Queen’s Speech

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I have the privilege of chairing the European Union Justice Sub-Committee. I was glad to hear my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer, in his very amusing speech, make reference to the report that came from our committee in the run-up to the Queen’s Speech. It was therefore with some regret that I heard included in the gracious Speech the announcement that the Government would bring forward proposals for a British Bill of Rights. Our committee was of one voice in expressing concern about the implications of such a Bill.

Perhaps I may reiterate what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. This has been a long journey for the Conservative Party. It started off being very resistant to the whole concept of human rights, and we have seen that chuntering away in the background for some while. Then eventually, when there was a coalition Government, the problem was one of being in partnership with a party that was very committed to human rights. A commission was then set up to look at whether a British Bill of Rights would be a good thing, but the outcome of that was rather unsatisfactory. Then, prior to the last election, the Conservative manifesto announced that such a Bill would follow from the abolition of the Human Rights Act and, if necessary, would involve withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights and the remit of the European Court of Human Rights.

That raised questions about whether such steps would create problems not only for our membership of the Council of Europe but for our relationships within the European Union should we remain part of the EU. European law is now imbued with human rights obligations through the European charter of rights. I know that it may be disobliging to some on the right wing of the Conservative Party but human rights are here to stay. They have now become part of the international discourse about how you raise standards and how you have law that is decent.

For many years, many within the Conservative ranks did not understand that it was in fact distinguished Conservative lawyers, led by the Attorney-General at the time, lawyer David Maxwell Fyfe QC, who drafted the European Convention of Human Rights back in 1950 under the guiding political hand of Winston Churchill, who realised that all legal systems had to be measured against a template of rights to guide nations, politicians and judges so as to create a moral climate and prevent a descent into inhumanity, which had just been seen in the Second World War.

Human rights now permeate the whole tapestry of international law and our treaty obligations, and it is time that people came to recognise that. Indeed, those who have followed this journey closely have come to realise it. I have watched as Michael Gove himself, in the role of Secretary of State for Justice, has come to accept that you cannot retreat from human rights. Indeed, even when it comes to commercial law, the Modern Slavery Act, introduced by this Government, is setting out the ways in which human rights obligations rest even on the shoulders of large companies. I noticed last week that a human rights unit has been established in the Pentagon, led by a group of very impressive human rights lawyers.

We have to accept that our generals and police all speak the language of human rights now. Human rights are not going to go away. In our globalised world, they have become the lingua franca of freedom and liberty, and they are the mechanism by which exploitation and abuse are challenged. That seems at least to have been recognised by some but I am afraid that there are still those within the Conservative Party who find the whole idea of human rights anathema.

Because a British Bill of Rights might raise questions about our legal relationship with the rest of Europe, our committee held an inquiry into the implications of withdrawing from the convention. The evidence was illuminating. We heard from former Attorneys-General on both sides of the House, and from judges, including our esteemed former Lord Chief Justice, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf. We heard from academic lawyers and practitioner lawyers, and we heard from Ministers from the devolved Administrations. We even had a communication from the ambassador for southern Ireland. For 15 years, we were warned, we have been developing law under the European Convention on Human Rights legal regime. Although many non-lawyers do not realise this, even before the passing of the Human Rights Act our courts were giving weight to international human rights standards in their judgments. This has become part and parcel of law around the world.

Most alarming of all was evidence that we heard from lawyers in the devolved nations, who pointed out the impact of disrupting the settlements that currently exist. We heard alarm bells about what would happen in relation to the peace process in Northern Ireland. We heard that southern Ireland would say, “We changed our constitution on the understanding that we would make no claim on the northern counties on the basis that there would be human rights protections under the European convention for Catholics who had been discriminated against for so long”. Therefore, it is important that this matter is approached with great care.

Finally, this has become a rather complicated issue for the Conservative Party. We have a Home Secretary saying that we should come out of the European Convention on Human Rights, and we have a Justice Minister saying, “No, no. We’ll stay in the European Convention on Human Rights but we’ll come out of the European Court of Justice”. I think it is time that the Conservative Party got its ducks in a row and understood that human rights are here to stay and that, in fact, being part of the European Convention on Human Rights is fundamental. We have to belong.