Health and Social Care Bill

Perhaps I may make a few remarks based on my experience before and after the 1997 election of introducing the Human Rights Bill, as it was, to incorporate the European Convention on Human Rights. At the time I was a policy adviser for the then Home Secretary. It was never intended that public services provided by private providers should be excluded from the Human Rights Act and the incorporation of the convention through that Act. This is a good example of unexpected consequences. When the legal judgment was made, it came as a real surprise to many of us. It is therefore important that the Government should go back to where they thought they were when the Human Rights Act was introduced. That Act was a great contribution by this Government, who should put right what was never intended to be wrong at the time.