill, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (Status) (No. 2) Bill, which was first introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger) around a year ago, to make those changes quickly and at no cost—I reiterate: at no cost. It is a point that has already been agreed with Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office officials, leaving no policy differences between the CPA and the FCDO in taking this issue forward.
The Bill has widespread cross-party support both here and in the other place but requires parliamentary time to be passed. The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan), is on the Front Bench, having picked up the reins on this at relatively short notice; I very much appreciate that, and I know the whole House will. I hope she will be able to confirm today that parliamentary time is being made available, because our time is running out.
Over the many years of discussion between the CPA and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, before it became the FCDO, policy differences, by and large, have been resolved. In particular, the change in status is not seen as coming under the International Organisations Act 1968, because the CPA does not fit those criteria, and that issue was dealt with when others were chairing the organisation. My Bill, which the Minister will have seen, would therefore require a bespoke status, not a status under that Act, which would have caused problems. The new Bill has no extra costs for the UK taxpayer over and above the tax advantages already available to a UK charity, which the CPA is.
If we do not make significant progress on this legislation before the summer recess, the UK’s hosting of the CPA’s secretariat will be lost. That will create a real risk for the whole organisation, given the very different views on its possible future. An apparent lack of prioritisation in the UK places in question our commitment to the Commonwealth institutions themselves, and, indeed, our reputation could be unnecessarily diminished, all for not making this very small change that requires legislation.
As the Minister will be aware, the CPA has given good notice of its concerns and the need for change. To put it simply, parliamentarians from many countries take issue with having to make CPA subscription payments from their taxpayers’ money to a UK charity.
At its April meeting in Gibraltar, the CPA executive agreed to continue to support efforts to persuade the UK Government to make the necessary changes, but— to be very clear—that is contingent on achieving new legislation by the time that the CPA’s Commonwealth parliamentary conference takes place in Ghana at the end of September, just a few short weeks away. The House should know that the CPA executive is already working on a relocation package for the secretariat, including a timeline and procedure for assessing future host countries. This is not a hollow threat: it is something that is already happening. To restate, should the UK not pass new legislation by the end of September, the organisation will proceed with relocation outside of the UK from October 2023.
There appears to be absolutely no reason why the Bill should take much parliamentary time, given the clear support for it in both Houses—my right hon. Friend the Minister will have heard that already from Opposition Members. It involves no additional costs for the UK taxpayer. It has been suggested that any change in status would create an unhelpful or unwelcome precedent, but with respect, that argument does not bear any scrutiny at all. The CPA’s case is unique. It is an international inter-parliamentary organisation headquartered in the UK. There are no others. When we pressed for examples of comparators, not a single one on the list could make a similar case. Some were international organisations, undoubtedly worthy but headquartered elsewhere and with no particular link to the UK. There were territories or groups of states and Governments—again, completely different and not parliamentary in category, and obviously not headquartered in the UK. Legislation to recognise the status of the CPA and the secretariat’s location here in the UK does not create a precedent, so that cannot credibly be cited as a reason for inaction.
Parliamentarians from around the globe tell us that they would like the CPA secretariat to remain in London. London works well as a location for the secretariat: here on the parliamentary estate, the secretariat can attract talented staff from a diverse pool. Hosting the CPA is a small but important example of the UK’s soft power, and I hope my right hon. Friend the Minister can use her good offices to ensure that time is given to pass the modest Bill required to change the status of the CPA in the time remaining before the annual assembly meeting in September. That would demonstrate not only our commitment to the Commonwealth, but the importance of strong democracies around the world.
While I failed to move this forward successfully, it will be the Foreign Secretary and the ministerial team who will get the blame. There is an opportunity to grasp this nettle. The incremental change we have seen over the last decade just is not going to cut it. A few weeks ago, I asked the Prime Minister about this, and he was optimistic in his reply. I believe the Foreign Secretary wants to find a way forward, but we need to see a strong indication from the Minister today that we have a commitment to try to sort this out. In the King’s Speech, if not earlier, we need an absolute commitment that legislation is going to be taken forward to solve this problem. This really should not be what we are talking about in this House. Please, please make this my last speech on this subject, and please turn my failure into a success.
We all have a common goal here. The Inter-Parliamentary Union recently hosted an important inter-faith dialogue in Marrakesh that marked the first time that it has brought together civil society, faith groups and parliamentarians; it was the first time that we saw together in one room representatives from all the major faiths on this planet. They were all there talking about our common goals, such as climate change and global migration, which affects us all. Parliamentarians have a real role to play not only in helping Governments to get the necessary legislation through in these areas, but in influencing our constituents, organisations and those around us. The CPA is the only organisation that includes all the devolved legislatures, the provincial legislatures, the state legislatures, the overseas territories and the Crown dependencies. Parliamentarians from all those organisations take part in CPA events, and that is such a powerful and important thing for helping us to understand that we have shared problems that require shared solutions.
That takes me on to the shared problem that we have regarding modern slavery and human trafficking. CPA UK has been a world leader on this issue. When I was the Minister for Modern Slavery in the Home Office in 2014, CPA UK was leading the work that could be done by parliamentarians around the world. The Commonwealth has an important role to play in tackling this issue, full stop, because it contains source countries, transit countries and destination countries for victims of trafficking. The leadership that the Commonwealth can show helps to change legislation globally, and the CPA helps to ensure that legislation changes at a parliamentary level in every one of our Parliaments.
I have taken part in many events that CPA UK has hosted here. I have spoken about issues at global delegations, and I cannot praise CPA UK and its team enough for the global lead that they play. This is such an important organisation. The Government have an opportunity here to do a very small thing with a bit of Government time to get this legislation through. It would make an amazing difference, and it would absolutely solidify CPA UK and the CPA’s place in this Parliament.