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On energy security, will the noble Baroness tell us whether the European Union is now moving from warm words to deeds—a process that has taken an awfully long time? When the Council conclusions refer to dealing with emergency situations in the gas sector, will she confirm that the Government will not exclude from consideration the possibility that member states should have a legal obligation to maintain reserves of gas, just as they already have a legal obligation to maintain reserves of oil? It would make an enormous difference if that obligation applied to all 27 member states, just as the measures adopted after the crises of the 1970s helped us to deal with an oil crisis. Perhaps the noble Baroness can say something on those points.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, in relation to regulation, there are many issues on which the reports of Monsieur de Larosière and the noble Lord, Lord Turner, agree, and the Commission is looking very carefully at them both, as are this Government. As I understand it, in the not-too-distant future the Commission will bring forward proposals and the Government will bring forward a White Paper. All these things will be on the table and there will be a further discussion at the European Council in June, but it is absolutely right for the noble Lord to point out that there is much agreement on many of these issues.
In relation to climate change, it is extremely important that, again in the not-too-distant future, the European Council makes clear exactly what it will be able to do to assist developing countries so that they can be positively brought to the table and so that we can reach agreement in Copenhagen. Again, we will return to this at the June Council meeting.
On energy security, I believe that we are moving from warm words to deeds. I cannot make any detailed comments on gas reserves but it sounds a very interesting proposal and I will come back to the noble Lord in writing. However, it is clear from various discussions that took place in Brussels last week that progress will be made very soon on projects such as the southern corridor and Nabucco. These have been raised in debate here in the past and are very important for diversity of gas sources. The European Union wants absolute action on these issues to ensure that we have security of energy supply.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, the Statement and the noble Lord, Lord McNally, referred to tax havens, but does the Leader of the House agree that the activities of tax havens have certainly not played a leading role in the present crisis? Is this not a classic example of Governments and the EU hoping to use a crisis to seize unrelated powers which they have long wanted, just as after 9/11 Governments sought and gained powers which affected the liberties of the citizen but had precious little to do with terrorism? Could we not be alert to this phenomenon, of which there have been far too many examples? In fact, do not tax havens create an element of tax competition and, to that
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Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, I fundamentally disagree with the noble Lord. I do not believe that this is an opportunity for Governments across the European Union to grasp power, as he puts it. This is not just about EU countries; it is a global issue, which is why it is being discussed at both the European Union level and the G20 level. Many Governments feel very strongly about it. The Government are looking forward to the Foot review on tax havens as it will inform our approach to the UK’s own Crown dependencies and overseas territories. We are absolutely committed to meeting our international responsibilities to the proper standards. We are also determined to take action on this not just within the European Union but globally.
Lord Ryder of Wensum: My Lords, the Minister has failed to respond with her usual clarity to one of the questions posed by my noble friend Lord Strathclyde. Paragraph 12 on page 4 of the presidency conclusions document published two days ago states that,
“The European Council reaffirms its strong commitment to sound public finances”.
At the end of the paragraph, it goes on to say that it looks forward to member states,
In view of that fact and the fact that the International Monetary Fund stated quite unequivocally last week that this country was going to suffer the deepest budget deficit of any country in the G20, precisely what steps are the Government taking to be consistent with the presidency conclusions that there should be sound public finances as soon as possible?
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, I regret that I did not respond earlier to the question put by the noble Lord. Strangely enough, the stability and growth pact was not a subject of great debate at the recent Council meeting, because all member states are in the same boat. The treaty says that member states should endeavour to avoid breaking the stability pact—that is, the 3 per cent deficit and 60 per cent debt levels. We will endeavour to do that when the time is appropriate. In the Pre-Budget Report my right honourable friend the Chancellor set out how we will consolidate our position in the future. We know what we are working towards but now is not the time to take the necessary action. On the IMF, I think that the article which we all read in a newspaper stemmed from comments made by a person who worked for the IMF. That is absolutely fine. I am not sure that it reflects the IMF’s position as a whole, but I will come back to the noble Lord in writing.
