Queen’s Speech

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, it should surprise no one in this House that I am going to speak on the Government’s disgraceful plans to remove rights, undermine vital citizens’ protections and attack liberty, while at the same time pretending to be great champions of freedom. The background briefing to this part of the gracious Speech about creating a Bill of Rights describes meeting the needs of society, commanding public confidence, protecting the human rights framework from abuse and imbuing the justice system with a dose of common sense. The pens of spin doctors must have been very busy, because it will do none of those things—none.

We have a justice system, as others have mentioned, that is falling apart. We have seen the destruction of legal aid; the demolition of the probation service; the de-professionalising of the legal profession; the overpacking of prisons; attacks on our judges; disrespect for lawyers who act for the poorest—and we hear not a word about addressing the massive backlog of tens of thousands of cases waiting to be tried. Weasel words are uttered about creating a new law for victims. How do you help victims when they have to wait years for the resolution of their cases? This should come as no surprise, as this Government have shown so brazenly their contempt for law and rules, whether regulations on parliamentary conduct, national statutes or international laws. They can put in place Covid regulations carrying policing penalties one minute, and breach them the next. They can have their name on a UN convention, such as the genocide convention or the refugee convention, and ignore their obligations. They can sign a treaty on our departure from the European Union one minute, and seek to unilaterally dismantle it the next. They can make strong statements about eradicating bullying from Parliament one minute, yet when one of the Cabinet cohort is found guilty of chronic bullying, it carries no consequences. The arbitrators and victims are the ones who end up out of jobs.

Rules exist about not profiteering from being a parliamentarian, yet when one of the Government’s loyalists is found to have contravened the rules repeatedly, the Government try brazenly to rewrite the rules. Of course, for some, the law is to constrain just the little people. Populist Governments the world over do not want rights to be equally available to everyone: that is one of their hallmarks. What this Bill of Rights pursues is a society in which not everyone is equal in their access to justice; where the Government can act in ways that undermine people’s rights without fear of oversight by the courts; a place in which the state does not owe a duty to safeguard our rights, whether in the everyday circumstances we all experience or in the extreme situations that we hope will never happen to us or to our children. This is about an abject undermining of the rule of law, let us be clear, yet the United Kingdom wants to be recognised throughout the world as the great protector of the rule of law.

Not all of your Lordships who are members of the Conservative Party condone this behaviour. Quite a number of your Lordships are disgusted by it but, sadly, too few of you speak out. I pay tribute to those of you who do. Unfortunately, however, the hard right has control of your party. This is a callous, swaggering Government of the hard right, full of notions of entitlement and motivations of power and greed—and, let us be clear, a disregard for law—and they are capable of shocking disregard for truth. The country is facing potentially cataclysmic financial problems and yet the Government have no answers to that. Their lethargy regarding the desperate hardships so many are facing is astounding, yet they are quick off the mark to savage the right to protest, one of the fundamental rights in a democracy, and quick to reduce human rights. Make no mistake—that is what the Bill of Rights plan is set to do.

There are also serious questions. How can you possibly diverge from the jurisprudence of the European court and remain part of that framework? What will the impact be on Northern Ireland when it was fundamental to the Good Friday agreement and the peace process that there would be the human rights protections of the European Convention on Human Rights? What is the response to the Scottish and Welsh Government’s opposition? I do not think the Government have given much thought to the impact on the devolved nations and how it reinforces the message that Westminster does not give a hoot about their concerns or desires. This is of course all about giving red meat to their own hardliners. Will the Minister commit to a robust pre-legislative scrutiny process as recommended by the JCHR? Will the Government publish the Bill beforehand so that we can all have the opportunity to scrutinise it, and will there be a rigorous equality impact statement?

This Queen’s Speech is a pathetic response to a real and serious set of crises facing this country—the economic, criminal justice, NHS and care, energy and climate crises—but at the heart of it is an even more serious crisis: a crisis of our politics and the absence of ethics at the heart of government. That is the scandal we are now facing. This Bill of Rights is a supreme example of levelling down. Shame on you.