Yvette Cooper
Main Page: Yvette Cooper (Labour - Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley)Department Debates - View all Yvette Cooper's debates with the Home Office
(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Mrs May
We have done a significant amount in relation to both gang-related crime and firearms. On firearms, we have introduced a new offence applying to middlemen, because the firearms used in attacks are often hired out by those who possess them. We are also doing some work across Europe in relation to the availability of firearms, and the way in which they are brought into the United Kingdom.
We have attacked the problem of gangs on two levels. Our work in connection with “Ending Gang and Youth Violence” has focused on the street gangs that have often been such a problem in many areas, and some of the work done by Greater Manchester police in bringing agencies together to deal with gang-related crimes has served as a model for others. We have also set up the National Crime Agency, which has enhanced the ability of the police to deal with the organised crime groups that often lie behind such crimes. Incidents such as those to which the hon. Lady has referred are, of course, tragic, and, as she has said, the police will be properly investigating them. We have enhanced their ability to deal with incidents of that kind.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
The Home Secretary talked about the cuts that are to come. What would she say to Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, who leads on counter-terror for the Met, and who has warned that further cuts in neighbourhood and mainstream policing would put at risk the fight against terror?
Mrs May
I can assure my hon. Friend that that is exactly one of the issues that we will be looking at. It may require legislation but it obviously requires discussions with internet companies and others, and I am pleased to say that the Prime Minister has appointed Baroness Shields, who, as my hon. Friend may know, is well versed in these matters of technology, to look at exactly this issue of extremist material online and how we can deal with it.
As part of our wider work on extremism, we will introduce an extremism Bill, which will provide three important new powers. Those will allow us to: restrict extremists, to stop them engaging in harmful activity, through new extremism disruption orders; ban extremist groups that promote hatred but which fall short of proscription through banning orders; and close premises that persistently host extremist speakers and events with new closure orders. As I have said, the Bill will form one part of our wider strategy, which contains a range of non-legislative measures, including a major new programme to help people in our most isolated communities play a full and successful role in British life. That will include training; help to find work; and intensive English language training. It is imperative that we work together to tackle extremism and that, as we do so, we challenge it from every possible angle.
It is clear that we must not only work hard to defeat damaging and divisive extremism, but ensure that, in the fight against terrorism and other serious crime, the security and law enforcement agencies have the powers and capabilities they need to keep us safe from those who have been twisted by extremism and seek to do us harm.
Last summer, we legislated to deal with two urgent problems relating to communications data and—separately—the interception of communications. That put beyond doubt both the legal basis on which we require communication service providers to retain data and the application of our laws on investigatory powers to providers overseas. But the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 contained a sunset clause, which means that new legislation is required before the end of next year. The Act contains measures to deal with only limited and specific problems, and there are still significant gaps in our law enforcement and intelligence agencies’ capabilities.
That Act also places a statutory obligation on the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, David Anderson QC, to carry out a review of investigatory powers. That review is now complete and will be published shortly. It is a comprehensive and thorough document and I wish to take this opportunity to thank David Anderson for his work.
The Government are considering the content of the report very carefully as we frame the investigatory powers Bill, which will be brought forward in the coming months. The legislation will cover the full range of investigatory powers that David Anderson has reviewed. Although I cannot provide full details on the Bill while we are still considering the report, I can assure the House that, in considering these sensitive powers, we will look to balance the important needs of privacy and security.
It is also right that any legislation should be given full and proper consideration and I can assure the House that hon. Members will be given the opportunity to scrutinise this legislation thoroughly.
In the previous Parliament, we took robust action to reform the chaotic and uncontrolled immigration system that we inherited from the Labour Government. We transformed the immigration routes for migrant workers, reduced red tape and increased flexibility for businesses, and introduced a new route for the exceptionally talented. We took action to ensure that students who want to come to Britain really are coming here to study.
Yvette Cooper
Will the Home Secretary confirm that net migration is now at 318,000, which is more than 70,000 higher than when she took office? Will she tell us, given that she has reaffirmed that she wants to keep her net migration target, in what year does she plan to meet it?
