Human Rights

The hon. Gentleman is either deliberately missing the point or wants to mislead the House in believing that this is just about habeas corpus. It is not; it is much wider than that. Human rights embrace much more than that. The right to hold a different view is enshrined. Habeas corpus would not protect that right. He was completely wrong in emphasising only habeas corpus. Once again, doing that will create the very myths of which many hon. Members are critical. My hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) was right to bring the Government to account by asking why they have taken so long to hold this debate. Those myths have persisted in the minds of the public and others since the first instigation of the Bill. Why has it taken the Government six years to start to try to unravel them? Why was it not a Government responsibility to explain to the people of this country, and, indeed, to the House, what the implications would be? Why is it now, six years on, that we are seeking to find a definition of a public body? Why has it taken so long? I ask the Minister to clarify in her winding-up speech the point that I made in an intervention on her opening speech. I am still not clear how her Department will help those public bodies disseminate through their systems the way in which they should make such judgments. That is the point at which I differ from my hon. Friend. I do not blame the people who make those decisions and the wariness that some of them have. I am still a member of a local authority, and I have witnessed cases in which people at a very low level have made decisions that have been subsequently challenged in court, and they have not had the right advice and guidance at hand. Many of those decisions, like the one in the case of the man on the roof, were made by operational commanders on the spot at the time, and for the right reasons. They were facing a dilemma: should they bring down the man by force, or should they try to talk him off the roof by answering his plea for food and the specific naming of the food that he wanted? I do not share my hon. Friend’s view that this is a bureaucratic nightmare, with people making the wrong decisions because they are over-cautious. When they make the wrong decisions, in most instances it is because they have been badly informed, or not informed, about the rights. There is an obligation on the Government to explain the position fully. I draw to the Minister’s attention the fact that the House is entitled to an answer to the question that the Joint Committee on Human Rights asked about the 2004 review. In response to the specific question raised by the Select Committee, the answer was:"““The 2004 Strategic Review has been superseded by the Review of the Implementation of the Human Rights Act. No useful purpose would now be served by its publication.””" How do we know what was raised in the 2004 review that necessitated a subsequent review of the implementation of Human Rights Act? How do we know that the right issues are not being tackled? How do we in the House, and the great British public, who in the main believe some of the myths that are being perpetrated, know that the Government are not delivering yet another smokescreen? The impression will be spread that there is something to hide. Why hide it? Okay, the strategic review has been superseded by yet another review, but surely that review came to some conclusions about where the priority should lie and what the subsequent review should take on board. The House is entitled to a proper explanation of why were unable to have that information. If it is so irrelevant, what is there to hide? Give it out: let us read it and understand it. Let us see for ourselves. Let us make citizens’ judgments on what the Government said about their own legislation. It is nonsense not to allow that. I share the views of the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith), who made an excellent and thoughtful speech on behalf of the people who are in a position to be challenged time and time again in relation to the legislation. Surely we owe it to them to make a clear statement of intent, to say who is covered. It is no good the Prime Minister saying in a speech that he believes that the public and the private sector should be treated the same, if that is not developed in such a way as to carry it forward into law. The current legislation allows the private sector to walk away. The hon. Lady was right to say that where bodies can trace their financing back to a public source in any way, they should be covered by public legislation in the same way as any bona fide local authority. There has to be either a sensible argument against that, or a sensible case for legislation to be amended to take account of it.