European Convention on Human Rights: 75th Anniversary

Lord Wolfson of Tredegar Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak for these Benches in this debate procured by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, whose work in the field of human rights needs no introduction. In fact, I remember that when I grew up in Liverpool—I do not know whether, in the eyes of the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, that now makes me a human rights lawyer—the noble Lord, Lord Alton, was campaigning for the rights of Jews and Christians in the USSR to practise their religion. Therefore, I am especially grateful to him for today’s debate, in which we have had the privilege of hearing a number of very fine speeches, some of which have relied on the undoubted human right to push the boundaries of the advisory time limits.

Today’s debate is about not human rights per se but the European Convention on Human Rights, and the two are not the same. To make the obvious point, we had human rights in this country before we signed the European Convention on Human Rights, and many countries in this world that are not signatories to that convention still have and champion human rights. But the European Convention on Human Rights has a long history, and we played a central role in its inception. We were one of the original signatories and, as your Lordships have heard, we helped to draft it.

In 1951 two important things happened in the field of human rights in this country. First, we as a state signed the European Convention on Human Rights and, secondly, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, was born. We were one of the first states to ratify the convention, and since 1965 we have also accepted the jurisdiction of the Strasbourg court—the European Court of Human Rights. I am proud of our role in building the more just future for Europe from which we all benefit today.

I have mentioned the dates because they are important for context and background. When the ECHR was being drafted, Europe was still recovering from the horrors and destruction of the Second World War. It was only two years after the Nuremberg trials that in 1948 the United Nations promulgated its Universal Declaration of Human Rights, from which the ECHR’s founding principles flowed. I therefore suggest that it is appropriate that on the annunciator right now we have both the anniversary of the ECHR and the Holocaust Memorial Bill.

I want to move from the history to the ECHR today. I agree with a lot of what my noble friend Lord Lilley—who explained to me why he had to leave—said about the history. There is sometimes a pretence about the history—it is not all as people say it was—but let me move to today’s position.

There can be no doubt, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, explained, that the ECHR has led to legal advances. It has enabled judges to make innovative and expansive rulings in the fields of sexual equality, privacy and personal autonomy, to pick just a few topics. But we also have to accept that the approach of the ECHR is to entrust such lawmaking to a court—the Strasbourg court—that is accountable to no one. And while that might be good if you prefer its decisions to those that Governments might otherwise have made, it creates an obvious conflict between parliamentary democracy and an unelected court, especially when that court has gone on to adopt what I suggest to be a very expansive interpretation of the convention, as my noble friend Lord Murray of Blidworth explained.

Those conflicts range far and wide, and well beyond the scope of this speech, but you can get a sense of the issue from an analysis of 25 leading cases from that court, analysed by Professor Richard Ekins and others in an illuminating paper published by Policy Exchange. It is important to appreciate that it is not a bug; it is a feature. The lack of accountability of the European Court of Human Rights was precisely what made it appealing to those who set it up in the aftermath of fascism and Nazism. They saw the court as providing a check on elected Governments who might otherwise abuse their power. I understand that desire and I share it to an extent, but there are limits, and I wonder whether last year’s decision of the court in the Swiss climate change case has shown that we have reached those limits and perhaps gone beyond them.

Let me explain why. In 2021 the Swiss electorate rejected in a referendum an Act of the Swiss Parliament that called for a 30% reduction in emissions from 1990 levels by 2030. That Act, rejected by the electorate, was then replaced by an Act that provided for a staged reduction by 2050. That more moderate Act was approved by the Swiss people in a referendum. There is nothing in the convention about public health and certainly no mention of climate change, but that did not stand in the way of the Strasbourg court, which held that the Article 8 right to private and family life required Governments to take what it called effective measures to combat climate change, and those measures had to be consistent with the views of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

That of course is the answer to the oft-made challenge, first made today by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws: “Which rights don’t you like?”. I like them all as drafted, but not as interpreted expansively.

