European Convention on Human Rights

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

Her Majesty’s Government, with respect, are not pushing ahead with any reckless decision. The policy of the Government is to remain within the convention on human rights; speculation to the contrary is quite unfounded.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble and learned Lord has been asked this Question many times and has said that it is the Government’s policy to remain inside the ECHR. However, scepticism and questions persist because a senior government Minister, the Attorney-General, has a number of times over the last week said that she wants to withdraw from the ECHR. What conversations has the Minister had with the Attorney-General in the last few days to resolve this?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

I have had no conversations with the Attorney-General, and what the Attorney-General says or may have said in her capacity as a leadership contender is neither here nor there—as an unsuccessful leadership contender, I hasten to add. We need to get this straight. Unless we can define the boundaries of the debate we are about to have, we will be in a very unsatisfactory place. We are talking about the mechanisms of the convention—we are not talking about whether we should be in the convention or not. I remind the House that the UK has the best record of all member states within the convention; we are a party to, I think, seven United Nations conventions on human rights; we are very active in the Council of Europe in a number of respects; we fully support the ICC in its reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine; and there is no question of this fine tradition being mitigated, let alone abandoned.