Mrs May
The right hon. Lady has correctly quoted the last figure that was produced by the Office for National Statistics. When I said that we brought control into the system of immigration, we did just that. Earlier, I mentioned that we shut 870 bogus colleges that the Labour Government had allowed to exist to bring in people who wanted a back-door route to work rather than people who wanted to study here in the United Kingdom. Yes, there is more work for us to do. We introduced measures in the Immigration Act 2014—
Mrs May
If the right hon. Lady lets me finish this sentence, I will allow her to intervene again.
We introduced measures in the Immigration Act 2014 to make it easier and faster to remove those who have no right to be here and to restrict access to our national health service, bank accounts and rented property for those who are here illegally.
Yvette Cooper
The Home Secretary promised—“no ifs, no buts”—that she would meet her target and get the figure down to the tens of thousands. Instead it is three times that much. Will she answer the question? If she is going to keep that target for the future, in what year will she meet her net migration target?
Mrs May
We fully accept, as the figures show, that we did not meet the net migration target, but it is absolutely right that we retain that ambition. The question for Labour is: does it think that immigration into this country is too high, and if it does, what would it do about it? Interestingly, during the election campaign, immigration was a subject on which Labour was surprisingly silent, but I was not at all surprised given its record in Government.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
This is the second day of the debate on the Queen’s Speech, when we are debating some of the gravest challenges that our country faces: public safety, national security, citizenship and the wellbeing of our communities; how we counter the extremism that poisons minds and terrorises communities; how we ensure high standards in policing and make sure that we still have police on our streets; how we control and manage migration, tackle exploitation and remain an outward-looking country; and how we protect our security, our liberty and our democracy. However, before I turn to the substance, let me congratulate the Home Secretary on her reappointment to this great office of state. It is no secret that I wish today that it had been me standing in her shoes—and not just because she usually wears such particularly cool shoes. She and I perhaps have more in common than either of us normally likes to admit. After all, we are both running for the leadership of our parties, even if I am the only one who will publicly admit it. However, I wish her the best of luck. [Interruption.] And, as I see from the expression on the Justice Secretary’s face, I fear she is going to need it.
We wanted to be on the other side of the House because we wanted a very different Queen’s Speech. Yes, there are things in it that are from our manifesto, and yes, there is some common ground, yet overall it is a Queen’s Speech that claims to be about one nation but does more to divide us than ever—a Queen’s Speech that claims to help working people, yet takes away working people’s rights.
There were things we really wanted on home affairs and justice: a new offence to outlaw exploitation of immigration undercutting pay and jobs—it is modern slavery and it should be a crime—a new law to tackle violence against women, stronger laws against child abuse, stronger protection for victims, and plans to save money by abolishing police and crime commissioners. Seriously, after turnout last time of about 13%, I cannot believe even the right hon. Lady is looking forward to another round of police and crime commissioner elections next year.
Let us look at what is in the Queen’s Speech—or at least what was almost in the Queen’s Speech. Two weeks ago, the Government promised the Queen’s Speech would announce the repeal of the Human Rights Act. Two weeks on, the repeal has been repealed. We have been here before, because two years ago, the Home Secretary promised Tory party conference that she would abolish the Human Rights Act; she promised us a document and a draft Bill, and said that she was prepared to pull out of the convention altogether. But what happened? No document, no plans, no Bill. Last time, it took her two years to ditch her promise; this time, it has taken her two weeks. The British Bill of Rights has disappeared again, and we still have no idea what the Government want to do—which rights they want to repeal, whether they want to be in the European convention or out, or whether there will even be a Bill.
This time, the Home Secretary cannot blame the Liberal Democrats for the chaos. This time she and the Justice Secretary have to take responsibility and this time they are going to have to work together to sort it out. I bet that will be fun for them. Look at them—they cannot even bear to sit next to each other on the Front Bench. I bet the Home Secretary was really pleased at the right hon. Gentleman’s appointment. He is probably the only person in the Government who could make her relationship with the former Deputy Prime Minister look like a good one. Last summer, the Justice Secretary told friends that the Home Secretary was “dull and uninspiring”. Then she said he was a “wild-eyed neo-con”. He said she
“lacks the intellectual firepower and quick wits”.
