Human Rights Legislation

John Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

The hon. Gentleman has done one thing with his words: highlight the importance of protecting free speech and rambunctious debate, even though he is wrong in everything he said.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

The Secretary of State is to be commended on the statement, but will he be clear that we need to challenge the very principle of natural rights, which gave rise to the Human Rights Act? It has had the effect of emphasising individual interest above social solidarity, weakening communal will and undermining the sovereignty of this Parliament, which is and always has been the primary guarantor of Britain’s rights. Will my right hon. Friend conduct a root and branch reform of that assumption about rights, put aside consideration of the Human Rights Act, which is part of the Blairite legacy, and challenge those parts of the convention that frustrate this Parliament and the wishes of the British people?

[Dominic Raab]

I always enjoy hearing my right hon. Friend’s side of the argument. As John Stuart Mill said:

“He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.”

I do not take quite the same view as my right hon. Friend, but I welcome his iconoclasm and his challenge to ensure that we get a better balance between individual rights— which, as he has often said to me, Bentham described as “nonsense upon stilts”—and communal and societal needs, and particularly public protection in the areas that I outlined, whether parole reform, police forces or deportation of foreign national offenders.