Author: Patrick Hennessy, Political Editor
Publication: The Telegraph
Date: October 1, 2011
URL: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8801651/Home-Secretary-scrap-the-Human-Rights-Act.html
Theresa May, the Home Secretary, risks an
explosive rift inside the Coalition with an explicit call for the scrapping
of the Human Rights Act.
Mrs May uses an interview with The Sunday
Telegraph to warn that the Act is hampering the Home Office's struggle to
deport dangerous foreign criminals and terrorist suspects.
"I'd personally like to see the Human
Rights Act go because I think we have had some problems with it," she
says.
The Home Secretary's words will be cheered
by many Conservative MPs as well as Tory ministers across Whitehall.
However, they are likely to be greeted with
dismay by leading Liberal Democrats, some of whom have signalled the future
of the Coalition would be under threat if any serious action was taken against
the Act, which incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights into UK
law.
At last month's Liberal Democrat conference
in Birmingham, Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, was loudly cheered by
his party's activists as he declared: "Let me say something really clear
about the Human Rights Act. In fact I'll do it in words of one syllable: It
is here to stay."
Mrs May says today: "I see it, here in
the Home Office, particularly, the sort of problems we have in being unable
to deport people who perhaps are terrorist suspects. Obviously we've seen
it with some foreign criminals who are in the UK." The Coalition has
set up a commission of human rights experts to report on the possibility of
bringing in a British Bill of Rights to replace the Act by the end of next
year.
Campaigners see the chances of the commission
- which will report to Mr Clegg and Ken Clarke, the Justice Secretary - recommending
any serious changes as negligible, however. There had been widespread belief
that it would not recommend the abolition of the Human Rights Act because
of the make-up of the panel, which includes pro-rights lawyers, and the determination
of the Liberal Democrats to keep the legislation.
But the force and timing of Mrs May's comments,
just two weeks after Mr Clegg's declaration, dramatically changes the political
landscape.
The Home Office has itself begun a review
into the particularly controversial Article 8 of the European Convention,
which sets out the right to a "family life" and which campaigners
say has been abused by criminals fighting deportation.
Mrs May says: "We're not standing still
on this issue, we are actually looking at what can be done."
Her position will raise tensions with Mr
Clarke, seen as the most Left-leaning Tory in the Cabinet, who said last month:
"There isn't the faintest chance of the present Government withdrawing
from the Convention on Human Rights."
Chris Huhne, the Lib Dem Energy Secretary,
has also made clear his party's outright opposition to scrapping the Human
Rights Act.
"If Conservative backbenchers persist
in wanting to tear up the European Convention on Human Rights, then I can
foresee a time when this party would be extremely uncomfortable in Coalition,"
he said.
In one of the highest-profile cases involving
convicts and their human rights claims, a failed asylum seeker who killed
12-year-old Amy Houston, from Blackburn, in a road accident, used the law
to avoid deportation.
Other shocking examples uncovered by this
newspaper include an Iraqi who killed two doctors but successfully argued
that it would breach his rights to send him home.
The new human rights row comes as Europe
threatens to become a major bugbear for Mr Cameron, who is seeking a smooth
ride from his party this week at its annual conference in Manchester.
Activists and MPs will raise a whole host
of issues - including the European Arrest Warrants, which are valid in all
member states of the EU and saw 1,000 people in Britain last year seized by
police on the orders of European prosecutors, a 51 per cent rise in 12 months.
There will also be anger over last week's
threat by the European Commission to take legal action against Britain if
ministers do not water down rules limiting foreign nationals' ability to claim
benefits.
Doing so could potentially cost British taxpayers
£2?billion.
Mr Cameron is facing pressure from a new
Eurosceptic group of MPs, led by Chris Heaton-Harris, George Eustice and Andrea
Leadsom, all members of the party's 2010 general election intake, to recast
Britain's relationship with the EU.
Last night Mr Heaton-Harris backed Mrs May's
call.
He said: "The Act has caused way more
damage than good and it is time to stick it in the dustbin."
