Human Rights

The Minister was right to identify her example as frivolous. It was also hopelessly off the point that was made by the hon. Member for Llanelli, which I am attempting to elaborate on. It is unfair that the public sector is challenged on a daily basis across the country over the way in which it provides home care, yet the private sector is in some way exempt from that. The hon. Lady made it quite clear—other Members have alluded to this—that the public purse being used was really about the provision of services to the public in connection with a service that may no longer be provided in the public sector. That applies to health, some forms of education, social care, drug rehabilitation and so on. It even applies to the way in which prisoners are treated by the private sector and the public sector. Prisoners being dealt with by a private company presumably do not have the same protection if they are being transported—[Interruption.] The Minister nods and says that they do. I hope that that is the case. Nevertheless, there is still the point about clarification, which is what the Select Committee sought. Members will know from what confronts them on a weekly basis at their advice centres that many people are confused about who is covered and who is not, and who has a right to challenge an authority under the legislation and who does not. Many lawyers will probably become very rich by giving out the idea that this is an easy trail for people to follow, but it most certainly is not. I ask the Minister to look at specific cases—if we really do cherish the idea of human rights. I happen to believe that a country’s citizens judge themselves by their willingness to have those rights properly protected and enshrined, and that all citizens should be given the same rights to protect themselves and their interests, as stipulated in the Bill. Most reasonable people in the United Kingdom would suggest that those are rights that we deserve to have, which people over the generations have died to defend in this country. I do not take lightly the suggestion that there is abuse of the system, but we know that there is. Time and time again, the Government abuse the system. On a weekly basis at my advice centre, I meet people who have sought leave to extend their legal right to remain in this country. They were granted leave to appeal. Their asylum application had failed, but nevertheless they were given four years to remain. They attempt to renew that and are told that their case will be dealt with within 13 weeks. I have in excess of 100 cases pending where that time has been exceeded by at least 12 months, and in some instances by nearly two years. Many of those people have lost their jobs, because they have no legal proof to say that they have a right to a job in the United Kingdom. That is costing the state more money. Yet, when they seek advice to find out whether they can challenge the state, they are told that they do not have that right. The situation is bizarre. We have a Government who want to defend human rights, yet neglect to address them when it comes to the way in which they, as agents of the state, behave. It is sad that the Government are not prepared to fund the European Court properly. The Court has a funding crisis, and a person taking a case there can expect to wait for anything from eight to 10 years, because there is a huge backlog of cases. However, the Government, along with other European countries, have perpetrated zero growth on the Court’s budget, which inevitably means that its work is heavily restricted. Why have we heard no proper explanation of the Government’s actions on that count? If they care about human rights, they must prove that in the various international bodies to which they belong—and sadly, they do not. I am a member of the parliamentary delegation to the Council of Europe. Why is that body so strapped for funds? The very organisation that was set up 50-odd years ago to build on what Winston Churchill wanted—a body defending the very things over which we had just fought a war, in which millions of people died to defend them—is strapped for cash. Hon. Members on both sides of the House who are representatives at the Council of Europe have argued time and time again that Ministers should change the way in which we treat that organisation. It is a national disgrace that we are not prepared to examine these issues properly and fairly. I have listened with great interest to all hon. Members who have spoken. They have all commented about the fact that the Act is confusing to members of the public. That has perhaps led to people having a genuine hatred of the thought of human rights cropping up. I meet people who want to specify an infringement of their human rights as one aspect of their objection to a planning application. I am sure that other Members have had similar experiences. It is difficult to persuade such people that they need something more than that if their objection is to succeed. Why is such a thing happening? This is about not only citizenship training and disinformation put out by the media. We can talk about the media as much as we like, but they are not to blame. The House and the Government are to blame for the mess that the Act has got into and the misrepresentation throughout our nation to which that has led. They now have an opportunity to put the situation right. I hope that the Minister has listened to what has been said. All hon. Members have attempted in their speeches to defend the right of the individual to the rights that each of us cherish. Having such rights enshrined in law is a fundamental way in which to judge a state’s worth, and taking that away would be a big mistake. However, the citizens of this country should have the right to have those rights explained to them properly, and I suspect that the Government have a real desire to do just that.