Human Rights Act

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Dominic Raab

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Raab]

I thought I had detected a slight revival of my right hon. and learned Friend’s former enthusiasm, but perhaps I was too optimistic.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) for his contribution. He always speaks powerfully on these issues—I have listened to him speaking on human rights since I joined this House. He took us back to Magna Carta and its modern-day relevance.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I can go back further if you want.

[Mr Raab]

I am sure you could.

I also welcome the contribution made by the Chair of the Justice Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill). I congratulate him on his election to that post and look forward to being grilled in due course. He counselled us not to treat the Human Rights Act as a holy grail that cannot be questioned. That was a useful injection of common sense into the debate.

I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who highlighted some of the cases under the HRA that have been of concern to his party. He raised in particular the application of article 8 with regard to deportation. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) made some powerful points on section 2 of the Act and on extraterritorial jurisdiction. The hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) raised the difficult issue of the balance between liberty and security. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) discussed judicial legislation from Strasbourg—he has huge experience of that as a result of his representation on the Council of Europe.

There were other excellent speeches to which I cannot pay individual tribute, but I should also acknowledge the speech made by the shadow Minister, who reiterated his party’s position and lamented the lack of detail in the Government’s current proposals. I say to him gently that one issue with the Human Rights Act, arguably, is that it was rushed through, as it was introduced within six months. As a result of that haste, some problems have now emerged that we were warned of at the Act’s inception. The Government are not going to rush in the way the then Labour Government rushed through the Human Rights Act. We will take a little time, because we want to get it done right rather than quickly.

[Mr Raab]

The shadow Minister makes an interesting point. If, as a new Government, we had introduced a Bill within six months, it would have been argued that that was too hasty.

On the problems that have arisen as a result, a former shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), who is no longer in his place, took to The Daily Telegraph just last year to point out some of the problems with section 2 of the Act:

“Too often, rather than ‘taking into account’ Strasbourg rulings and by implication, finding their own way, our courts have acted as if these rulings were binding on their decisions. As a result, the sovereignty of our courts and the will of Parliament have both been called into question. This needs sorting out.”

If the Labour party has U-turned on that rather thoughtful critique of its own legislation and now, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst said, believes the Act to be a holy grail that cannot be touched, called into question or criticised at all, there are some questions for Labour to answer. I know hon. Members in the shadow Minister’s party would not all agree on that matter.

I shall take this opportunity to set out the Government’s position. I should say that I have found the debate very valuable at this still formative stage of the Government’s process towards enacting a Bill of Rights. To answer some of the questions put, we will be consulting formally this Session, including with the devolved Administrations—I am aware that there are some issues there—and I hope hon. Members will understand if I do not prejudge that consultation or its terms in my remarks today.

I remind hon. Members that the United Kingdom has a strong tradition of respect for human rights that long predates the Human Rights Act 1998. The Government are proud of that tradition and will be true to it in delivering our reforms. As I explained at Justice questions, our plans do not involve us leaving the convention. That is not our objective. We want to restore some common-sense balance to our human rights, which are out of kilter, so nothing has been taken off the table.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

If the proposal is not to withdraw from the convention, would it still be applicable in British law and in decision making by judges in British courts?

[Mr Raab]

The hon. Gentleman is alluding to the idea of having a middle course between throwing the baby out with the bathwater, as some have described it—tearing up human rights, getting rid of the convention and not replacing it—and trying to reform the current model by looking at the way the convention has been applied and interpreted. There are not huge numbers of objections to the black letter law of the convention’s text, but the way it has been applied and extended is a matter of concern. All that will be the subject of debate and consultation.