The court held in that case that Swiss law was inconsistent with the convention. What about the fact that the Swiss people and their parliament had twice had a say in referenda? The court said that

“democracy cannot be reduced to the will of the majority of the electorate and elected representatives, in disregard of the requirements of the rule of law”.

I give way to no one when it comes to the rule of law, but the rule of law does not require judges to have a roving commission over whole areas of contested and contestable national public policy in complete disregard of the expressed wishes of both parliaments and the people. As our judges on the court have been mentioned, I should add that the UK judge on the court wrote a powerful and principled dissent to this decision that repays careful reading.

The question is not whether the decision is right or wrong on the facts. It is not about whether climate change is real—it is—or whether we should take it seriously; we should. It is about whether and how we make laws on such issues in a democracy. As my noble friend Lord Sandhurst pointed out, in cases where you have contested issues of public policy and you have to balance a lot of factors, the effect of the court’s decision is that these arrangements are arrogated only to the court. Not only must the Swiss change their statute but it seems that they must also take steps to ensure that the changed statute is not itself rejected in a referendum by voters. To pick up the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, this does not centralise power in the Executive; it centralises power in a court—contrary to the expressed wishes, in that case, of both the parliament and the people. Nor, I suggest, is it consistent with the rule of law. Some of the principles of the rule of law are that it must be stable, clear, publicly accessible and not retrospective. The decision of the Strasbourg court in that case is none of those things. As the UK judge said in his dissent, his

“disagreement is of a more fundamental nature and … goes to the very heart of the role of the Court within the Convention system”.

He ended,

“I fear that in this judgment the majority has gone beyond what it is legitimate and permissible for this Court to do and, unfortunately, in doing so, may well have achieved exactly the opposite effect to what was intended”.

Those of us who have concerns about the approach of the Strasbourg court have those concerns because we believe in human rights, not because we have concerns about human rights.

Our party has made a powerful and lasting contribution to law and justice in Europe and beyond. We remain committed to those values of law and justice, but we need to recognise that the Europe that gave birth to the convention is a Europe of the past. We need new international or improved agreements—as the noble Lord, Lord Carter, identified—that are fit for the present challenges we face and appropriate for those of the future.

I know that over the past couple of years we had long and heated debates in this House on immigration policy. The fact is that over the past years our ability to manage immigration has been hindered by interpretations of international laws, including the ECHR, which are a long way from the intentions of the states when they signed up to those treaties and conventions. I may not be the only one who has had a little wry smile over the past months at hearing echoes of what I used to say from that Dispatch Box repeated in press summaries from No. 10. Things look different when you are in government, as I think the party opposite is now finding. I accept that press reporting of judgments is often exaggerated and sometimes plain wrong, but those who deny that there is a problem at all are also wrong.

That is why we tabled an amendment in the other place to the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill that would disapply the Human Rights Act from immigration matters. It is ultimately important that Parliament and Ministers have effective control over our borders.

I will end on a note where we all agree. In a world where the threat of totalitarianism remains, we must not disavow our moral duty to promote justice. That principled stand is entirely compatible with work, perhaps across the House, to ensure that our international agreements remain appropriate for the challenges of today and the future. I again congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on initiating this debate and wish him many more years of fighting, in good health, for the causes close to his heart, both in this House and outside it.

Israel-Gaza Conflict: Arrest Warrants

Lord Wolfson of Tredegar Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, yesterday I wrote to the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General and explained that under the International Criminal Court Act 2001, a domestic UK statute, Prime Minister Netanyahu, as the serving Prime Minister of a state that is not a party to the ICC, continued to enjoy immunity from arrest and legal process. Can the Minister confirm which of these two alternatives reflects the Government’s position: is it that the moment he steps on to British soil Mr Netanyahu should be arrested and, after a court process, handed over to the ICC, or is it that his immunity should be respected, as provided for in a domestic Act of Parliament? Of course, the ultimate decision will be taken by the High Court. But what is the Government’s position on this critical issue?

