Bill of Rights

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend for, as ever, the colourful and eloquent way that he presents the issue. When it comes to collective interest, social policy and finely balanced judgments around public protection, I do think that adjudication in court by lawyers, rather than a broader discussion and debate among elected Members of Parliament accountable to their citizens, is a mistake. We will protect the fundamental freedoms that make this country great—they existed long before the Human Rights Act and they will exist long after. He is right about the balance between protecting individual liberty and freedom under the rule of law, of which I am immensely proud, and making sure that elected Members of this House can protect the public, take finely balanced judgments on social policy, and take judgments that affect the public purse.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Many of our constituents have seen the benefits of human rights, such as the bereaved unmarried widows who had to take the Government to court to make sure that their children were not ignored when it came to pensions, or the women in Northern Ireland who are counting on us to support the statutory instrument to make sure that they have the human right to choose what happens to their own body and to have an abortion. They will be reassured by the Deputy Prime Minister saying that we will remain signatories to the European convention. Can he confirm to his colleagues, who might want to think about the implications of that, that because we will remain signatories and bound by the convention, the European Court of Human Rights will remain the ultimate judicial decision maker on human rights in this country? He is not getting rid of Europe; he is just wasting our time.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady is right about the first point, but wrong about the second. That is clear from the Bill of Rights.