EU Charter of Fundamental Rights

Sadiq Khan Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I think the hon. Gentleman will be talking to the Secretary of State. That will be a very important part of the discussion.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

I commend the Justice Secretary for the cool, calm way in which he answered these questions today, in contrast to the way in which he spoke to the media about the case last week. The position is clear: in 2007, Britain specifically opted out of the charter of fundamental rights being enforceable when the Lisbon treaty was signed. There is no ambiguity about that, as even Mr Justice Mostyn agrees. In his judgment, after quoting the relevant protocol, he said:

“To my mind, it is absolutely clear that the contracting parties agreed that the Charter did not create one single further justiciable right in our domestic courts.”

Labour sought and successfully negotiated an opt-out from the charter. I commend the cool, calm way in which the right hon. Gentleman has explained the timeline and the judgment in 2011.

The right hon. Gentleman has explained why he did not appeal the judgment in Luxembourg in 2011, but he has also heard the concern about the confusion that that could cause in the judiciary. Will he publish the relevant legal advice so that all members of the judiciary can be made aware that there is no confusion, and that the charter is not enforceable in the UK courts? Will he also confirm that he understands that the concern relates to a ruling by the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, which arbitrates on matters relating to the EU, and not by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which deals with the European convention on human rights? For the avoidance of doubt, I am willing to work with the right hon. Gentleman to ensure that the UK’s opt-out from the EU charter of fundamental rights, which we negotiated, remains in place?

[Chris Grayling]

With apologies to the House, I am not prepared to take any lessons from Labour Members who landed us with a treaty and a charter that did far more than we were promised. I also apologise to the former Europe Minister, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who is in his place, for taking his name in vain, but it was he who said in 2000 that Europe’s new charter of fundamental rights

“would have no greater legal standing before EU judges than a copy of the Beano or the Sun.”

He knows that that is simply not what happened, because the previous Government signed us up to something that we would not have chosen to sign. The right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) talks about an opt-out, but that is not what the Labour Government actually negotiated. They negotiated a protocol that stated that the charter would be applied only to EU law. That is the situation today, and it does not enable us to opt out of the charter. We are still subject to it in EU matters. Again, that is not what Labour said would be the case.

The right hon. Gentleman asked me to publish the legal advice. His party has a long track record of not publishing legal advice. As he knows, Governments have always resisted its publication, and that will continue, because it is an important part of a Minister’s job to be able to take advice in confidence from our Law Officers. He also made a point about the European Court of Human Rights. The truth is that we need change in both areas. We need change in our relationship with the European Union and in our relationship with the European Court of Human Rights. They are separate institutions, and we need change in both of them. A majority Conservative Government would deliver those changes.