Israel and Gaza

Lord Wolfson of Tredegar Excerpts

Tuesday 7th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

On the noble Baroness’s earlier point, I have spoken proactively about the deep concerns. I know the lay of the land on Mawasi regarding the proposal to move. There are 1.4 million people in Rafah—the size of Westminster or thereabouts—and how to move quickly when almost 50% of them are children is why we have called for compliance. IHL has been mentioned and that is part and parcel of this.

On the noble Baroness’s latter point, the United Kingdom is a long-standing supporter of international courts. They act independently, and their role in the application of the rule of law is important.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree with me that the quickest way to get aid in is to get the hostages out, the quickest way to get the hostages out is to have a sustainable ceasefire, and the quickest way to have a sustainable ceasefire is for Hamas to agree to the generous terms which Egypt has proposed and which Israel has already agreed to?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My noble friend has articulated the Government’s approach extremely well. That is exactly what I assure all noble Lords that the Foreign Secretary and I are working on.

Situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Lord Wolfson of Tredegar Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, we have been having discussions about the process which will lead to peace, but we need to start the process. In order to start the process, do we not need to recognise two things? First, the world of 8 October is a fundamentally different world from the world of 6 October. Secondly, Israel is a democracy, unlike Hamas in Gaza or the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. That means that if we are going to be realistic about encouraging Israel to start that process, we need to recognise that, even today, well over 100 of its citizens are still being held hostage. I know the Minister has personally made significant efforts to meet hostage families and to work on that issue. If we are going to start a process to peace in the Middle East, which I would welcome as I have worked on it for as long as I can, we need to face basic political realities. Unless and until those hostages are released, the process will not begin. If we want to see peace in the Middle East after that conflict, the first step must be to get the hostages released. Does my noble friend agree?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I certainly do. That is the first step in a road out of this sorry saga that we all want to see achieved. I cannot imagine—well, I can imagine what it is like for the families, because on two occasions I have met them, and I am due to meet some more this week. Noble Lords can understand the emotion. When you meet them, it is absolutely a searing realisation of the true brutality of those events and the continuous misery for those families, including the parents of a child who is around one year old. You can only imagine what they feel about that.

On my noble friend’s point about democracy, he is absolutely right. As we can see daily in our newspapers, Israel is a vibrant democracy. There are future changes perhaps—we do not know—but we will support whoever is the legitimate Government of Israel to help to find a solution to this. My noble friend is also right that it has been 18 years, I think, since free and fair elections, or elections, have taken place in Gaza. The Hamas controlling body has no democratic authority. We want to make sure that the future of Gaza does not have Hamas anywhere in it.

Israel/Gaza

Lord Wolfson of Tredegar Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York. I pay tribute to him for his public statement last Monday and in particular for his message of support for the Jewish community here in the UK.

Although this excellent debate has ranged far and wide, I want to focus my remarks on matters rather closer to home. On Saturday night, I had two children in uniform. My son, who has now made his life in Israel, wore the uniform of the Israel Defense Forces. Like most 20 year-olds in Israel, he is doing military service. He personally saw the aftermath of Hamas’s atrocities, sights which no 20 year-old—in fact, no one—should see. But he is in uniform because, if he and his friends were not, there would not be an Israel. It really is that simple.

My other child in uniform was my daughter. Her uniform was trainers, jeans and a necklace with a Magen David—a Star of David—around her neck. That is her customary Saturday night uniform, in common with many teenage girls in north London, as they come into town on the Tube to enjoy this great city’s nightlife. I was more concerned about the safety of my daughter than of my son.

How on earth have we got to a place where I am more concerned about a teenage girl in London with a Star of David around her neck than my son in an army uniform in a country at war? There are three reasons: information, institutions and constitution. I will give an example of each.

