Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Laura Farris

Committee stage
Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Laura Farris]

It is certainly true that the promise inherent in the refugee convention—an offer to the world at large, conceived in an era before easyJet, before people going on holiday to any country and before mass migration—must be looked at through a different lens in the year 2023. Many of our international partners are now talking in that way, and we may have to have a debate on a different occasion to talk about the issue more broadly.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Laura Farris]

I am just going to make a tiny bit of progress, because I have not really started and there is not much time.

I want to respond to amendments 131 and 132, which would do slightly different things but have the same effect. I will look at you, Dame Eleanor, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes will not be offended if he has to look at my back. Amendment 131 would exclude the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights and amendment 132 seeks to disapply the relevant sections of the Human Rights Act 1998 in so far as they may be relevant to decisions taken under this Bill.

I want to say at the outset that I understand the impulse that has brought my hon. Friend here—namely the frustration with the exercise of the rule 39 injunctive relief decision in July, which the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West covered so well in her speech. She will know as well as I do that rule 39 is not an inherent part of the European convention on human rights; she said in her speech that it is a rule of the Court.

That decision was taken by a single judge alone. The hon. and learned Lady is right to point out that that is common and standard in injunctive proceedings, but it is none the less somewhat surprising to see that matter go through in the eyes of the High Court, the Court of Appeal here and, finally, the Supreme Court, and then be overturned by the decision of a single judge in Europe. We do not even know who the judge was, but we know that Tim Eicke, our own British judge who sits on the European Court, has never sat as a High Court judge. He is a barrister. I say that with deference to his brilliance, and of course I am not criticising him; that is standard for the European Court of Human Rights. However, it is odd to see our own Supreme Court, with some of the most brilliant justices in the world, being overruled, under a Court rule, by somebody who is probably not of their status. I think that is a true statement.