Baroness O'Cathain: My Lords, I have two questions relating to two issues in the Statement. The first is that the Council will accept international principles on remuneration. When is that likely to be agreed; how likely is it to be implemented; and when will it be implemented? The second is that the Council has
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Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, I think that an agreement on remuneration will be reached at the June Council when the Council considers the wider package of regulatory reforms stemming from the de Larosière report, the report by the noble Lord, Lord Turner, and so on. As for the supervisory colleges, I will have to come back to the noble Baroness in writing. This is not a question of Nero and people fiddling while Rome is burning: it is a matter of people seeking to act to ensure that our economic system is robust and can withstand all the pressures to which it is being subjected at present. I will certainly provide the noble Baroness with the information that she seeks.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, why do Her Majesty's Government believe that an organisation which has given us the common agricultural and fisheries policies and failed to have its accounts signed off by its own internal auditors for the past 14 years, there being no external auditor, will be of much help in the present very worrying circumstances? Surely the EU’s track record must lead us to fear that it will achieve disaster out of the present difficulties, especially as far as the City of London is concerned.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, the important thing about the European Union is that it brings 27 member states together so that they can agree on concerted action and work in co-operation. We believe that at a time of global crisis it is essential that countries work together in partnership. That is what we are doing in the European Union. We have every confidence that by working together and not in isolation we will soon come out of the crisis and be able to meet future challenges together.
Constitution: Rights and Responsibilities
Statement
4.25 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Bach): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will now repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. The Statement reads as follows:
“With permission, Mr Speaker, I should like to make a Statement on the Green Paper, Rights and Responsibilities: Developing our Constitutional Framework, laid before Parliament today. The Green Paper is the next stage in what has been described as a quiet revolution in our constitutional arrangements. Since 1997, we have had the independence of the Bank of
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This Green Paper deals with some of the most fundamental questions we face as individuals and as a society: how we live together; what rights and freedoms we enjoy and from whom; and what duties and obligations we owe and to whom. These issues are not abstractions removed from the practical politics of jobs and housing, healthcare and education, crime and disorder, because these constitutional arrangements determine how power is distributed and, therefore, the conditions in which every other question in our public life will be answered.
It is because of the centrality of these issues that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister chose to make his first major policy statement, within days of taking office, on exactly this matter of constitutional change. My right honourable friend told this House that it was right to involve the public,
- ‘in a sustained debate about whether there is a case for the United Kingdom developing a full British Bill of Rights and Duties’,
as a step towards a written constitution.
The Green Paper presents the arguments for such a Bill. It does not reach final conclusions—that is for the end of the process of national discussion—rather, it sets the framework for this debate. Indeed, if by the end of the process the Bill is perceived to provide protection to rights and freedoms, it will become effective in defining common values so that people in Britain of different backgrounds may feel ownership of it.
From the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Arbroath, the 1689 Bill of Rights and Scottish Claim of Right, to the great reform Acts of the past two centuries, our history illustrates the proud traditions of liberty on which our nation is built. Although the profound changes which these great texts initiated were the subject of intense struggle at the time, the United Kingdom’s experience of constitutional development has been unlike that of almost any other democracy in the world.
The constitutional arrangements of most other nations have emerged from rebellion, revolution, civil war, occupation or oppression. The United States, France, India, South Africa, nations across Europe and the world, have had to set down their arrangements in a single text: a constitution, underpinned by declarations of rights. Whether legally enforceable or not, they have become abiding points of reference on how their citizens should relate to each other and to the state, and they help to define the kind of nation they wish to be. This Green Paper sets out the case for how a Bill could become a similar unifying force for the United Kingdom; not least because our society is much more diverse in race, religion and ethnicity than at any point in our history.