The first is information. The BBC is not a state broadcaster, but it is a national broadcaster. I say this with genuine regret as a supporter of the BBC: in the past few weeks it has brought us national shame. I need not take time with the BBC’s abject failure to describe Hamas in plain English as what it is: a terrorist group. After an intervention from me and other noble Lords, the BBC announced that it had stopped calling Hamas “militants”—I am not making this up—because

“we have been finding this a less accurate description for our audiences as the situation evolves”.

A “less accurate description”—no further comment is necessary. However, last week the BBC reported, uncritically, and citing only Palestinian officials—which of course means Hamas—that Israel had struck the Al-Ahli hospital. But what the Israelis said at the time has now been corroborated: it was an Islamic Jihad rocket that hit the hospital. That defamatory report is still on the BBC website.

In our community we are used to some people, such as Mr Corbyn, parroting Hamas propaganda, but to have the BBC do it when it would not have done so with propaganda from ISIS or al-Qaeda led to real consequences, not just the cancellation of a summit in Amman but in this city too: Jewish schools closed, kosher restaurants smashed up, heightened security at every synagogue—and my daughter wondering whether it was safe to go on the Tube.

Others repeated that propaganda, including, I am afraid, a noble friend of mine, who tweeted not just that the Israelis had hit the hospital but that they had “targeted” it—a word she used twice. I called that out as a modern blood libel, and I am delighted that the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury used the same language recently as well. But the damage was done. Other terrorist groups will have seen and taken note. So we should remember the old injunction: “Careless talk costs lives”.

The second is our institutions. The Jewish community has learned over the past two weeks who our many friends are. We have also seen who they are not. I will give just one short example: our universities. University Jewish societies no longer publicise where they are meeting. The address is handed out, samizdat fashion, shortly before the meeting. This is not some underground group in Soviet Russia but a Jewish society in this country in 2023.

Our universities have become centres of binary thinking, where you are either an oppressor or the oppressed. In the case of Israel, it would seem that oppressors include murdered babies and kidnapped grandmothers—although sometimes Hamas preferred to kidnap the babies and murder their grandmothers. Students and their professors will write long and apparently scholarly articles explaining how words are violence and silence is violence, but they now offer no words—only silence—in the face of not just violence but a pogrom. So if, when we face terrorism, careless talk costs lives, silence in the face of terrorism costs even more.

The third is our constitution. I do not mean the royal and political elements of our constitution. The moral lead shown by His Majesty the King in response to what went on, and his granting the Chief Rabbi a private audience, has resonated across the entire Jewish community, as has the principled stance taken by the Prime Minister, the leader of the Opposition and other political leaders. This is not a party-political issue.

The Jewish community is protected by law, but many currently feel that they are not protected by those whose job it is to enforce the law. The shout “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is not a nursery rhyme; it is a murderous rhyme because it calls for the destruction of Israel and, necessarily, its inhabitants. It is not a demand for the two-state solution in which I and so many others still believe. But the police have done nothing about it.

They did not even intervene when members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a group that is illegal in many other western countries but is still legal here for some reason, chanted for jihad. I am aware that “jihad” has several meanings apart from armed struggle: it can refer to self-reflection, personal improvement and quiet meditation. But when it is chanted on the streets of London with a banner referring to Muslim armies liberating Palestine, and when the group’s website refers to

“heroic feats carried out by the heroic Mujahideen in the Blessed Land—Palestine”,

I simply do not understand how the Metropolitan Police concluded that that cry for jihad was not supporting or glorifying Hamas, which is a criminal offence.

Careless talk costs lives, but silence in the face of terrorism costs more. Police inaction will only encourage those who want to bring their violence and terrorism here. We need to change, to call out terrorism for what it is, to speak out against terrorists and their apologists here, and to act firmly to keep people—everyone—safe. The safety of my son in his army uniform is ultimately a matter for the Government of Israel, but the safety of my daughter on the Tube in London is a matter for our Government and this Parliament.

