Brexit: Human Rights

Lord Faulks Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, who is a well-known champion of the protection of human rights. I share with him—and, I am sure, all other noble Lords—a sense of the importance of their continued protection following Brexit. I also, I suspect, share with him a disappointment with the decision taken by the British public to leave the European Union. I am extremely concerned about some of the economic consequences of our so doing, but this evening we are concerned with the human rights consequences and the need to keep them ever at the forefront of our considerations. Although complacency is not appropriate, nevertheless I feel confident that we can protect human rights adequately in the future without being involved in the European Union.

The final shape of any deal—and I profoundly hope that there is a deal—will, I hope, deal adequately with citizens’ rights and the security and criminal justice arrangements that have been the bedrock of our relationship with other European Union countries. The noble Lord, Lord Cashman, spoke about the Charter of Fundamental Rights. His party was not very enthusiastic about that when it was first brought in. Although I think it is a fine statement of general principle, I fear that I am one of those who do not feel that actionable rights per se are necessarily the answer. I have read the government review of the withdrawal Bill in connection with the charter and it does not seem that we are likely to lose any substantial protection if Clause 6(5) becomes law.

As to the Human Rights Act, we still have it. There has been talk—of which I am aware—of a British Bill of Rights. Together with the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, I was on the commission that considered whether that should be the case. The majority thought that it should, although nobody thought that that would result in a diminution of protection; it was a question simply of recalibrating our relationship with the Strasbourg court.

Why am I not unduly concerned about our future protection of human rights post Brexit? It is simply because I believe that our courts, with their historic tradition of respecting human rights, and our Parliament, should be, and have proved, capable of responding to the challenges that human rights issues sometimes pose. I will give two examples. The first is modern slavery. All human rights documents and conventions, quite rightly, outlaw slavery in all its manifestations—but what we needed was a piece of bespoke legislation to deal with the precise problems, subtle yet profound, thrown up by modern slavery. That is what Parliament could do, rather than a broadly based rights instrument.

The second example was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Cashman: the very important equal marriage legislation. That is something that Parliament achieved, notwithstanding opposition within Parliament and considerable opposition outside. It was one of those occasions when Parliament was ahead, I think, of most of the general public, and now we can turn round and say that Parliament should be proud of what it achieved in that respect. It is an irony that many of those who were concerned about it thought that it might offend the Strasbourg court in some way—hence the clever drafting of that piece of legislation to make it proof from any such challenge.

So what are the Government’s priorities post Brexit? I hope and believe that they are to maintain our reputation for protecting and honouring human rights. We belong to innumerable treaties, conventions and the like which do just that. We have an excellent reputation for our protection of human rights. I believe that we will be able to continue to do so. We should not rest on our laurels, of course, but should be active in identifying any potential weaknesses—but human rights are safe with our Parliament and our courts.