Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Dominic Raab

Tuesday 26th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

13. When he plans to publish a consultation on a British Bill of Rights.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Dominic Raab)]

We look forward to presenting proposals for a Bill of Rights in due course, and we will consult on them fully.

[Mr Carmichael]

The Minister will recall saying to me, on 30 June,

“the United Kingdom has a strong tradition of respect for human rights that long predates the Human Rights Act 1998. The Government are proud of that tradition and will be true to it in delivering our reforms. As I explained…our plans do not involve us leaving the convention. That is not our objective.”—[Official Report, 30 June 2015; Vol. 597, c. 429WH.]

Is that still Government policy?

[Mr Raab]

The right hon. Gentleman was absolutely right when he said last month that the Human Rights Act was not the last word on human rights. I look forward to debating the proposals with him.

The Government’s position on the European convention on human rights remains clear. We cannot rule out withdrawal forever, but our forthcoming proposals do not include it, not least because we have been clearly advised that if we withdrew from the convention while remaining a member of the European Union, that would be an open invitation to the Luxembourg Court to fill the gap, which could have far worse consequences, and also because the convention is written into the Good Friday agreement.

We are confident that we can replace the Human Rights Act with a Bill of Rights and reform our relationship with the Strasbourg Court, and that is precisely what we intend to deliver.

Human Rights Act

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Dominic Raab

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Raab]

The hon. Gentleman is alluding to the idea of having a middle course between throwing the baby out with the bathwater, as some have described it—tearing up human rights, getting rid of the convention and not replacing it—and trying to reform the current model by looking at the way the convention has been applied and interpreted. There are not huge numbers of objections to the black letter law of the convention’s text, but the way it has been applied and extended is a matter of concern. All that will be the subject of debate and consultation.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael]

I say, in passing, that I hope we never get to the stage where the implementation of law by the courts is entirely to the satisfaction of the Government. Surely the problem is that if we get to a point where we have a British Bill of Rights but remain a contracting party to the European convention, which has a higher standard of human rights protection, anyone dissatisfied with their rights as applied in the UK domestic courts under the British Bill could still have recourse to the wider protection of the European Court in Strasbourg.

[Mr Raab]

The right hon. Gentleman is tempting me to prejudge the substantive content of the Bill and the consultation. He has raised some interesting points, which we will no doubt thrash out in due course; I look forward to that.

I will refer to some of the principal concerns about the Human Rights Act, as that is the subject of the debate. Given the time restraints I will refer to just a few examples from what is by no means an exhaustive list. The first is the exponential expansion of rights that the design of the Human Rights Act, whether tacitly or otherwise, has promoted. It has encouraged a rights inflation that, as has already been acknowledged, has tended to undermine the so-called liberal model of human rights, shifting away from what people like Isaiah Berlin would refer to as negative liberty, or the John Stuart Mill model of shielding the citizen, towards imposing obligations on the state rather than constraining it. If that were in any doubt, the textbooks—I am sure hon. Members across the House are familiar with them—are littered with examples of the celebration of that, whether through the living instrument doctrine in Strasbourg or our own case law.

The practical effect of rights inflation has been to dilute personal responsibility. The growth of rights—the expansion of the realm of rights—increases the power of the individual, however nefarious or otherwise, to trump the good of the rest of society. The more that extends beyond the bedrock of core liberties, the more corrosive the effects. I will give one brief illustration, to highlight the fact that personal responsibility is being eroded or diluted: the claim that the Government’s welfare to work policy amounted to forced labour under the European convention.

I should say straight away that that claim failed, but the fact that it made its way through the UK court system to the Supreme Court is telling. It is striking that lawyers thought they could stretch an article of the convention that was designed, after the experience of concentration camps during world war two, to address grave issues of slavery and forced labour so as to attack the principle of conditionality in welfare reform. It is just one illustration of how the HRA has proved rather malleable material for the ingenious twisting of the basic conception of human rights, rather than simply bringing rights home, which was the Act’s explicit contention.

The second concern I will raise about the HRA is its effect on the rule of law, and in particular the effect that some of the haphazard case law has had on legal certainty. I refer hon. Members to the tragic case of Naomi Bryant, and the review by HM Inspectorate of Probation of the case, which found that the licence conditions placed on Anthony Rice on his release were too lax and noted that lawyers had whittled away the conditions by deploying arguments to do with the Human Rights Act. I will not go into that further—I have the quotes with me but will not read them out—but if anyone wants to look into that case further, they should look at that report.

The third issue I will raise is the way that the Human Rights Act has exposed us unnecessarily to too much judicial legislation from Strasbourg—for example, in the case of prisoner voting. In truth, as we should not make this into some strictly European bogey, there have been examples of domestic judicial legislation as well, about article 8 in particular—we should deal with our home-grown problems, too. That is easy to do without bringing into question our membership of the European convention.

Finally, I hope the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland has had the opportunity to read the excellent article by Baroness Faulkner, Liberal Democrat spokesperson on foreign affairs, in May’s edition of Prospect. In case he has not, and for the benefit of this wider audience, I will quote a few choice words:

“Britain can replace the HRA and retain a decent, humane legal system. The human rights lobby has reacted with horror at the government’s proposal. But they are mistaken... A British Bill of Rights is a good idea.”

I do not agree with the whole article but it is well worth a read.

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this debate and welcome his contribution. I hope he will not mind if I encourage him to circulate that article among the other members of his party.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the future of the Human Rights Act 1998.