I conclude with this. The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, quoted Jeremiah, chapter 31, verse 15. The prophet there sees the matriarch Rachel in her resting place at Rama, so close to Bethlehem, weeping as the people of Israel are led past her as captives into exile, but she refuses to be comforted. As the noble and right reverend Lord said, that verse is repeated in the New Testament in Matthew, chapter 2, verse 18. There is a Jewish tradition that we do not end a biblical reading on a note of despondency, so I conclude by reciting the immediately following two verses in Jeremiah, as we all pray for the safe return of all the hostages:

“Thus saith the Lord; Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord”—


veshavu vanim lig’vulam—

“thy children shall return to their own borders”.

Amen.

Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Lord Wolfson of Tredegar Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

My Lords, I had the honour to represent a beautiful part of Aberdeenshire for over four decades and our communities have greatly appreciated, throughout that time, the regular presence of the Queen and other members of the Royal Family in, around and among us for so many years. In fact, it was no surprise to me when I travelled down on Monday to find that the Duchess of Rothesay, as she then was, was on the same plane—of course, she had to return only two days later in sadness, but as Queen Consort—but that was not unusual on that flight.

I remember the Queen’s accession when I was a boy of seven, and in 1953—like so many others—I watched the Coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth on a friend’s newly acquired, tiny, black and white TV set, although two weeks later I went to the cinema and saw it in full glorious Technicolor. Thirty years later, I became an MP and my encounters with the Queen and other members of the family, as is the case for many of us, became more frequent. I remember a number of royal visits and openings, but I also remember being a part of the receiving party when the royal yacht brought the Queen to Aberdeen—probably the last time the royal yacht came north to Aberdeen. Unfortunately, because of the fog, the yacht was not able to dock in the port and the royal party had to come ashore in a barge or launch. When I was in conversation greeting and remarking to the Queen that it was a pity the fog had prevented “Britannia” from docking, Princess Anne made the Queen laugh when she said, “Not at all: fog means flat calm.”

Subsequently and on many other occasions, my wife and I were privileged to be invited to the garden party, including the only garden party, I think, that has taken place at Balmoral to mark the Queen’s Golden Jubilee. It was exclusively limited to the invitees being from the county of Aberdeenshire—again, an indication of the connection between the community. The sun, I have to say, shone all day on Balmoral despite the heavy downpours and flash flooding that occurred in nearly all the surrounding communities, which clearly proves that the sun does shine on the righteous—I mean the Queen, not me.

I recall an incident when I was on the International Development Committee, which I had the privilege of chairing, and we were visiting an African and Commonwealth country—which I will not identify—when one of the Ministers leant across the table and said, “We are all loyal subjects here, you know.” A little bit quaint, but it perhaps encapsulates just how, during her long reign, the Queen personified a positive identity of what Britain and the Commonwealth meant to the world. It rises far above the quality or the character of any Government of the day; that is a huge asset to have. I think it is why yesterday’s news was greeted with tributes and genuine outpourings of affection from literally all over the world. Indeed, when anybody talks about the Queen anywhere in the world, there is only one Queen that they meant—we know that.

I knelt before the Queen to swear an oath as a privy counsellor—as the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, did and many others—and later to receive a knighthood when the Queen discussed my support for sign language and communication support for deaf people, which she told me was very important and she valued it. It just indicates that, whatever the topic was, she had a view and she had knowledge.

At the last diplomatic reception that took place at Buckingham Palace, I wore full Highland dress because I had it and, therefore, did not have to rent the other outfit. But the Queen stopped and admired it and commented, “It is lovely to see the kilt here,” meaning in Buckingham Palace, rather than elsewhere. The Queen’s Balmoral home is just a few miles from our more modest home, and the presence of the Royals is noted all the time, throughout the year; many local businesses are, by royal appointment, suppliers to the Queen and, now, to our new King. The privacy of the Royal Family is respected by the community, but their informal engagement with the local community is also valued. There are many stories of people seeing members of the Royal Family shopping in Ballater or being given a lift when caught in the rain when hiking around Lochnagar or Loch Muick to find it was Prince Charles, or the Queen, or the Duke of Edinburgh who had picked them up.