No wonder they want to abolish the right to free speech.
One can understand the poor old Prime Minister trying to find the Justice Secretary a job that he could actually do. He clearly could not stay at the Department for Education—he upset the entire teaching profession and lost so many teachers’ votes. He clearly could not stay as the Chief Whip—he upset all his Back Benchers and lost an awful lot of parliamentary votes. So the one job the Prime Minister thought the right hon. Gentleman could do was go and be in charge of justice and prisoners—because at least they do not have the vote.
The only real reason the Government are back-pedalling on the abolition of the Human Rights Act is that they know that their plans will unravel in Parliament. Still they have not told us which rights they want to ditch. The right to be free from torture, the right to free speech, the right to a fair trial, the right to protest and freedom of association—these are inalienable rights. They are protection for individuals against the abuse of power by the state. The Human Rights Act has helped victims of crime let down by the justice system to hold the police to account. Think of the young woman in Winchester who was raped, but when she went to the police for help, they failed to investigate for six months, threatened her with prosecution instead, and told her she was a liar. They arrested her. That rapist is now behind bars and that young woman has had justice, an apology and compensation from Hampshire police, thanks to the Human Rights Act.
The power of our Human Rights Act is that it recognises that rights come with responsibilities. It has qualified rights as well as absolute rights—victims’ right to justice means that convicted criminals lose their right to freedom—and it puts the power of remedy back in the hands of Parliament, respecting our sovereignty. It protects individuals against abuse of state power. It protects the rule of law.
Do this Government really want to withdraw from the European convention on human rights, from which the Human Rights Act was drawn? Do they really want to rip up the Good Friday agreement? Do they really want to join Belarus as the only country on the continent that is not prepared to accept international standards on human rights? Do they really expect Belarus, Russia, China or anywhere else in the world to take us seriously when we call on them to meet international standards on human rights, if we are running away from them ourselves?
That would be a shameful abandonment of Britain’s historic respect for the rule of law and a wilful destruction of the post-war legacy that Britain gave the world. It was a British Tory, David Maxwell Fyfe, one of the prosecutors at the Nuremberg trials, who drafted the convention. It was Winston Churchill who argued for the Council of Europe with the convention at its heart as the strongest bulwark against the hideous disregard for humanity that scarred Europe.
Labour, Conservatives and Liberals alike upheld the council, the Court and the convention as a means of bringing the British concept of respect for the rights of individuals—respect for our common humanity—to the wider world, so how did it come to this? This year is the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, and this month is the 70th anniversary of VE day, the ending of the holocaust, the deepest and most immoral betrayal of our common humanity in history, and we should be proud that our country, our Britain, was so determined to build a legacy and a convention so that it could never happen in Europe again. It puts us to shame, it shrinks and diminishes us, for a British Government to be trying now, on the 70th anniversary, to destroy that humanitarian legacy. We in the Labour party will do everything in our power to stop the Tory party destroying Churchill’s legacy. We will stand up for our human rights, responsibility and respect for our common humanity, and I hope that this whole Parliament will do so, too.
There are other Bills before us, including a new Bill on legal highs, which we welcome. We called for action and we will look at the detail. There is a new Bill on policing. I hope the Home Secretary now accepts the kind of reforms to police standards recommended by the Stevens commission that we set up in 2013—stronger action on disciplinary issues and better training and professional development. She also needs to deal with the Independent Police Complaints Commission because it still is not doing the job. She needs to come clean about how many police officers are going to be left once her next budget cuts have finished. Over 10,000 police officers are set to go in the next few years, yet 999 calls waits are up, rape and sexual offence prosecutions are down, neighbourhood police officers are disappearing from our streets, and more child abuse is being reported but less is being prosecuted. There are year-long delays in investigating online child abuse—year-long delays. That is not crying wolf. It is crying out for something urgently to be done.
