UK Nationals Imprisoned Abroad

Debate between Robert Flello and Fiona Bruce

Tuesday 20th December 2016 Westminster Hall

[Robert Flello (in the Chair)]

Before the hon. Lady responds, I gently suggest that other Members wish to speak and that I will call the Front Benchers at half-past 10 o’clock.

[Fiona Bruce]

Thank you, Mr Flello. I did not have an opportunity to see the project to which the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) referred.

In conclusion, disrespect for basic human rights continues to be widespread throughout the globe. I see that all too frequently as chair of the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission. It is in that capacity, as well as in my capacity as a Member of Parliament, that I raise concerns about Mr Tsege today. As the Secretary-General of the UN, Ban Ki-moon, so eloquently stated:

“Upholding human rights is in the interest of all. Respect for human rights advances well-being for every individual, stability for every society, and harmony for our interconnected world.”

[Robert Flello (in the Chair)]

There are now six Members who wish to speak. We have 29 and a bit minutes. I call Kerry McCarthy to demonstrate how succinct Members can be.

Out-of-school Education Settings

Debate between Robert Flello and Fiona Bruce

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I will be brief, because the excellent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) has made most of what I was going to say unnecessary. The proposals are disproportionate and likely to be ineffective, and pose a real threat to freedom of speech, conscience and belief. They are also quite probably illegal, a point to which I will return in a moment.

Whatever reassurances the Minister may give us today that the proposals will not affect the salt of the earth organisations of which my hon. Friend spoke, we cannot be sure. The problem is that office holders change. Politicians change. Civil servants change. Once such regulations are in place, what guarantee do we have that they will not be interpreted differently in the future?

It will not do to say that we are being alarmist. We need only remember the plight of the Plymouth Brethren, which you will remember well, Mr Turner. They were threatened with the removal of their charitable status some three years ago over a difference of interpretation of the words “public benefit”. That came after reassurance had been given in the House during debates on the Charities Act 2006 that traditional religious charities need not fear the legislation. If I am correct, you were the shadow Minister at the time, Mr Turner, and you expressed grave disappointment in this very Chamber that, years after the passing of 2006 Act, an established charity with some 300 churches across the country was having its charitable status challenged following a different interpretation of the legislation. The reassurances that had been given were swept aside. The challenge cost the charity hundreds of thousands of pounds and was only averted after dozens of MPs stood up in this place and called for the outrageous attack to be stopped. That is why we are speaking out against the proposals today.

I now turn to the probable illegality of the proposals and the human rights issues. I thank Professor Julian Rivers, professor of jurisprudence at the University of Bristol and an expert on law and organised religion, for his advice. He describes the proposals as “astonishing”. He says that such a registration requirement, as it would apply to religious groups, would

“be straightforwardly in breach of the UK’s international human rights obligations.”

Let us have a look at articles 8, 9, 10, 11, 14 and 18 of the European convention on human rights. Hon. and right Hon. Members will be relieved that I will not quote them all. The Human Rights Act 1998, which refers to the convention, states that everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and expression, to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority. Requiring religious groups to register would breach that. Indeed, just last year, the European Court of Human Rights said that the European convention on human rights

“excludes any discretion on the part of the State to determine whether religious beliefs or the means used to express such beliefs are legitimate.”

It is therefore quite likely that, were Ofsted to identify and sanction undesirable teaching in a church youth group in the way that my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough described, it would be in breach of the ECHR.

Much as I would like to, I will not go on. There is a great deal more I would like to say, but I will say in closing that the consultation has been rushed through and is of particular concern to faith organisations. At some 42 days, it was very short and the shortest of the Department for Education’s current consultations. I stood up in the House before Christmas and asked for an extension, bearing in mind that the consultation took place over Advent and Christmas, but it was refused. I pointed out later that one of the email addresses on the consultation’s website was wrong, so some of the consultees’ responses were never received. There was then confusion over the time of day on the final date when the consultation finished. Many consultees who put their responses in after around 5.30 pm found that they had missed the deadline. There needs to be a clearer understanding of what the deadline is.

[Robert Flello]

I appreciate the hon. Lady’s speech, but my one concern is that she is almost suggesting that the Government should rerun the consultation. May I suggest that she makes it clear in her closing remarks that the best thing that the Government could do is to bury the consultation once and for all?

[Fiona Bruce]

I absolutely agree. There is no other way that the proposals can be addressed other than to completely abandon them. That is what we are calling for today.

Human Fertilisation and Embryology

Debate between Robert Flello and Fiona Bruce

Tuesday 3rd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Robert Flello]

There is a lot of muttering around the Chamber that there will be clinical trials, but there cannot be clinical trials because they would breach the EU directive.

[Fiona Bruce]

That is exactly the point I was about to make. As has been highlighted in a letter from 44 MEPs who have written from the European Parliament this week to the Secretary of State for Health, the EU directives—the European clinical trials directive 2001, which was confirmed by the 2014 directive in the same area—state:

“No gene therapy trials may be carried out which result in modifications to the subject’s germ line genetic identity.”

My hon. Friend the Minister indicated that in some way these particular procedures were excluded from these trials. That cannot be correct. The European clinical trials directive 2001 applies to clinical trials involving germ-line engineering. It applies to all clinical trials using medicine, and to these procedures. For the Department of Health to argue that it can move straight to using these procedures on children without clinical trials gives us, apart from anything else, one reason to vote against these regulations.

If anyone doubts that, Lord Brennan QC has given a legal opinion on these regulations, which is of central importance. He says:

“It is a well-established principle that EU law is to be interpreted…in light of the purpose, values, social and economic goals the provisions aim to achieve. Given that…both the Directive and the 2014 Regulation…ban any gene therapy trials that involve modification of the subject’s germ line identity, then it would clearly fall within their purposes and values to prevent their use in clinical practice of any procedure with that effect without investigation or trials first having taken place.”

I believe that this Government are at risk of infringement proceedings being brought against them if these proposals go ahead.

Charitable Registration

Debate between Robert Flello and Fiona Bruce

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Westminster Hall

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, whose speech I am enjoying immensely—it is extremely good and gets right to the heart of the issue. She has also been very generous in giving way to countless Members. My concern—she has rightly moved on to this issue—is whether every Christian charity up and down the country will have to start preparing books and websites to get information out, so diverting them from the important work that they do. Will they have to do that to protect themselves just in case there is a problem? That would be outrageous.

[Fiona Bruce]

I entirely agree. I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point.

One option for trying to resolve this issue has not been mentioned: perhaps the case of the Preston Down Trust, which is, after all, a test case, could be referred to the upper tribunal, so that it was heard by a High Court judge of the chancery division and any decision would have appropriate status. That solution could be looked at. We certainly require a serious analysis by legal experts in this field, including an analysis of the case law on public benefit, what it means for religious organisations and how far organisations such as the Charity Commission should stand in judgment over religious groups. All those issues must be considered, and it is not merely an academic exercise, because the rubber has hit the road for the Plymouth Brethren. Who will be next?