Public Disorder

Conor Burns Excerpts

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Let me give the right hon. Gentleman just one area where we have already made progress but I want to see further progress: discipline in schools. We have got to make sure that schools are able to confiscate things from children and to exclude children without being overruled by appeals panels. All those steps add to responsibility. We must also make sure that every single tax and benefit is pro-family, pro-commitment and pro-fathers who stick around. Part of the problem is that fathers have left too many of these communities, and that is why young people look towards the gang.

[Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)]

The Prime Minister has referred twice in the past 24 hours to phoney concerns about human rights. He will be aware of the many letters we all receive from people who are dismayed by decisions taken that seem to laugh at our values and beliefs in this country. If he is serious about wanting to build the responsible society, may I suggest that that will be much more easily achieved if we remove the invidious Human Rights Act from legislation?

[The Prime Minister]

The specific point that I was making was about the concern that is often expressed, and was expressed to me over the past couple of days, as to whether under the Human Rights Act “Wanted” pictures, as it were, could be published. I wanted specifically to send a message to police forces and local authorities that they should go ahead and do that. On the Human Rights Act more generally, my hon. Friend knows that we have plans to reform it at source under the European convention on human rights.