Nowhere are those cuts more serious than when it comes to the terror threat. As Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, the most senior counter-terrorism officer in the country, has warned, the loss of neighbourhood policing, mainstream policing teams, undermines the work on counter-terrorism, too. More needs to be done to tackle the threat of extremism, especially Islamist extremism linked to the rise of ISIL, to tackle hate crime, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and to tackle those who want to divide us. Therefore, we have called for new legislation. New powers will be needed, including proper checks and balances to make sure that powers are properly used and not abused. We will scrutinise the Home Secretary’s new plans carefully, as well as her new investigative powers laws. I hope she will confirm that there will be an opportunity for detailed pre-legislative scrutiny of those proposals.
The police need reforms so that they can keep up with new technology to keep us safe in a digital age, but the safeguards need to keep up with technology, too. The last draft communications data Bill was too widely drawn and put too much power specifically in the hands of the Home Secretary. We will scrutinise this one in detail and take heed of the report from David Anderson when it is published. I still urge the right hon. Lady to do much, much more on prevention of extremism in the first place, involving communities, local organisations and faith groups—something that, sadly, in the previous Parliament, the Government cut back repeatedly and that needs to be restored.
The Home Secretary made much of her new plans on immigration. The trouble is that we have heard much of it before. Four years ago she put forward new immigration rules and said that as a result the Government anticipated that net migration would fall
“from the hundreds of thousands…to the tens of thousands.”—[Official Report, 23 November 2010; Vol. 519, c. 169.]
That is what she promised—no ifs, no buts. Instead, all we heard from her today was an awful lot of ifs and an awful lot of buts. [Interruption.] She says that she never said, “No ifs, no buts.” Perhaps it was the Prime Minister who said it—how quick she is to disown him now. In fact, far from falling to the tens of thousands, net migration has gone up by over 70,000. She cannot blame the previous Labour Government for the big increase over the past five years. It is higher now that it was in 12 of the 13 years that we were in office, as well as higher than when she took office. She made this her target. She made this her big promise. She has failed repeatedly. The target is in tatters.
The Home Secretary also put forward rules that she said would allow the deportation of far more foreign criminals, yet she is deporting 500 fewer foreign criminals a year than she was five years ago. Two years ago she also brought in an Immigration Bill that she said would stop people working here illegally, yet the number of employers fined for employing illegal workers has gone down, not up. She is right to talk about enforcement, because the rules should be enforced, but who is going to do the job when she is about to cut far more enforcement officers in her next round of budget cuts?
Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)
Given the right hon. Lady’s criticism of the Government’s position on immigration, if the Government bring forward proposals to toughen up the regime, presumably the Labour party will support them.
Yvette Cooper
We have already supported many of the measures that the Government introduced in the previous Parliament on a number of different areas, and we have called for measures in areas where the Government have refused to toughen up the rules, for example, student visitor visas, which the independent inspectorate has warned have been abused. The Home Secretary has repeatedly refused my calls to tighten up the rules in that area. We also think that we need more enforcement staff in order to do the job, which again is something that she has repeatedly refused to do. Time and again she says one thing and does another, or promises one thing and then does the opposite. Immigration is important to Britain, but it needs to be controlled and managed so that the system is fair, so that people can have confidence in the immigration system and so that we can enjoy the historical benefits of people coming to this country, setting up businesses and contributing. We need a system that is controlled and managed for the future.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady, who is making an excellent speech. Does she also recognise that while the rhetoric about immigration is ever-present and ever-ongoing in the UK body politic, there are fishing boats tied up in the north-west of Scotland because of this type of debate? We need to get migrant workers in to work on the fishing boats, but that is not happening because of the migrant-phobic debate we are constantly having in the UK. We must realise that migrants sometimes help our economy and help jobs on land when they work at sea.
