European Convention on Human Rights

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble and learned friend, Lord Irvine of Lairg, not only for initiating this debate but also for the enormous contribution that he made as Lord Chancellor to the development of human rights in this country. Many noble Lords have referred to the responsibility of Parliament and of politicians. I want to develop that theme. After all, we have in this Parliament the Joint Committee on Human Rights—of which I am a member. That committee itself has a big responsibility for ensuring that we adhere to the European Convention on Human Rights and that our legislation works sensibly in relation to that.

We have a good story to tell, so I am disappointed that, as a country that did so much work historically in developing the concept of human rights, we are now treating it as a bit of a political football rather than as a very serious issue and one fundamental to the values of our society. We have had reference made to the part that Winston Churchill played, and the Labour Government played an important part in developing the Human Rights Act. Of course, nothing is perfect, and of course it is right that those of us who support the European Convention on Human Rights and the European court and the Human Rights Act have criticisms to make, and it is right that we should be able to make them. Of course, human rights are not just for lawyers, although lawyers have made very powerful contributions to this and previous debates.

I would like to say a little bit about the backlog of cases in the Strasbourg court. My understanding is that 70 per cent of the court’s judgments concern the repetitive applications defined as issues that the court has already decided but which have not yet been properly implemented at a national level. Clearly, if there is a delay in implementing a decision, other people will also bring their cases forward, which apparently accounts for a large proportion of the backlog of cases. The Hirst case regarding prisoners’ rights has already been referred to by a number of your Lordships, but it is one example of an issue that results in repetitive applications coming forward.

The other way in which the heavy pressure on the European court can be lessened is for all member states to have proper parliamentary scrutiny of their legislation. The Joint Committee on Human Rights has as its responsibility looking at all legislation coming forward to see whether it complies with the Human Rights Act. Clearly, on occasions, we have been very critical of Governments and have had Ministers come before us to challenge them on why they were not producing legislation compliant with the Human Rights Act. Better parliamentary scrutiny across countries would result in fewer cases going to Strasbourg. Of course, it is one of the key responsibilities that the Human Rights Joint Committee has, as well as the responsibility for following up on Strasbourg cases.

I do not want to spend a lot of time on the Hirst case and votes for prisoners, because it has been fully dealt with, except to say that I am astonished by what has happened with an issue that is important in principle but is actually trivial. If the Government had given the right to prisoners serving up to four years, apart from one or two newspapers commenting for a moment, it would have all happened. I do not think that elections would have been determined by the votes of prisoners in our jails. So it is a very minor issue, although important in principle—but goodness, we have been making a fuss of it, and not just now. When I was in the Commons, I introduced a Private Member’s Bill dealing with giving rights to prisoners. Although it concerned mainly rights about letters, cells, visits and so on, it did have one clause giving rights for prisoners. No one mentioned anything about the rest of the Bill, except the fact that I was suggesting rights for prisoners, and the media got very excited about it. Nevertheless, the issue has come back, thanks to the Strasbourg court. I hope that the Government will get on and do something about this, as it is a disgrace that we who believe in the rule of law should be disobeying a basic law from a basic court that we have helped to create.

Of course, I realise that human rights are not easy for Governments, which is why Parliament has to be active and why an effective culture of human rights depends on the part that national parliaments play. I wish that other parliaments had a human rights committee, as we have here.

I mention in passing the vexed question of a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland, which the noble Lord, Lord McNally, has occasionally dealt with in Answers to Questions here. There is a hold-up there which I hope will be eased so that the Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland, which was agreed in the Good Friday agreement, will be proceeded with.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights produced a report some time ago on a Bill of Rights for this country. Some of the issues in it have been referred to by my noble friend Lord Wills. We suggested that a Bill of Rights for this country should include social and economic rights—something that is quite contentious but which has happened in South Africa, for example, and which would give human rights even more of a cutting edge than they have had so far. I hope that the Government will consider that.

I am disappointed by the Government’s attitude to human rights, but I note that there are some excellent people on the commission that they have appointed, some of them in your Lordships' House. I hope that that will achieve a sensible report.

From November this year, the United Kingdom will hold the chairmanship of the Council of Europe. Some Members of this House are active in the Council of Europe. I hope that it will enable this country to argue for increasing parliamentary involvement in human rights as a central theme during its six months of chairmanship. Human rights are fundamental to the values of this country and I hope that they will stay an important part of the culture and attitudes of the British Parliament.