BILL OF RIGHTS (Hansard, 15 July 1975)

§ Mr. A. J. Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed)
I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to declare the inalienable rights and liberties of the subject. —[Interruption.]

§ Mr. Speaker
Will hon. Members withdraw as quickly as possible? Could the conversations take place outside?

§ Mr. Beith
I am grateful for your protection, Mr. Speaker. In seeking the leave of the House to introduce a Bill of Rights I am conscious that I follow in a succession of attempts by Liberal Members to do just this. I am also continuing a wider movement which has been gathering support from Members of all parties to establish and declare the rights and liberties of the individual.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) introduced such a Bill in 1969. My noble Friend Lord Arran introduced a similar Bill in another place in 1970. In a series of newspaper articles Lord Hailsham has revealed his conversion to the belief that we need a Bill of Rights. The right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Sir Keith Joseph) has stated that such a Bill ought to be part of the Conservative programme. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney-General introduced into this House, when he was in Opposition in 1971, a Bill to protect human rights, and, although it did not go as far m giving legal force to basic rights, it showed a clear desire to define and formalise those rights.
In Northern Ireland, where deep distrust between the two communities adds to the need for formal protection of civil rights, the Liberal Party's former representative at Stormont, Miss Shelagh Murnaghan, made several attempts to introduce a Bill of Rights. These attempts were opposed by the Unionist Party. Since then—and too late to undo some of the damage which could have been avoided by earlier action on civil rights —our view has been accepted by the Ulster Unionist Party under Mr. Faulkner, by the Alliance Party, by the Republican Clubs and the Civil Rights 1271 Association, and it was given encouragement by the Gardiner Report. It was, indeed, an Ulster Unionist Member, the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder), who gave the House an opportunity to debate this subject a week ago when he put forward a Private Member's motion on the need for a Bill of Rights.
In that debate both Government and Opposition spokesmen were open-minded on the proposal, and the hon. Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill), who is with us this afternoon, speaking for the Home Office, indicated that Government Departments would study its implications and that the Government would welcome continued public debate on it.
I think that many hon. Members were struck by an influential lecture given by Lord Justice Scarman, in which he said: So long as English law is unable in any circumstances to challenge a statute it is in dangerous and difficult times at the mercy of the oppressive discriminatory statute. Without a Bill of Rights protected from repeal, amendment or suspension by the ordinary processes of a bare Parliamentary majority controlled by the Government of the day, human rights will be at risk. We have bitter memories by which to judge that statement. We recall the immigration legislation under which it proved so easy, in a moment of panic, to tear up the rights conferred by British passports. Current discussions on the freedom of the Press under industrial relations legislation demonstrate how important freedoms can be nut at risk as a side effect of a statute with a quite different purpose. Our statute book is cluttered with measures like the Official Secrets Act, which at times of pressure of one sort and another went far further than was necessary in restricting civil rights, and which Governments have been lamentably unwilling to repeal or modify.
While we delay defining civil rights, the processes by which these rights are threatened become more and more rapid. The amount of legislation with which this House deals is getting ever larger. There is less and less time for it to be debated. The scale of bureaucratic interference in the life of the individual is ever greater. The development and use of technology in things such as computers and bugging devices poses ever greater threats to our rights and to our privacy.
1272 We can no longer sit back and see these processes eat away like acid at our civil rights. There are those who oppose the principle of a Bill of Rights on the ground that traditional British respect for freedom is a sufficient safeguard. Recent experience will not allow us to be so corn placent.
There are some things that a Bill of Rights cannot do. It is no safeguard against a tyrannical group prepared and permitted to seize power by violence. It is unlikely to be proof against a general disrespect for basic freedom and civil rights throughout the community, although the exercise of formulating it might help prevent that arising. What it can do, even in its most limited form, is to provide a trip-wire, a check, a process by which Parliament and the community are at least required to think again before abrogating a basic right, even when there is a simple parliamentary majority for doing so.
The extent of the check is one of the important questions to be considered. What form of entrenchment can the Bill include? I share the increasingly widespread belief that we should work towards a new constitutional settlement with a formal written constitution. To some extent we have begun this process by joining the EEC, and we are committed to new constitutional arrangements for Scotland and Wales and maybe for Northern Ireland. A Bill of Rights would form a natural part of the instrument by which we define the relationships between the various institutions of Government.
However, at this stage I seek only to establish a procedure similar to that in the Canadian Bill of Rights, under which no future legislation can be interpreted as overriding the Bill of Rights unless it contains an express provision to that effect. Although the courts would thus be enabled to review legislation to determine whether it was unconstitutional, parliamentary sovereignty would remain where a clear and politically more difficult decision had been taken that it should not be abrogated.
The other major problem is that of content. Although it should be easy to obtain agreement on the main provisions which should be included in a Bill of Rights, one can imagine that in the Com- 1273 mittee stage, in which we discuss the detail of each provision, the proceedings could go on for ever. It is partly for that reason that I feel that it would be better to take as a starting point something to which we have committed ourselves already. The European Convention on Human Rights provides a range of rights which we ought long ago to have incorporated into British law and to which we are already committed by international agreement. It would be possible to add to those rights. But I propose to make them the basis of my Bill and thereby to achieve their incorporation into our own legal system.
I hope that the House will agree that to have such a Bill introduced and printed will be a means of carrying further this very important debate on human rights. Should it be opposed, I hope that I shall have the support of all hon. Members in all parties who see a Bill of Rights as at least worthy of consideration as a means of safeguarding the liberties which so often are threatened.
In the debate the other week, the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) pointed out that from time to time in politics there were South Sea bubbles. In such instances, projects of an undefined character—projects of which the details are to be revealed later, as the South Sea promoters said—become the subject of unthinking and infectious enthusiasm before their content has been considered. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to acquit me of that charge by not opposing this motion—and I am glad to see that he is not even in his place to do so—and thereby confirming my belief that we should have an opportunity to see a printed Bill of Rights setting out the provisions of the European Convention so that we might at least have an opportunity to discuss them.