Yvette Cooper
The point I just made was that in a global economy, and also given Britain’s history, we have long seen benefits from people coming here from all over the world, making this country their home and contributing to our economy, and setting up some of our biggest businesses, including Marks & Spencer. But we also need a system that is fair and that is controlled and managed. That is why we have highlighted areas where we think stronger controls are needed in order to make the system fair; for example, better enforcement is needed. We want to see lower migration as well, but the system has to recognise the different kinds of migration, which I think is the point the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) is making.
The problem with the gap between the Government’s rhetoric and the reality is that in the end it undermines confidence in the whole system and faith in any immigration promise the Government might make. It also allows some people to exploit the issue in order to divide us. The Government are taking the British public for fools.
Richard Fuller
I commend the right hon. Lady for her passionate and effective speech. She talks about fair immigration policies. Does the Labour party support a reduction in the income limit for a spousal visa?
Yvette Cooper
We said in the run-up to the election that that issue should be reviewed because there were anomalies around, for example, women British citizens who are likely to be earning less than men. They may therefore be treated differently by the immigration system; they may have a spouse who is earning far more than them. We said that the system ought to be reviewed to ensure that it does not have perverse consequences. People need to be able to support their family. If they want to bring a family member into Britain, it is important that there is that proof in the system, but it also needs to recognise people’s different circumstances.
Yvette Cooper
Our problem with the net migration target is that it treats all migration as being the same. We would like, for example, fewer people coming in under the student visitor system, but more coming in as university graduates. We think there is a serious problem with trying to treat all migration as being the same. The approach that the Government have taken has repeatedly failed. The Home Secretary’s net migration target has failed. It is in tatters; it is just a mockery that takes the British people for fools.
Yvette Cooper
I will give way to the Home Secretary if she can tell me when she expects to meet her fantasy net migration target.
Mrs May
I asked the right hon. Lady what she thought was the right level of net migration into the United Kingdom, and she has not answered that question. I give her another opportunity to do so. She says that she wants to affect net migration into the UK by changing the student visitor visa route. Student visitor visas are not included in the net migration figures.
Yvette Cooper
That is exactly the point, because the Home Secretary’s net migration target includes some kinds of immigration and not others. She has ignored student visitor visas because they are not included in her net migration target, but she includes refugees in her net migration target and wants to push it down.
Yvette Cooper
My right hon. Friend is right—that is a problem.
The Home Secretary’s net migration target includes students, visa overstayers, workers and refugees, but it does not include illegal immigration. That is why she failed so badly in the previous Parliament to deal properly with illegal immigration. It also does not include people who enter the country on short-term visas, even if they may then overstay and break the rules and abuse the system.
The problem for the Home Secretary is that by treating everything as part of her net migration target, she is failing. The area where her approach is failing most, and is most immoral, is the inclusion of refugees in the net migration target. That has created an incentive for the Home Office to resist giving people sanctuary, undermining our long tradition of humanitarian help. Ministers shake their heads, but let us look at the evidence about what they have done as a result of their direct incentive to cut the number of refugees that Britain accepts.
Eighteen months ago, I called on the Home Secretary to make sure that Britain was doing its bit to give sanctuary to some of those in greatest need in the refugee camps outside Syria. She resisted until she was forced to give in, and even then she accepted only 140 people. Last summer, she led the arguments in Europe to stop search and rescue in the Mediterranean, leaving people to drown in the waves in order to deter others from coming here. Now she is again refusing to help when the UN asks for help. Ministers are right to target people-smugglers’ assets and their empty boats before they can set sail, and right to try to build stability in the region, but that is not enough. Frontex has said that the main cause of the increase in boats is the situation in Syria, which has caused the worst refugee crisis since the second world war. Yet the Home Secretary is still resisting the UN’s appeal to give sanctuary to more Syrian refugees, and refusing to help the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to provide refuge to more of those fleeing Syria and so manage the boat crisis.
