Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Monday 21st May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

7. If she will bring forward proposals to amend the immigration rules to prevent misuse of article 8 of the European convention on human rights.

[Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

20. If she will bring forward proposals to amend the immigration rules to prevent misuse of article 8 of the European convention on human rights.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend rightly raises an issue that causes considerable concern to members of the public. We have changed the way in which we deal with foreign national offenders. We now start deportation action 18 months before the end of the sentence, and in order to speed up the process we are chartering more flights to remove foreign offenders, but we are indeed having to make good a system that was of course put in place by the last Labour Government. When we deal with article 8, we will ensure that it provides less reason for people to claim that they need to remain here in the UK.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

The abuse of article 8 undermines faith not only in our own criminal justice system but in human rights generally, as envisaged by the original British jurists who founded the convention in 1946. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the Government will hold true to the Brighton declaration and make it clear that the sovereignty of our Parliament and our UK courts must be sacrosanct?

[Mrs May]

As my hon. Friend knows, we are making a number of efforts to ensure that the operation of the European convention in relation to the United Kingdom and the United Kingdom courts is as we believe it should be. That does indeed entail the decisions made at the Brighton conference concerning changes in the operation of the European Court of Human Rights. It also involves what we are doing to clarify the fact that article 8 is a qualified right and not an absolute right.