Abu Qatada (Deportation)

Gerald Howarth Excerpts

Monday 8th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I shall perhaps not refer to some of the right hon. Gentleman’s comments, but I am grateful to him for his kind remarks. This has been the result of a huge amount of effort by a great number of people, including Home Office officials, our ambassador in Amman, and my hon. Friend the security Minister, to make sure that we achieved the deportation of Abu Qatada. The right hon. Gentleman encourages us to enter agreements of a similar nature with other countries. We have, I think, 30 mutual legal assistance treaties with other countries, so we have already gone down that route, and that includes countries such as United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. We have a number of deportation with assurances memorandums of understanding with other countries—I think we have now been able to deport 11 people as a result of those agreements—but of course we seek to increase that number where it is necessary to do so.

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

May I award my right hon. Friend and her entire team 10 out of 10 for standing up against this man and for British interests? It is deeply offensive to the British people that £1.5 million was spent keeping this man in the country for 12 years. May I encourage my right hon. Friend to carry on with her work and, despite the remarks of the shadow Home Secretary, to look again at repealing the Human Rights Act and Britain’s membership of the European convention on human rights? Can she tell us whether the judges have got it at last? She is doing a fantastic job—keep it up, please.

[Mrs May]

In relation to the interpretation of article 8, sadly we have seen cases where the interpretation by the judges has not been what the intent of Parliament was when we changed the immigration rules, which is why we are going to put those changes into primary legislation in the immigration Bill later this year. I can assure my hon. Friend that I and others will continue looking at human rights and what the right human rights laws are. As our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made clear on Sunday morning, the Conservative party will introduce our proposals at the next general election.