Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Wednesday 17th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright). Although I will not be supporting the hon. and learned Lady’s amendments, I have great respect for the intellectual rigour that she brought on Scots law and its application in this case. I say the same about the points made by my right hon. and learned Friend in relation to his amendments 54 and 55. I hope the Minister will think seriously about how we deal with that issue—I am sure he will, because serious points have been raised. In a nutshell, I agree with the proposition that while Parliament can, of course, legislate to do whatever it likes in domestic law, the simple fact is that one cannot legislate away international law obligations or treaty obligations, and it would be misleading to pretend otherwise.

I now turn to the amendments tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick). I am sorry that he is not in his place, because I have to say that, with every respect, I profoundly differ from his characterisation of pyjama injunctions by a foreign court. Respectfully, I would argue that that characterisation is both inaccurate and rather unworthy. As was observed by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West, it is perfectly normal for interim injunctions to be issued at difficult hours when the test for them is met, so we should not say that that is unusual. Arguments can be legitimately made about the way in which the rule 39 procedure in the Strasbourg Court works, but let us make them on the basis of an accurate construction of what the Court is about, rather than otherwise.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

I have great respect for the argument that my hon. Friend is making, and I defer to his experience and knowledge on this issue. I am genuinely interested in his view: he has described a judge in the UK issuing an injunction late at night in the event of what, in normal circumstances, would be an individual situation. Does he really think it is comparable to describe in the same terms the act of a Court that is genuinely in another country and a judge who is anonymous and does not publish the rationale for their opinion, which calls a halt—with the support of the Government, it must be said—to the policy of the British Government, enacting a law passed in Parliament? Surely there is a difference, both of degree and of nature, between the two cases.

[Sir Robert Neill]

I think my hon. Friend needs to bear in mind that the application that was made to Strasbourg was also about the circumstances of an individual case, so that is no different.

There is a legitimate criticism—one that I have voiced in the past—about the procedure adopted in Strasbourg for these applications in two areas: first, the anonymity of the judge, and secondly, the failure to state reasons. From our point of view, that would not be acceptable, but the answer is not to throw out the whole of the judicial and treaty baby with the bathwater. Thanks to the Brighton declaration that was signed by my noble and learned Friend Lord Clarke of Nottingham, it is possible to make reforms following dialogue between member states, the Council of Ministers and the judiciary of the Court. I am pleased to say that after pressure from the United Kingdom—perfectly properly—the Court itself has indicated that it will to consult on reforms to its procedure, which can only be a good thing. That is what I think the balanced position is on that issue.

--- Later in debate ---

I think that is a very noble proposition. I am sorry that Conservative Members are increasingly advocating our removal from the European Court of Human Rights because they cannot live up to those terrible ideals of a protection of the right to family life or a protection of privacy or, goodness knows, a protection of freedom of thought.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Stella Creasy]

Oh, go on, then.

[Danny Kruger]

The hon. Lady is constantly and sarcastically evoking Winston Churchill. Obviously he did sign up to the ECHR and he sent lawyers to deal with the drafting process, but will the hon. Lady acknowledge that he did not initially think that the United Kingdom would join it; and when he did sign us up to it, there was no right of individual claims to the European Court? It was properly on the plane of international law—between states, which is the appropriate place for this sort of law.

Nor would Churchill accept, surely—and nor should any of us—what the ECHR has become under the jurisdiction of the Strasbourg Court and, I am afraid, our own lawyers. All the articles that the hon. Lady has mentioned, including the right to human life, have been so extended and expanded by the courts ever since that it has become entirely inappropriate for us to belong to the Court in this way. I really do not think that Winston Churchill would have supported what Strasbourg has become, and neither, surely, does the hon. Lady.

[Stella Creasy]

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman was not here earlier to be part of the conversation. I am sure that he would want his own right of remedy to explain why he could not be bothered to be here at the start. He would have heard the debate that we had about the original intention of the Court. Let me quote back to him the original document, which states:

“The High Contracting Parties undertake to abide by the final judgment of the Court in any case to which they are parties.”

From the start, Churchill himself advocated for the Court as a backstop against overbearing Governments that could speak for people and prosecute people in ways that were being talked about after the second world war without any challenge. I do not quote Churchill sarcastically. I recognise what he saw at the time: the danger of authoritarianism. The hon. Gentleman would do well to reflect on that and perhaps reread some of those arguments—as well as the rules about taking part in a parliamentary debate.

When Churchill talked about welcoming any country in which the people owned the Government, he was talking about democracy, and our courts are an integral part of our democracy because they keep Governments honest, even if they are straining with this current Administration. Just two countries have left the European Court of Human Rights. I was there when we expelled Russia because of its aggression and when we tried to prevent it from coming back. Greece left in 1967 when it was under a military regime and rejoined once democracy was restored. We should be proud and confident in our capacity to speak up for human rights and to recognise that a right to an effective remedy is an integral part of that. There is no point having a right if we cannot exercise it, and that means having a separate body to oversee the process and ensure that it is fair to all parties.