Leaving the EU: Scotland and Wales Continuity Bills
Debate between Hywel Williams and Jeremy Wright(6 years, 7 months ago)
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The Attorney General
The hon. Gentleman is right that, as I have said, we need to provide certainty wherever we can, and he is right too that there is a political job to be done as much as there is a legal one. I have indicated to him that I take the view that the political way forward is better than the legal way forward, but there is a necessity to resolve the difference of opinion that currently exists over the way forward. If we cannot do that politically, we will have to do it legally, but I know which way I would prefer.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
In December, I asked the Secretary of State for Wales what he would do if he failed to gain legislative consent from Wales, and he replied, in his usual way, that he was very confident of success. And now the case is going to the Supreme Court. Is the Attorney General confident that this matter has been handled well, or even half-competently?
The Attorney General
Yes. Both my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales and I are optimistic, and for good reason, and we will remain so in the hope that a sensible settlement can be reached.
European Convention on Human Rights: UK Membership
Debate between Hywel Williams and Jeremy Wright(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
The Attorney General
On my hon. Friend’s last point, if only that were true. I do not think there is the simplicity that he suggests there is on that point. He is of course right that ECHR principles contribute to European Union via the charter, but that is not the same as putting together the European convention on human rights and European law and saying that they are indistinguishable and indivisible from each other. That is not the position.
In relation to deportation, the difficulty we often face, as my hon. Friend will know, is the interpretation of article 8 of the convention, which deals with the right to a family life. That is a good example of the way in which rights drawn up perfectly sensibly in the convention can be extended beyond where they were meant to go, or of how the balancing exercise at the heart of all human rights law is not conducted in what he and I would consider to be a sensible way.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
In his reply to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), the Attorney General conceded that there would be substantial proposals in respect of devolution, but that there would also be “full consultation”. Does he accept that it is not a matter of full consultation, but of fundamental change to the way that the Welsh Assembly and the other Assemblies actually operate, so how will they operate?
The Attorney General
As I have said, we will have to wait for the proposals to be brought forward before it is sensible to discuss them in detail, but the hon. Gentleman has my undertaking, as he has had that of other Ministers, that when the proposals are brought forward, there will be a full conversation about how the devolution aspects of such proposals will be managed.