Oral Answers to Questions

Sadiq Khan Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As I said earlier, we will continue to deliver the commitments that we made in the coalition agreement. My hon. Friend should not lightly turn his nose up at the idea of city deals that are giving unprecedented new economic and political powers to create jobs and economic opportunities across the country. Those are a good thing and we are dedicated to delivering them.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

Labour Members are extremely proud of the Human Rights Act, which has been used to protect the rights of the vulnerable in residential care homes and those of an Asperger’s sufferer who was to have been extradited to America, and it has given rights to victims of crime and much more.

To be fair to the Deputy Prime Minister and his party, they have been consistent in their support for the Human Rights Act. Now that the work of the Bill of Rights commission has come to an end, will the Deputy Prime Minister confirm that no work will be done by his Department, or any other Government Department, towards amending or repealing the Human Rights Act during this term of Parliament?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As the right hon. Gentleman will know, the Commission on a Bill of Rights reported to me and the Secretary of State for Justice. Actually, quite a lot of good work was done on the reform of the European Court of Human rights—the so-called Brighton agenda, which we are pursuing across the coalition.

However, the right hon. Gentleman is right to acknowledge that there is a difference of opinion between those of us who believe that the basic rights and responsibilities offered to every British citizen in the European convention, as reflected in British law in the Human Rights Act, should be a baseline of protection for everybody, and others who wish to see that changed. That disagreement was openly, and in a perfectly grown-up way, reflected in the conclusions of the commission.