Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

1. What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Justice on proposals for reform of the Human Rights Act 1998.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

2. What steps he plans to take to ensure that proposals for reform of the Human Rights Act 1998 meet the UK’s domestic and international human rights obligations.

[The Attorney General (Jeremy Wright)]

The Justice Secretary and I meet regularly to discuss important issues of common interest, including on domestic and international human rights law. I am not, as the House knows, able to talk about any legal content of those discussions, because, by convention, whether the Law Officers have given advice or not is not disclosed outside government.

[The Attorney General]

The hon. Gentleman is right to a certain extent, but of course he will have to wait for the proposals that the Justice Secretary will make on human rights reform. The other point for the hon. Gentleman to bear in mind is that it is not just the Court in Strasbourg that protects the human rights of British citizens. The British courts do, too, and I believe we can rely on the robustness and good sense of British judges to protect those rights.

[Paul Blomfield]

Because so many people in my constituency had written to me expressing their concerns about the Government’s plans on this issue, I organised a meeting during the recess. The dozens of people who came along had one simple question, which I hope the Attorney General will be able to answer: which of the rights currently contained within the Human Rights Act would he and the Government wish to see excluded from a British Bill of Rights?

[The Attorney General]

Again, as the hon. Gentleman has heard me say, he will have to wait for the precise proposals we are going to make. It is worth pointing out that the rights he is talking about are found not in the Human Rights Act, but in the European convention on human rights. The Government have made it clear, as I have on previous occasions, that we do not object to the content of the convention—we object to the way it is interpreted.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nicky Morgan]

I am open to working with all organisations in order to stamp out this hate crime. I am lucky enough to hold two Government jobs and am able to bring them together on this particular issue and provide £2 million of funding to pilot projects across the country to work with schools in order to stamp out unacceptable homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying. The secret seems to be to take a whole-school approach, with everybody from the head to the teachers and pupils knowing exactly that that sort of behaviour is unacceptable.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

18. What steps she is taking to increase the number and accessibility of women’s refuges.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Marcus Jones)]

We are committed to making sure that no victim of domestic abuse is turned away from the support they need. In July the Chancellor announced an additional £3.2 million to increase specialist accommodation support for victims, including refuges, and to provide more help for victims to access that support.

[Paul Blomfield]

During my annual community consultation over the recent recess, lots of women constituents raised concerns about the future of refuges, recognising that local authority funding was being stretched to breaking point, particularly in big cities such as Sheffield. The Government’s recent £10 million cash injection is a sticking plaster that will only delay closures. Will the Minister use the forthcoming spending review to put in place a long-term funding solution for the national network of refuges?

[Mr Jones]

I reassure the hon. Gentleman that our goal is to ensure that no victim of domestic abuse is turned away from the support they need. We have recently carried out, along with the Home Office, a review of domestic abuse services, and its emerging conclusions will feed into the spending review and the updated Home Office strategy on tackling violence against women and girls. As I am sure the hon. Gentleman is aware, all future funding will be dealt with in the forthcoming spending review.