Data Protection Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Kennedy of Shaws and Lord Faulks

Monday 14th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I know that my noble friend—

[Lord Faulks (Con)]

My Lords, I do not think the noble Baroness was here for the debate.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

My Lords, I was here during the previous amendment; of course I was. I was here in relation to the whole matter concerning this amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins. I heard the references from the Front Bench to the particular part of the argument that has just been conducted, and I was here to hear the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, speak about what was happening with this amendment and what had happened in the Commons. I shall carry on because I do not accept the comment made by the noble Lord.

I support the position of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, for a number of reasons. One is that the question of ethics, and the ethics of the media, has really not been dealt with adequately so far. The other matters that really concern me are those concerning the police. So far, I am afraid, the police have got off rather lightly in the course of investigations into what took place regarding media misbehaviour. Unlike other lawyers—I know my noble friend Lord Prescott has a poor view of lawyers—I do not act for newspapers and have not done, nor do I have a column in any newspaper. However, I have acted for victims who have gone through court processes, I have acted for defendants who are on trial and I have acted in inquests, and I have to say that the story with regard to police behaviour is not good. Too often—I know this from direct experience—there have been leaks and tip-offs to the media by the police when people have been invited into police stations to be interviewed. Perhaps they are suspected or they are going to assist in an inquiry, but they end up being met at the police station doors by photographers and journalists. They are exposed to speculative pieces about why they were being seen by the police, and often they are chased and stalked by the paparazzi as a result.

You have to ask yourself why that happens. I am afraid that journalists covering criminal courts over the years have told me that often they would basically have police officers in their back pockets, and that meant the pocket that had their wallet in it. What was offered to police were bungs, pay-offs and “drinks”, as they were called euphemistically, for providing those tip-offs. They happen still, and they have happened subsequent to the Leveson inquiry: people who have been asked to come to police stations to be interviewed with regard to sexual matters but have not been charged—and no charges have, in the end, been forthcoming—have found themselves over the front pages of newspapers. At this very moment, Sir Cliff Richard is involved in litigation regarding that kind of collusion and coalition between the media and the police. I am concerned that the police still have not been looked at adequately for the role they have played in some of this particularly iniquitous conduct.

The second part of Leveson seems of real importance to the well-being of our nation. If there is corruption in our police—if they are able to do this and to supplement their incomes by doing it, and there is money available in the media to do it—we know that something is seriously wrong. I hope the House has that in mind. Sometimes the purpose of a public inquiry is to air such matters and make clear the seriousness with which such corruption and misbehaviour is viewed.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Kennedy of Shaws and Lord Faulks

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 26th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, I am sure that the Committee will be greatly moved by what the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, has said. Everyone is concerned to protect human rights but we must not fall into the trap of saying rights are good and therefore, more rights are better.

The role of the Charter of Fundamental Rights in our law has been an uncertain one. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, has had a great deal to do with it and knows a great deal about its creation; he played a part in its drafting. He got his retaliation in first at Second Reading and today, knowing that it was going to be pointed out to him that he was not initially an enthusiast for the charter because of the apparent disorder it might create in the rights architecture of our law. There is nothing wrong with changing your mind. It is quite a fashionable course for the party opposite to take at the moment. My difficulty is not with the change of mind but the fact that I agreed with his original stance, which was that adding the charter, which was designed for an entirely different purpose, ran the risk of undermining the clarity and cogency of our law.

I have some experience of the way rights are played in court. I was part of the Commission on a Bill of Rights, together with the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, who is in her place. I was also a Minister with responsibility for human rights. I have considerable experience over the past 20 years, following the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights by the Human Rights Act, of acting for public authorities which have been sued for alleged violations of those rights. Rights are very difficult to interpret, whether they come from a declaration, a charter or a convention. Inevitably they tend to be expressed in general terms and leave a great deal to individual judges to interpret and try to make practical sense of.

