Europe: Renegotiation Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Liz McInnes
Main Page: Liz McInnes (Labour - Heywood and Middleton)Department Debates - View all Liz McInnes's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(9 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Lidington
A number of factors give rise to migration, but the fact that roughly 40% of people from elsewhere in the EU who live in the UK are in receipt of benefits or tax credits of some sort indicates that that is one of the major contributors to the pull factors.
Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)
In his speech this morning the Prime Minister announced his intention to scrap Labour’s Human Rights Act. Is he opposed to the Act because it was a Labour Government who finally implemented it, or is he opposed to human rights on a more fundamental level?
Mr Lidington
I am sorry if the hon. Lady was shocked by that sentence in the Prime Minister’s speech, but it was in the Conservative party manifesto back in May. She is obviously entitled to defend the Blair Government’s Human Rights Act, but this country enjoyed a long tradition of respect for human rights well before that legislation was enacted, and I am confident that the United Kingdom will continue to have such a tradition when it has been replaced.