I do not expect the Home Secretary to sign up to an arbitrary quota system that is beyond our control, but I do expect her to offer to help. She should work with local councils to see how many more places we can offer and do far more to give desperate people sanctuary, because they are now fleeing not just from the civil war with Assad but from ISIL—a barbaric organisation that oppresses, persecutes and beheads people for their faith and for who they are. Throughout our history, from the Huguenots to the Kindertransport, this country has refused to turn its back on those fleeing persecution and seeking sanctuary. Just as she should not rip up the legacy of international standards on human rights, she should not rip up that legacy of international compassion either.
Mr MacNeil
I would add, by way of context, that although the debate in the UK makes it seem unique in leading on migration—that we are almost being “swamped”, which is the word we see in the tabloid press—the reality, according to Eurostat, is that the UK is No. 11 for the share of foreigners as a total of the population, behind countries such as Germany, Spain, Belgium, Ireland and many others. I do not think other countries have the same level of phobic debate that we now have here. It would be good to detoxify that debate and to recognise the contributions made by migrants, as the right hon. Lady did earlier.
Yvette Cooper
Every country in Europe is facing issues of immigration and of people moving across borders, but we should be clear in this House about separating the debate on immigration from that on asylum and refugees. They are two separate issues. Yes, we should have strong controls on immigration and we should have a sensible debate, but we should also make sure that we do not turn our back on our historical tradition of providing sanctuary for those in greatest need.
In the end, that is what most disturbs me about this Queen’s Speech and this Home Secretary’s approach. We can point to many failures—failing to keep police on the streets, failing to help victims of child abuse and of the most serious crimes, failing on border enforcement, failing to restore confidence in the immigration system—but, worst of all, she is turning our country inwards, making it a smaller, narrower, darker place. We need to be proud of who we are, of the values for which we stand internationally and of our confidence, determination and international vision. We want the rest of the world to follow the standards that we have championed, the compassion that we showed when other human beings were persecuted or abused and the outward-looking, positive nature of the country we have always been. That is the vision that this Parliament and this Labour party should be championing now.
Several hon. Members
Michael Gove
The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. Many of us will have read in the newspapers recently about the way in which the use of nitrous oxide, so-called “hippy crack”, has led to some very unhappy consequences. The legislation we are going to introduce will look at the specific effects that chemicals have on individuals, so there will be an opportunity to deal with the menace that he identifies.
The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) lamented the fact that there was no legislation specifically to deal with prisons or the problems that we face in our courts system. I will be honest: although I would not use the word “crisis”, there are difficult issues to be addressed in our prison estate and in our courts. That is why I am so very grateful that Sir Brian Leveson has produced an outstanding report on what we may be able to do to improve the operation of our courts system. I look forward to working with the judiciary and Members across this House to ensure that justice is fairer and faster.
We do need to address a number of problems in our prisons to ensure that they become places of rehabilitation as well as incarceration. Some steps that were taken by my predecessor to help transform rehabilitation are a very promising way forward, but we should also take this opportunity to pay tribute to the prison governors, the prison officers and, above all, the chief executive of the National Offender Management Service, Michael Spurr. Those dedicated public servants do an outstanding job, not just in making us all safe, but in trying to ensure that individuals have a chance at redemption and a second chance in their lives.
Of course, in the shadow Home Secretary’s speech, and in some of the comments from other Opposition Members, we heard rhetoric on human rights that, if they will forgive me for saying so, was ever so slightly overblown. In Dickens’ “The Pickwick Papers” there is a character called “the Fat Boy” who
“wants to make your flesh creep.”
I did think that there was an element of the lurid in the description of what would happen if we were to tamper in any way with the Human Rights Act. To listen to Labour Members at some points one would have thought that prior to 1998 this country was a lawless wasteland in which the innocent were put to the sword and no one had any recourse to justice, and that after 1998 we entered a land where the rule of law was at last respected, after decades, if not centuries, of arbitrary rule. Although that depiction might go down well at a Labour constituency fund-raising function or indeed on the leadership hustings of that party, it is not appropriate to indulge in that sort of rhetoric when discussing important issues such as the balance between liberty and parliamentary sovereignty.
Yvette Cooper
A couple of years ago, the Home Secretary said that she was prepared to pull out of the European convention. Will the Justice Secretary rule that out, or does he still believe that that is something that this country should do?
