Human Rights Legislation Reform

Ellie Reeves Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Fovargue. The strength of feeling on the issue has been demonstrated not only by the nearly 250,000 people who signed the petition, but by the speeches we have heard today. My hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas) said that the Human Rights Act provides justice for victims, including soldiers, women facing violence and victims of Hillsborough. My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) said that replacing the Human Rights Act was completely the wrong priority for the justice system, and spoke about his hope that that will now be abandoned with the demise of the previous Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab). The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) shared his commitment to the Human Rights Act, and noted the very large number of people who signed the petition and the strength of feeling on the issue.

The case has been made very strongly for why the Human Rights Act is such an important piece of legislation, and why it should not under any circumstances be scrapped and replaced with the Government’s Bill of Rights Bill. It is a relief that the Government did not bring forward the Bill for Second Reading last month. I hope that the Minister will confirm that it will not come back, and that the Government will drop their attempt to scrap the Human Rights Act. Make no mistake: rather than a so-called Bill of Rights, it is a rights-removal Bill, which is designed to dilute the rule of law and weaken the rights of British citizens.

The Human Rights Act was brought in by a Labour Government, with a simple but profound aim: to bring rights home, ensure human rights protections are accessible, and provide a mechanism to hold the Executive to account. For the last 25 years, the Act has met that aim. Indeed, it is recognised around the world, and has been integral to the Union of our nations. As has been said, the Scottish Government consistently made clear their support for the Act in their response to the Government’s Bill of Rights Bill consultation. The Welsh Government have recorded their opposition to any proposal to replace the Human Rights Act. Perhaps most significantly of all, the Act has played a large role in peace in Northern Ireland, because the full incorporation of the European convention in domestic law was a key aspect of the 1998 Good Friday agreement.

Members across the House would have grave concerns about legislation that could undermine the Union. We have talked today about the importance of evidence. The hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) called for any review to be evidence-led, and the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) said that the Joint Committee on Human Rights completed two cross-party reports that concluded that the Human Rights Act is working well and does not need to be repealed or replaced. That was also the conclusion of the independent expert review, and the view of well over 250 charities, trade unions and human rights organisations that joined together to call for the protection of the Act. Organisations working with vulnerable people—ranging from the charity ACTION:FGM to Mind, the Chronic Illness Inclusion Project, the Down’s Syndrome Association and Southall Black Sisters—have also said that the Act is a proportionate and well-drafted protection of our fundamental liberties. The evidence that the Human Rights Act is working is overwhelming.

Far from the mythical rights culture that the Conservatives point the finger at, the Human Rights Act has time and again been the course of redress for those failed by the state. Take Corporal Anne-Marie Ellement. After she reported being raped by two Royal Military Police officers, she suffered bullying, ostracism and overwork. In the end, she took her own life. Using the positive obligations under article 2—the right to life—Anne-Marie’s family secured a fresh inquest into her death and a new rape investigation.

The results of those investigations led to improvements in the military justice system that have helped to support servicepeople who have been victims of rape and sexual assault in the military. It also led to the formation of the service complaints ombudsman, an independent body that investigates complaints by service personnel. The positive obligations under article 2 also ensure that bereaved families of the Manchester Arena attack in 2017 and the Fishmongers’ Hall attack in 2019 received full investigations, which examined whether the attacks could have been prevented. The lessons learned were placed on counter-terror operatives to better protect people in the future.

The Human Rights Act is an essential tool for upholding women’s rights to live free from violence through positive obligations under the Act, but the Conservatives’ rights removal Bill would remove them, thereby limiting women’s ability to challenge the state’s failures to protect them. A prime example of positive obligations under the Human Rights Act in protecting women is the case of black cab rapist John Worboys, who my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham and Rainham also spoke about. Despite two of his earliest victims reporting their experiences to the police, systematic failures to properly investigate or take those reports seriously meant that he was not charged, and was free to continue attacking women for many years. Thanks to the Human Rights Act, those victims were able to take the police to court and hold them responsible.

More recently, the High Court judgment regarding the policing of the Clapham Common vigil for Sarah Everard saw the Act play a crucial role when a court ruled that the Met had failed to understand the law when it banned women for holding a vigil for Sarah. Thanks to the Human Rights Act, the organisers were able to seek redress. It is unconscionable that the Government are pursuing an agenda that will attack those basic rights, and I hope that the Minister will confirm that the legislation will not come back.

Rather than looking to the genuine positives of the Human Rights Act, in the proposed legislation the Government attempted to dismiss it as a law misused and exploited by criminals and extremists. The truth is that the Act offers essential daily protections for citizens, which in so many cases we take for granted. There is no justifiable reason for the Government to try to curb those obligations on the state to protect our human rights. Doing so simply seeks to absolve the state of responsibility. Unless the Minister is willing to accept the importance of the Human Rights Act, and commit to dropping the Government’s Bill of Rights, I am afraid that it adds to the Government’s scoresheet of not being on the side of victims, not being serious about tackling violence against women and girls, and not being a guardian of the rule of law.

Labour, on the other hand, believes in a country that is accountable and has proper checks and balances, where institutions seek to protect the rights of the people they serve, rather than cover up and obfuscate when things go wrong. That is what we aspire to, and it is why a Labour Government would defend the Human Rights Act.