We are launching this Green Paper at a time of great uncertainty and anxiety. Tackling the global recession must be our immediate priority. But acting at the same time to strengthen communities’ and individuals’ sense of a stake in society, by better articulating the responsibilities that we owe and the rights that
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One of the most significant constitutional changes in the past dozen years is the Human Rights Act. I worked hard as sponsoring Minister to achieve a consensus behind it, and I commend the Official Opposition for the support that they gave the Act in its final form. Prior to the Act, accessing convention rights via the Strasbourg court was a time-consuming, expensive and difficult process and, as such, prohibitive for many. Now those rights can be accessed in UK courts, with cases heard by UK judges.
The Act better protects the family. It has benefited all sections of society, from the elderly couple wanting to live in the same care home to the loftiest newspaper magnate. In providing a more practical mechanism to access rights, as well as a positive obligation on the state to protect them, countless thousands of people have benefited from the law, without necessarily having to resort to the law.
Despite this, the Act has its detractors, primarily because the atrocities of 9/11 occurred less than a year after the Act came into force. Had those tragic events not occurred, I suggest that the HRA would have slipped comfortably into the fabric of our lives without controversy. As it was, those terrible events threw into acute relief the tension between liberty and security. We recognise these tensions, but the Government are proud of the Human Rights Act. We will neither resile from it nor repeal it.
The principles and rights set down in the European convention, and now in the Human Rights Act, are timeless. They are the mark and measure of any civilised society at any time. But in the intervening 60 years, these rights have been added to by a great extension of social and economic rights—of healthcare, dignity in old age, education, housing and social security. But as our rights have become so much wider and stronger, one question is whether their claim is balanced properly by an equally strong sense of the responsibilities that we each owe.
We believe that there is a case for drawing out more clearly and explicitly the responsibilities that go with rights. Duties and responsibilities are to be found in the convention, in statute, in common law and woven deeply into our social and moral fabric. We have a latent understanding and acceptance of our duties to one another and to the state. That said, responsibilities have been something of a poor cousin to rights. The Green Paper proposes that responsibilities are given greater prominence in our constitutional arrangements, the better to articulate what we owe as much as what we expect. This is how we can move away from a ‘rights culture’ to a ‘rights and responsibilities culture’.
Some responsibilities are obvious: obeying the law, paying taxes, jury service. Others are less obviously recalled at the moment that they should be exercised: a responsibility towards future generations by living within environmental limits; the duty we have to protect the well-being of children in our care; a civic duty to vote; responsibilities towards our neighbours;
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If we are to fulfil our responsibilities, we have to have a clear understanding of what they are. As the Green Paper sets out, an accessible bill of rights and responsibilities could be emblematic of the fair society that we want to live in, where awareness of our rights is matched with a greater understanding of our responsibilities to each other.
Most of the social and economic rights to which I have referred are already embedded in law, but they are scattered across myriad legal texts. The Government believe that we should encapsulate these rights in a single document, bringing together the ‘new’ post-war rights of social justice and the welfare state, victims’ rights, rights of equality and of good administration.
A key question set out in the Green Paper is whether any Bill should have, directly or indirectly, the force of law. Bills of rights from around the world are a combination of symbolism, aspiration and law across a spectrum of legal effect. There need not be a binary choice between the justiciable and the declaratory. As the Green Paper points out, the Government do not necessarily consider a model of directly legally enforceable rights or responsibilities to be the most appropriate.
Even without full legal enforcement, words have power. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights contained no legally enforceable rights; rather, it was the global expression of a shared commitment, a recognition of humanity’s common dignity, what Eleanor Roosevelt described as the ‘Magna Carta for all mankind’. A bill of rights and responsibilities for the United Kingdom could be this kind of declaration to set in stone the values we cherish.
