Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Cat Smith and Jeremy Wright

Thursday 25th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

7. What discussions he has had with his Cabinet colleagues on the UK’s domestic and international human rights obligations.

[The Attorney General (Jeremy Wright)]

With permission, Mr Speaker, I will answer Question 4 alongside Questions 7 and 9. I regularly meet ministerial colleagues to discuss important issues of common interest, including on domestic and international human rights law. As the House knows, not least because the Solicitor General has said this once already today, I am not able to talk about any legal content of those discussions, because, by convention, whether the Law Officers have given advice or not is not disclosed outside Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Attorney General]

I have no plans to repeal any of them. As the hon. Gentleman may have heard me say in this place before, I do not think any of us has any serious argument with the content of the European convention on human rights, which is an admirable document. The difficulty we have is with the interpretation of that document by the European Court of Human Rights. This is not a matter of repealing rights; it is a matter of bringing some common sense back into the ambit of human rights law, and the Government are committed to doing that.

[Cat Smith]

Does the Minister think it causes any legal or constitutional problem that the Lord Chancellor will no longer be able to ask his Department’s officials for advice on the powers of the European Court of Justice?

[The Attorney General]

I do not think that is the position at all. The Lord Chancellor will continue to do the excellent job he is doing of running the justice system. He will be able to ask for advice from his equally excellent Government lawyers.