European Court of Human Rights

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

We remain a leading force for human rights in the Council of Europe; I will give two examples in response to my noble friend’s question. We are supporting the development of a binding convention to protect the profession of lawyer and the right to practise the profession without prejudice or restraint, and we advocated among other member states for greater awareness of the convention rights among all state parties. This led to a new recommendation in September 2021 on the dissemination of the convention and other relevant texts. In addition, we will shortly participate in the Council of Europe’s Steering Committee for Human Rights, which will start a review of the system for the selection and election of judges to that court.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, on 14 July in response to the Human Rights Act debate tabled by my noble friend Lady Whitaker, the Minister said he had plans to visit each of the devolved legislatures shortly to narrow the differences between the UK Government and those legislatures. Has he had those meetings, and how did they go in terms of narrowing the differences?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, the position is that those meetings have not yet taken place. It proved quite difficult to arrange them in the Recess and in the light of the impending change of government. I am due to see the Welsh Government on the 19th of this month, and provisional dates for Scotland and Northern Ireland have been arranged for before the end of September.