Human Rights Act 1998 (Repeal and Substitution) Bill

Philip Davies Excerpts

Friday 1st March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke]

That is a telling question. I tabled the Bill as a Member of Parliament and a law-maker, in relation to the laws of the land. Whether we remain signatories to the convention is a matter of royal prerogative, and a matter for the Privy Council and the Executive of the day. I drafted the Bill in such a way as to leave it open to the Executive to decide whether they wished to remain party to the convention or to withdraw from it altogether. I have sought to establish the cornerstones and foundation blocks of a uniquely British settlement, and to provide optionality in regard to whether we remain a signatory to the convention. I myself have grave doubts about the convention, but I nevertheless wanted to keep that optionality, just in case the Government of the day were not prepared to go as far as that.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I wholly agree with everything that my hon. Friend has said so far, but may I take up the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall)? Surely, even if the Bill were passed, unless we withdrew from the European convention, we would merely be replacing perverse rulings in the United Kingdom courts by even more perverse rulings in the European Court of Human Rights. The Bill might introduce an extra barrier, but it would not stop the perverse rulings that both my hon. Friend and I object to so much.

[Charlie Elphicke]

That is a fair point. The European Court in Strasbourg does make an awful lot of rulings that right-thinking British people would consider entirely perverse. What I have sought to do with the settlement proposed in the Bill is take the European convention out of the UK legal system so that it is not directly effective, and need not be applied by UK judges day in, day out. As my hon. Friend says, if we remain party to the convention, on a case-by-case basis—I think that there are about 10 cases a year—there would potentially be rulings against the UK, and the Executive would then have to consider putting provisions before Parliament to change that, or not. My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the potential risks, difficulties and challenges.