Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Advice

Matthew Offord Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

I have the utmost respect for the Attorney General, but does the Solicitor General agree that if we went to Chancery Lane we could get another opinion that would completely contradict his own remarks?

[The Solicitor General]

My hon. Friend knows that the documentation—the withdrawal agreement and the future relationship document—is all out there in the ether for the public and for informed and, shall I say, less well informed commentators to make observations about. There is a plethora of opinion, some of it legal, out there, and my hon. Friend makes that point very well.

Injunctions

Matthew Offord Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

I think that will be very much a matter for the discretion of the judge hearing the case. I do not think that one could make some kind of blanket pronouncement as to how it would operate in practice, but clearly the merit of the course of action being proposed is that it would remove the element of total secrecy, which—I can well see this argument—fuels speculation and in some cases, I have little doubt, a lack of understanding as to why the application was made in the first place, whether it was successful or not.

[Mr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

I think that we all agree in the House that the law should be used to protect the vulnerable and not to hide the misdemeanours of those with large cheque books, but does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that we have found ourselves in this situation because of the behaviour of some of the newspaper press? Super-injunctions have emerged because of the ineffectual and impotent way in which the Press Complaints Commission works, but we can regulate that and give ourselves greater protection from abuse.

[The Attorney-General]

Looking at the matters that have been complained of recently, it seems to me fairly noteworthy that the press appear generally to observe the terms of injunctions against them. Indeed, from that point of view the injunction system appears to be quite effective; it is in other respects, such as the blogosphere and Twitter, that the difficulty emerges. What is absolutely clear is that breaches of court orders should not take place.

Voting by Prisoners

Matthew Offord Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

It is a real pleasure to follow my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) because I, too, support the motion and he has succinctly explained its purpose and outlined the challenges that confront us.

My contribution will be short because a great many views have already been aired. I agreed with many of the earlier speeches. My contribution very much stems from the fact that many of my constituents are outraged by the concept of votes for prisoners. I support the motion for two main reasons. First, we absolutely should maintain this country’s long-standing law refusing prisoners the right to vote. Secondly, as I see it and as we have heard, it is fundamentally wrong and undemocratic for unelected and unaccountable judges in Europe to attempt to undermine the sovereignty of this Parliament.

[Mr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree with me and people in my constituency that there is another reason that many people are unhappy about this debate? That is simply that decisions of the European Court of Human Rights is a further illustration of the fact that some people are keener to promote the rights of perpetrators of crime than those of victims of crime, as has also been shown in today’s debate.

[Priti Patel]

Indeed I do, and I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution. The majority of the public believe that those who are convicted of criminal offences and sent to prison should forfeit their right to vote and not have the same rights as other members of society. I find it extraordinary that we are talking about the rights of convicted criminals—people in prison—rather than the rights of those who are the victims of crime.

The public are also fed up with the fact that the human rights agenda has been used to undermine our judicial process, and we now have the bizarre scenario where we are effectively talking about giving prisoners and convicted criminals more rights. There are also genuine concerns about the capitulation of successive Governments to these unelected judges in Strasbourg who are determined to expand their influence into areas of law that should not be anywhere within their jurisdiction. They are completely encroaching on that territory.