Oral Answers to Questions

Sadiq Khan Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Of course I am keen to look constantly at ways in which we can collectively reinforce our messages on human rights in troubled parts of the world such as Colombia, but we know from peace processes of our own that, in the long run, the best way of guaranteeing human rights and the rule of law is to entrench peace, and to ensure that violence subsides and is then stopped altogether. That is what we are doing in our work with President Santos’s Government. We are also ensuring that the free trade agreements into which the European Union has entered with Colombia contain very clear human rights provisions, to be enshrined in 54 specific measures that the Colombian Government need to introduce in order to protect human rights under the terms of the free trade agreement.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

How much more authority and influence does the Deputy Prime Minister think that a future Deputy Prime Minister would have when raising the issue of human rights in a country that he or she visited if we had abolished our human rights legislation and replaced it with a diluted Bill of Rights, or had withdrawn from the European convention on human rights?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, that is one of the reasons why I am so staunchly opposed to diluting the human rights that British citizens enjoy under British and European law. It is very difficult to urge—as we do—the Governments of countries such as Colombia to aspire to the highest standards of human rights if we do not do so ourselves, as a country.