Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)

The European Court of Human Rights is not recognised as a traditional court of jurists as one would recognise, for instance, the US Supreme Court. Many of the people representing their countries are from NGOs who have vested interests in different areas. It is not comparable to our own Supreme Court, the US Supreme Court and many others. I stand to be corrected. This is the debate we had during the discussions and deliberations on the safety of Rwanda Act. The erroneous notion that international law is sovereign over the UK Parliament, and that we cannot pass laws contrary to international treaties such as the ECHR, is pernicious and hugely undermines the faith and trust the electorate have in our governance. Such a notion was explicitly refuted in a Supreme Court ruling in 2021. Real demonstrable damage is being done by such mischaracterisation and errors. The excellent report for the Centre for Policy Studies authored by my noble friend Lord Lilley, recently published, highlights that the proportion of asylum claims granted first time jumped from 25% in 2010 to 67% in 2023. We have to ask ourselves why that is the case. Why are we so out of step with so many other countries such as France, Italy, Spain and Germany? Some 42,000 asylum seekers are awaiting appeal outcomes, with 40% citing human rights grounds. This Government have instead doubled down on lawfare, on the rule of lawyers and not the rule of law. Today the newspapers report that our Attorney-General has apparently appointed himself as Deputy Prime Minister with an effective veto over all government policy and a “snitch clause”, encouraging civil servants to dob in Ministers who fall foul of the Attorney-General’s zealous, unbalanced and damaging interpretation of international law. This extends to vetoing potential domestic legislation. It will not end well. To finish, this Government had a great opportunity to consolidate and build on the work we had done in government, and we would have cheered them on and wished them well. It is a matter of great regret for the future of our country, for people who are looking to government to protect the safety and security of our borders, that they were not able to do that.