European Union Bill

Absolutely, and it could not have been better put. I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend, who is Queen's Counsel after all, as well as a distinguished member of the European Scrutiny Committee. He has been following the matter with great interest and makes the point very well. There is a further point to make about the statement by the Secretary of State for Justice. He says that, additionally, European accession will mean that individuals who argue unsuccessfully in the European Court of Justice that the European Union has breached their fundamental rights—I stress ““fundamental””—can, subject to the usual admissibility requirements, complain to the European Court of Human Rights that the EU has violated one or more of convention rights. The risk of confusion in that melee—that dual jurisdiction—is a serious potential problem. The Secretary of State for Justice went on to say that European Court of Human Rights judgments will be binding on the European Union as a respondent to the proceedings. The Government, apparently, do not expect the European Union's accession to the ECHR to have any direct impact on UK law. As article 6(3) of the treaty on European Union confirms, the fundamental rights guaranteed by the ECHR already"““constitute general principles of the Union's law.””" However, importantly, the Secretary of State for Justice concedes that an adverse judgment against the EU by the European Court of Human Rights may require the EU to amend its legislation to protect individuals' fundamental rights in a way that will have consequential implications for UK law. That is why I not only have sympathy for what my hon. and learned Friend said, but refer back to the Minister's assertion that it will not have implications for EU law. As I said, we have had a number of exchanges with the Secretary of State for Justice. It is best if I pick out one or two of his points from the correspondence, all of which will be set out for the benefit of Members. I am delighted that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) has come to swell the ranks of Labour Back Benchers, whose presence would otherwise be non-existent. Unfortunately for the Minister, it is just possible that she will agree with what we are saying, but we will wait and see. In the letter of 30 June, of which I am sure the Minister is aware, the Secretary of State for Justice wrote to the European Scrutiny Committee, advising that the EU had adopted this mandate. He went on to explain that the Government support EU accession and made the remarks that I summarised earlier. We replied to him on 8 September stating that the EU's accession struck the Committee as potentially a significant development in its internal legal order—despite treaty provisions to the contrary—and that it would amount to submitting the acts of EU institutions to independent external control by the ECHR. We also said it was a potentially significant development in the way in which EU citizens' human rights are protected. We used the word ““potentially”” deliberately because it was difficult on the information before us to know how much the EU's accession to the ECHR would be a symbolic gesture and how much it would lead to practical changes for United Kingdom citizens. At this point, it is worth saying that these changes are not just generalisations, but that serious fundamental changes are being brought about by the manner in which the accession proposal is being put through. It is Government policy and it has significant implications for the daily lives of people. It is difficult in a debate such as this to give specific illustrations because the nature of the debate more or less precludes one from doing so. We are supposed to be talking about the generality of the constitutional change. However, I simply want to put on record that it will have a significant impact on the practical lives of the people whom we represent. That is the key reason for raising these issues. We went on to note that the Cabinet Office guidance recommended that Departments should provide the scrutiny Committees with"““details of negotiating mandates as soon as they have been approved””." We were grateful for the explanation of the Secretary of State for Justice on how the Government view these matters. We asked him to explain further how the current gap in human rights protection will be closed by accession, and what he meant by the word ““directly”” when he said:"““applicants will, for the first time, be able to bring a complaint before the European Court of Human Rights””—" that is the Strasbourg Court—"““directly against the EU and its institutions for alleged violations of Convention rights””." After an exchange, what it boiled down to was that there is concern in academic circles that the charter of fundamental rights, which was brought in through a protocol in the Lisbon treaty, specifically allows for EU human rights law to provide ““more extensive protection”” than the ECHR, and that raises a problem. In light of that, it is difficult to see why the Secretary of State for Justice concluded that a key benefit of accession to the ECHR will be consistency between the two legal domains. On the contrary, there is concern in academic circles that the charter will lead to legal uncertainty on how human rights are applied in Europe by introducing the additional standard of ““fundamental”” right. Although in appearance that is an esoteric legal argument, it will have an impact on people's rights. That is the problem.