Contribution
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, referred to his childhood, when I was his family’s constituency Member of Parliament in Liverpool. The noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, in her reply to the debate referred to something which deeply affected me during my time as a Member of Parliament; I never expected to have to visit families whose children had died at a football match, as they had done at Hillsborough.
So I have been enormously grateful for the effect of the European convention in helping to shift the law, and to the Government for the commitment they gave at the general election to enact the so-called Hillsborough law. It is an issue the Joint Committee on Human Rights has engaged with. Indeed, we recently published correspondence between the committee and the Government on the duty of candour. It is a good example of how events that take place here in our own jurisdiction can have implications elsewhere, and of how they can be affected from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and from person to person.
Some very kind words have been said by noble Lords today, not least about my longevity. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, and to the noble Lord, Lord Rook, who said that he hoped one day to grow up to be like me. I do not wish that on him or anybody else. I feel a bit like Methuselah at the end of today’s debate.
The noble Lord, Lord Griffiths of Burry Port, for whom I have great fondness and admiration, made a very good speech about why we should keep our feet firmly on the ground and never lose sight of the human impact of the decisions that we make. He told us that he had been to the Supreme Court and felt as though he had been surrounded by stars in the galaxy. You do not need to go all the way to the Supreme Court to feel as though you are surrounded by stars in the galaxy. I pay particular tribute to some of the distinguished and celebrated Peers who have spoken in today’s debate. These have been wise voices, and we would be foolish not to study carefully what has been said to us from all sides of the argument. This debate has been worthy of the anniversary, but also worthy of your Lordships’ House.
Obviously, I will not try to respond to every speech, so I will be brief. Reference was made to Article 3. My noble friend Lord Carter was right that even if we did not have the ECHR, the 1951 convention on the treatment of refugees would still be in place. We were also cautioned by the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, and others about the dangers of building a whole argument on one or two cases—such as the so-called chicken nuggets case, which was referred to. Noble Lords should go away and read Joshua Rozenberg’s article this week, where he reminds us that in that case, a lower-tier tribunal got it wrong and an upper-tier tribunal got it right. He writes that the argument presented in that case will not prevent the deportation of someone who may be here illegally and therefore should not be resident in the United Kingdom. So let us not build a case for total deconstruction on cases such as that one. Again, a noble Lord reminded us—I think it was my noble friend Lord Hannay—that hard cases make bad law.
When you start to unravel and disrupt, it carries consequences, but that is not an argument against reform. I take the arguments that have been made today, particularly from the Conservative Benches, that this is not a static instrument which is incapable of reform. Things such as the Swiss case are for the Joint Committee on Human Rights to go back and look at and take evidence over. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Murray, and I will agree on that, and will find ways for us to look at that kind of judgment and decide whether we are going too far in some circumstances—but that should not become an argument for the destruction of the European Convention on Human Rights. Confronted in our own generation by a new breed of dictators who again threaten the foundations of democracy, it would be sheer defeatism and an act of vandalism to abandon the legacy that has been entrusted to us.
I renew my thanks to everyone who has participated in today’s debate and, in closing this Cross-Bench debate marking the 75th anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights, I thank all those who have made such excellent contributions in your Lordships’ House.