It is, therefore, perhaps fitting that the family gathered at Balmoral to say farewell to the Queen before the formalities of state mourning began. They have the sympathy and the support of their local community, as well as the nation and the world. Of course, our sympathies are with them all. Our gratitude is to her. But now, for the first time in most people’s memory, we say “God save the King!”

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, I begin, in accordance with the custom of my religious tradition, with an acknowledgement that, as mortal humans, we submit to God’s decree and from his judgment, whether that be for life or for death, there is no appeal: “Baruch dayan ha’emet”—“Blessed be the Judge of truth.”

As I say that blessing, I am taken to the last time I met Her Majesty. I recited a different and special blessing, the blessing our rabbis prescribed to be said when meeting royalty: “Baruch shenatan michvodo lebasar vadam”—“Blessed is He who has shared His glory with mortals of flesh and blood”. The idea in that blessing is not the divine right of kings; it is not the absolutist notion that, because monarchs derive their power from God, they cannot be held accountable for their actions. The blessing embodies a totally different idea, but it is a powerful one. It is the idea, as the Talmud puts it, that “royalty on earth is to reflect royalty in heaven”; that to be royal requires the highest standards and impeccable behaviour. It is an idea, I suggest, that Her late Majesty exemplified throughout her long reign.

Noble Lords might be familiar with the Hebrew word “mitzvah”. “Well done for doing this or that,” you might hear somebody say, and they will add, “You’ve done a mitzvah”—you have done a good deed. But a mitzvah is not a good deed which you do because you are in the mood or because the urge takes you; it is not something you do only and if you feel like it. The Hebrew root of the word mitzvah, its basic etymology, is the word “tzav”, which means “commandment”, “order” or “duty”. You do a mitzvah not just because it is a good deed and not just because you feel like doing it; you do a mitzvah because it is your duty. Her late Majesty spent her whole life doing the right thing and not just because she felt like it or because the mood took her. She spent her 96 years doing the right thing, day in, day out, out of a sense of duty. It was a life, if I may respectfully say, of mitzvah, of acting out of a profound sense of personal duty and under the solemn oath to God which she took at her Coronation.

In Hebrew, every letter also has a numerical value and you can add up the values of individual letters to get the value of a word. In one of those coincidences which perhaps are not, the numerical value of the Hebrew word tzav, the root of the word mitzvah, is 96: 96 years of tzav, of duty, and also of mitzvah, of doing the right thing because that is your duty.

Tomorrow is Shabbat and, as we have heard from my noble friend Lord Polak, in synagogues up and down the country we will say the prayer for the Royal Family, as we do each and every week. We recite that prayer immediately after the reading of the Torah, the five books of the Pentateuch, from Genesis to Deuteronomy, which we read in weekly instalments throughout the year. We are well into Deuteronomy at the moment, so the current annual cycle is nearly complete, but on the day we finish Deuteronomy, we do something odd but important. We return to the Holy Ark the scroll with which we completed Deuteronomy but we immediately take out a new scroll and start reading again from the first chapter of Genesis. So, on that day, the death of Moses, the faithful leader who had guided the people over so many decades, is immediately followed, a matter of moments later, by a new start—indeed, a new creation—in the first chapter of Genesis.

So tomorrow, for the first time in my life, we will not pray in synagogue for Prince Charles but for King Charles. I started yesterday as a Queen’s Counsel and I finished it as a King’s Counsel. We have closed one book, a long and good book which we have had with us for so many years, and we are about to open another. As we all pray that God save our King, I will also pray that he too may enjoy a reign of mitzvah, of doing the right thing, for that, now, is his duty. Baruch dayan ha’emet, yehi zichra Baruch. “Blessed be the judge of truth”, and may her late Majesty’s cherished memory be a blessing for all of us.