Most of the rights contained in the charter—obviously, some of them are inappropriate—are not controversial in what they seek to protect. What is far more controversial is how these rights should be interpreted. My right may be in conflict with your right. The protection of my right may have to be sacrificed or modified by the need to protect others’ rights or the powers that the state may inevitably have which affect or modify those rights. Of course we need to protect children, the disabled and the vulnerable in society, as a number of noble Lords have pointed out. Most of what we do in Parliament is concerned with the definition of circumstances in which individuals’ rights should be protected. A number of noble Lords have identified the right to dignity as being important since it is not reflected precisely in the European convention. We can all agree that it is important that citizens are treated with dignity but how does one translate that into anything meaningful in terms of the courts providing remedies?

The difficulty is that rights are now regarded as trumps and if we are to retain the charter, as seems to be the purport of the amendments in this group, we will have the rather strange situation of existing domestic law, whether it comes from the Human Rights Act or elsewhere, being supplemented by the charter, which will have a particular status. As the Government have made clear, the charter was never supposed to be a source of rights per se but a reflection of the rights that are generally protected by the European Court of Justice. It would be peculiar for our courts to continue to rely on the charter, which was designed to apply to EU institutions in interpreting the scope of EU law, after we have actually left the European Union.

The Advocate-General has occasionally made remarks about the charter. At its highest it has been described as “soft law”. If we need to protect or further protect rights, is that not a matter for Parliament or even judges interpreting the common law? Are we really so impotent as a Parliament that we have to rely on the relatively recent EU charter to provide such protection? Some of the amendments seek to turn soft law into hard law with application after we have left. This Bill is surely to provide clarity and coherence in the law after we have left the EU. Retaining the charter will do precisely the opposite.

I regret that I do not agree with various observations made at Second Reading that the Human Rights Act provides only for declarations of incompatibility. It does in fact provide damages for violations of the convention. I suspect the reason the charter has attracted such vigorous support is the rather egregious way it has been singled out for attention in the Bill. The reason it has been so singled out is the uncertainty of its application by the courts so far, and the Government’s desire to be absolutely clear that in the difficult task of interpreting the law that the judges will face, the charter can safely be ignored.

My amendment, which I come to in conclusion, is an attempt to provide some clarity as to what role, if any, the charter may have in the future. In so far as the charter is part of retained law—I appreciate that the definition of retained law is also the subject of debate—there seems no harm in it having some continued existence, in so far as it is necessary for the interpretation of that retained law; hence my amendment. What I find wholly unconvincing is the argument that it should somehow remain, as a non-native species, providing a free-standing source of rights—as in the Goldsmith amendment—or that it should be grafted on, subject to amendments to the Human Rights Act, as in the Wigley amendment. Who will benefit if the charter remains part of our domestic law after exit day? I fear it will not be those whom we rightly wish to protect; it will be the lawyers, and surely we do not want that.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

My Lords—

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

I stood up before the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, sat down as I knew he was coming to an end. He mentioned, and I accept entirely, his position that the Government may have excluded the Charter of Fundamental Rights because of uncertainty. But for many people it is an indicator of something else: that Conservative Party manifestos over a number of years have promised that the Human Rights Act would be removed. On many occasions, we have heard leading Conservatives say that we should remove ourselves from the European Convention on Human Rights, too. The absence of the Charter of Fundamental Rights from the Bill suggests to many that this is part of a journey taking us out of any international arrangements dealing with the protection of human rights, and that that is the real purpose.

[Lord Faulks]

The Government’s position has been made quite clear: they have no intention of repealing the Human Rights Act. It is perfectly true that the previous Government said that they would consult on the question and bring in a British Bill of Rights, which would not mean departing from the European convention. Of course, I understand that there are those who are suspicious of this Government’s motives—I do not speak for the Government—but if a Government were hell-bent on getting rid of human rights, they would of course be able to get rid of the charter as well. I do not accept the sinister interpretation of the noble Baroness. The intention is simply to achieve clarity; that is what the Bill is about.