I have had the rare privilege to take through this House many of the constitutional changes of the past 12 years, or have been closely involved with their development. Throughout that time, I have looked to secure the broadest political consensus behind them. Reforms of such importance to our democracy require nothing less. Constitutional change should take place only on the basis of full and proper deliberation. This Green Paper has been through such a process within government and now it is time to take the debate out to the people we all serve. This deliberation must not and will not be rushed, and so this Green Paper will not precede any legislation this side of a general election. We are dealing here with the fundamental building blocks of our democracy, and as the Prime Minister made clear:
‘Constitutional change will not be the work of just one Bill or one year or one Parliament’.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/07/07; col. 815]
A bill of rights and responsibilities could form the next natural and necessary step in a process which began 60 years ago with the universal declaration. It is an opportunity to bring together existing rights and responsibilities in one place and better to define the relationship between citizen and state in a new and unifying constitutional document fit for this century. I commend this Statement to the House”.
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
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4.38 pm
Lord Kingsland: My Lords, I have had only a very short time in which to glance at the Green Paper, which is 63 pages long. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, has found himself in exactly the same boat.
Inevitably, in skimming a document as weighty as this, one’s eye is attracted to those passages in which one has been most concerned in one’s political life. In those circumstances, when responding to what I have to say, the Minister might find that he is in a position to point me to other parts that I have not been able to read that successfully refute my observations. That is a risk that I shall have to take.
I have the impression that the Green Paper is a massive exercise in sitting on the fence. If we needed any further proof that the Cabinet is deadlocked over enacting a Bill of Rights, here it is in this document. Nothing confirms the state of utter confusion that engulfs the Government more than paragraph 4.30:
“If a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities took the form of an Act of Parliament, there would be a range of options for dealing with the Human Rights Act and the Convention rights. The Bill might subsume the Human Rights Act as part of the new Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. The Bill of Rights and Responsibilities might preserve the Human Rights Act as a separate Act. It might also be desirable to signpost the Convention rights in some way, for example by crossreference to make clear that neither they nor the Human Rights Act were affected by the new Bill”.
This is a monument to indecision.
Further confirmation of the Government’s state of mind is furnished by Chapter 5, entitled “New Steps”. I apologise to your Lordships for reading out another passage but I think it is the most telling way to make the point. At paragraph 5.3 the Government state:
“It is that process of consultation upon which we now embark. We intend to involve all parts of our country and our society in discussions both about the fundamental arguments for and against such a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities as well as the advantages and disadvantages of the individual components of any such Bill. Full consultation and debate about such a constitutional development will inevitably take some time. It cannot be the property of one Parliament and one Government. All sections of the UK will have a view. As part of the consultation process, we expect that Parliament will want to make a contribution to the debate and we will bring forward proposals for that in due course. The need for such extensive consultation means that, if it were concluded that the time was right for a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities, it would not be possible to bring forward any legislation before the next general election”.
If, by some remote chance, the Government were to win the next election, that should be substituted with “before the general election after the next general election”.
Behind this political paralysis lies a forbidding complacency about what has happened to individual rights in our society since the Government came to power, despite their much vaunted Human Rights Act. The undermining of personal privacy was described by the Joseph Rowntree Trust today as,
And it is soon to be amplified and further intensified by a centralised databank on all telephone and e-mail communications together with records of when we all travel abroad.
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On the right to a fair trial and trial by jury, paragraph 3.30 states:
“Much of the argument for enshrining a ‘right’ to jury trial into a constitutional document may be driven by the deep cultural attachment to jury trial, originally deriving from its inclusion in Magna Carta. Notably, many other countries, including signatory nations to the European Convention, do not have jury trials even for the most serious cases—jury trial is not necessary for compliance with Article 6 of the Convention. Moreover, the arguments in favour of jury trial in some serious cases are open to debate”.
What better example do your Lordships need for establishing the proposition that, for the Government, British history began in 1997? In their attempts effectively to remove the protection of habeas corpus in this country—your Lordships will recall the famous attempt to extend arrest without charge to 90 days—to reduce the circumstances in which individuals are entitled to jury trial and to change the burden of proof from beyond reasonable doubt to a balance of probabilities, the Government have always justified themselves by claiming that these initiatives are consistent with the European convention.
The worrying thing about that assertion is that they probably do conform to the European convention because continental judges who sit in the European Court of Human Rights have no experience of our system of criminal procedure and often little understanding of it.
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