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In this Report we examine the Superannuation Bill and the Parliamentary Voting Systems and Constituencies Bill for their human rights implications.
Superannuation Bill
The Superannuation Bill would cap compensation payments to civil servants under the Civil Service Compensation Scheme (CSCS) at a maximum of 12 months' pay for compulsory redundancy and 15 months' pay for voluntary redundancy. The Bill also removes the requirement for the unions to consent to changes to the CSCS, although the requirement on the Government to consult the unions is strengthened by the Bill.
The human rights issues raised by the Bill relate to whether the limits on compensation payments under the CSCS is compatible with Article 1 Protocol 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions. Two issues arise:
(a) whether the right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions in Article 1 Protocol 1 ECHR applies and is interfered with by the limits on compensation in the Bill; and
(b), if it does, whether the Bill's interference with that right is justified.
We consider that the limits on payments in the Bill engage this Article and constitute an interference with that right as civil servants' rights to payments under the CSCS have already accrued through service already given. This is contrary to the Government position that the Bill does not engage Article 1, because no entitlement to payments arises until civil servants are made redundant which will be after the Bill is passed.
We also consider whether the Bill's interference with that right is justified. The Government argued that any interference with the right under Article 1 would be justified by the need to reduce the budget deficit and that the current provisions of the CSCS are unaffordable. The Public and Commercial Services Union, on the other hand argued to us that the limits in the Bill on the benefits payable under the CSCS constitute an interference with the peaceful enjoyment of possessions of civil servants, or even a deprivation of those possessions, which has not been adequately justified. While we do not consider that the Bill amounts to a deprivation of those possessions, but rather an interference with them, we are not satisfied that the Government has provided an adequate justification for this interference.
We note that the limits on compensation are less generous than those which the Government has indicated it is prepared to agree in its ongoing negotiations with the unions. In our view, the Government's own description of the limits on compensation in the Bill as "a blunt instrument", and acknowledgment that the levels in the Bill represent the Government's minimum negotiating position, are not compatible with those limits being a necessary and proportionate interference with this right.
We consider that the Government should seek to minimise legal uncertainty over the compatibility of the measures in the Bill by providing for limits on compensation for which it can provide a stronger justification than it has provided in relation to the limits in the Bill.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
This Bill provides for a referendum on the parliamentary voting system, and for elections to be held under the Alternative Vote system if a majority are in favour of that. It also reduces the number of parliamentary constituencies in the UK to 600. We do not consider that the Bill raises any significant, direct, human rights issues.
The Bill does, however, indirectly raise a significant human rights issue: the blanket disqualification of prisoners from voting in the referendum. The blanket ban was found to be incompatible with the right to participate in free and fair elections in Article 3 Protocol 1 of the ECHR by the European Court of Human Rights in October 2005, in the case Hirst v UK. The Government accept that as a result of this judgment there is a need to change the law and are considering how to do so. In our view, even if the Bill itself does not give rise to an incompatibility, Parliament is entitled to know, when considering this Bill, whether the Government intends to amend the parliamentary franchise by the date of the referendum to remove the incompatibility found by the European Court in Hirst.
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