Human Rights Act 1998 (Repeal and Substitution) Bill

Andrew Bingham Excerpts

Friday 1st March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his Bill. The Abu Qatada case got a lot of publicity. Does he agree that the public’s sense of outrage about this case has created disaffection not only with the Human Rights Act, but with democracy generally and even with this place altogether? People have seen how powerless and helpless we appear to be to bring this man to the justice that he should surely meet.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend’s timely and telling intervention. This case has undermined confidence in human rights, but it has also undermined people’s confidence in Parliament and its ability to legislate, to be sovereign and to stand up for Britain.

In another case, an Albanian man returned to the UK illegally after being told to leave. Following his conviction for robbery in this country, he could not be deported— despite being convicted of yet another crime since his return—on the grounds of the family life he had established in the UK. A Sudanese man was convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl in the UK. He could not be deported because of the risk that he would be subjected to maltreatment in the Sudan. Most people would have very little sympathy with a paedophile rapist and would think that this man should not be in the UK. Despite being found by a deportation tribunal to pose a threat to UK national security, an Algerian man could not be deported to Algeria because of the risk that he might commit suicide while in custody there. All those cases have caused widespread public concern, which is why a key plank of the Bill is that the Human Rights Act should be repealed.

Let us look at the opinion polls. A few moments ago, my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) pointed out the level of public concern. For nearly a decade, opinion polls have consistently shown that the British people reject the UK’s current human rights settlement.

In 2008, a research project was undertaken by the Ministry of Justice—and let us be honest, that Ministry is not exactly sceptical of human rights as an institution and under the previous Government it was not exactly sceptical of European human rights provisions either. Notwithstanding that, having analysed results collected between 2004 and 2006, it found that 57% of respondents agreed that

“too many people take advantage of the Human Rights Act”,

while just 14% disagreed. Forty per cent. believed that the Act

“has caused more problems than it has solved”,

while 24% disagreed with that. Despite the existence of the Act, 56% agreed that

“this country lacks a shared sense of rights and responsibilities”.

So a central plank of my Bill is that we should talk not only about rights, but about responsibilities. Given that that was a Government-sponsored report on the policy of the then Government, it strikes me as a less than ringing endorsement of the human rights settlement that the country has today.

In May 2010, a YouGov opinion poll found that 53% supported the introduction of a British Bill of Rights to replace the Human Rights Act, while 24% wanted to keep the Act. I believe that, in presenting the Bill, I am acting in line with the wishes of the majority of the country.

In February 2011, another YouGov poll found that 63% thought that the British Parliament and the Supreme Court, rather than a foreign court, should have the final say on human rights matters, while 25% thought that it right that we should be subject to the Strasbourg court when it comes to appeals. Fifty-seven per cent. believed that

“Britain’s membership of the ECHR has been abused by lawyers making spurious cases on behalf of criminals and on balance a bad thing”,

while only 19% believed that

“Britain’s membership has been a valuable protection against the government ignoring the human rights of British people and on balance a good thing”.