Bill of Rights

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Thursday 23rd June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

I thank the noble Viscount and gratefully accept his invitation to give such a considered and more detailed view at a later stage.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister once more. He spoke at some length, rightly, on the interpretation provisions, which are obviously incredibly important given the relationship between our continuing commitment—as I understand it—to the Convention on Human Rights and the need to enforce these at home. Clause 3, which he referred to, quite rightly says:

“The Supreme Court is the ultimate judicial authority”,


as the noble and learned Lord agreed is the current provision. Yet, the Supreme Court is told in Clause 3(3)(a) that it

“may not adopt an interpretation of the right that expands the protection”

beyond the Strasbourg court. In other words, the Strasbourg court may not expand human rights and nor may the Supreme Court, which looks a little bit like the Government telling courts over there and over here what their limits should be in protecting people’s human rights.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that question, which will require further and detailed thought as we go along. The essential purpose of this part of the Bill and the provisions to which the noble Baroness refers is to incorporate into legislation the test recently enunciated in the Supreme Court by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reed. He said essentially that the UK courts should not go further than the Strasbourg court under human rights legislation unless they are satisfied that the Strasbourg court would. This is not intended to do any more than incorporate in statutory form what the Supreme Court has already said.