Michael Gove
The right hon. Lady is getting ever so slightly ahead of herself. We propose to consult on the measures that we bring forward. We will not repeat the mistake that the Labour party made when it introduced the Human Rights Act. It did so without adequate consultation or preparation, and at a pace and in a way that gave rise to a variety of concerns. Those concerns have been articulated not just by members of the public and the right wing press—the bogies that the Labour party likes to invoke—
Michael Gove
No, let me continue. It has been the case that distinguished Supreme Court justices have expressed concern about the way in which the Human Rights Act and the European convention on human rights have an interaction. It is also the case that, as a result of comments made by Lord Hoffmann, Jonathan Sumption and, just this week, the former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, we need to look at the matter again. But it is important that we do so in a spirit that is open-minded and that does not seek to prejudge things. The difference between those on the Opposition Benches and the Government is that the Opposition seem to think that the legislation that was passed in 1998 is perfect and they cannot admit of any change whereas we believe that our constitution is a living instrument that is capable of and susceptible to reform. The right hon. Lady needs to say whether there is any case for reform or whether the 1998 settlement is perfect.
Yvette Cooper
We look forward to the Justice Secretary telling us what he actually wants to change in his Bill of Rights. In the meantime, there is a very simple question: the European convention on human rights—in or out? We on the Labour Benches think that we should stay in the European convention that Churchill argued for. Does he: yes or no?
Michael Gove
I note that the right hon. Lady is firm and definitive on this question, but she was evasive when she was asked about immigration numbers by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. We want to preserve and enhance the traditions of human rights. There will be no diminution in that area; indeed there will be an enhancement of convention rights as a result of the changes that we propose to make. But the difference between those on the Opposition Benches and Government is that we are prepared to look at the way in which those convention rights are enshrined in our law. We want to ensure that they are consistent with common law traditions and that our Supreme Court is genuinely supreme. None of those changes is contemplated by the Opposition, and for that reason I am afraid that they, like the SNP, have already ruled themselves out of the debate on reform that we need to have.
Michael Gove
We are in the European convention at the moment. The right hon. Lady said, at the beginning of this debate—indeed it was also the position of the SNP in the course of this debate—that she would admit of no change whatever. We are prepared to consider change. We want to ensure that that change works in the interests of the majority of people in this country and that it is in our human rights traditions as well. It is important to recognise that our human rights have been best safeguarded by Parliament throughout its existence, that judges have a role to play in safeguarding the rule of law, and that it is the High Court of Parliament itself, as was pointed out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden, that has been the most effective safeguard of our freedoms throughout our history. We can look back not just to Magna Carta but to the struggle between Parliament and the Crown in the 17th century and the way in which the Glorious Revolution and the subsequent Bill of Rights safeguarded our liberties. We can also look at what happened in the 19th century when there was an argument over the extension of the franchise and when John Stuart Mill and others argued for basic fundamental liberties to be respected. All of those acts of progress occurred before the European Convention was written; before indeed we entered the Council of Europe. All of those steps forward depended on respect for and recognition of parliamentary sovereignty and the special place that this House has in reconciling different interpretations of human rights.
One of the things that we all have to recognise is that in that convention, within that charter, there are rights to privacy and family life, and rights also to free speech. The courts have at certain times erred on one side or the other of that balance. The voice of the people needs to be heard in the debate, and Parliament is the place where the voice of the people will be heard.
We will have an opportunity in the weeks and months ahead to consider the criminal justice measures that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary introduces. I hope that they will command support across the House. We will also have an opportunity to put on a firmer basis our commitment to safeguarding the rights that all of us are proud of in this place and that our predecessors in this House have fought so hard to secure. I hope that that debate will see people clamber out of the ideological trenches that some have dug today so that we in this Parliament can pass on to our successors an enhanced tradition of respect for liberty, for life and for the fundamental freedoms that make these islands such a precious place.
Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Guy Opperman.)
Debate to be resumed on Monday 1 June.