My Lords, I support this amendment, which has been ably moved by the noble Baroness. As a minimum requirement, “A” status national human rights institutions must comply with the Paris principles. The key ones among them relate to independence from government, guaranteed by constitution or legislation. Greater parliamentary accountability would also be helpful in this regard.
Parliamentary accountability has also previously been recommended by the JCHR in three reports. In 2003, it stated that the “standard model” of non-departmental public body accountability is not,
“a sufficiently outward and visible guarantee of independence from the government to be appropriate to a national human rights commission (or indeed the proposed single equality body, whether or not integrated with a human rights commission)”.
The proposed single equality body did not exist at that time. Again, it said:
“On the whole we would tend to favour a form”,
of appointment,
“which requires a duty to consult Parliament on the appointment of commissioners as a guarantee of independence and democratic accountability, so long as this was a statutory duty”,
and that,
“as a guarantee of independence … Parliament should be directly involved in the setting of any commission’s budget”.
More recently, the JCHR has agreed the Belgrade principles, which relate to the relationship between national human rights institutions, such as the commission, and national Parliaments. The principles were adopted by participants at an international experts’ seminar led by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2012. The Belgrade principles include several mechanisms for closer relationships between Parliaments and the national human rights institutions: for example, that such institutions,
“should report directly to Parliament”,
and that,
“Parliaments should develop a legal framework for”,
the national human rights institution,
“which secures its independence and its direct accountability to Parliament”.
Again, the principles say:
“Parliaments should invite the members of”,
national human rights institutions,
“to debate the Strategic Plan and/or its annual programme of activities in relation to the annual budget”.
The Public Administration Committee has also emphasised the importance of parliamentary accountability and scrutiny of non-departmental public bodies. As the noble Baroness has told us, many similar constitutional bodies with a role in holding the Government to account, such as the National Audit Office, the Electoral Commission and the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsmen, report directly to Parliament. So do other national human rights institutions, such as the Scottish Human Rights Commission, which is accountable to the Scottish Parliament. Other regulators, such as the Office of Fair Trading, also report directly to Parliament with the status of non-ministerial departments. The Government have recently published plans to make the Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England more accountable to Parliament. In future, that office will lay its own business plan before Parliament and will be expected to involve appropriate Select Committee chairs in developing its business plan.
In framing this amendment, we have taken account of many precedents that suggest the appropriateness of greater accountability to Parliament for national human rights institutions, both in terms of the advocacy of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Public Administration Select Committee and precedents constituted by the existence of a raft of other bodies, which report directly to Parliament. We have also taken account of the Belgrade principles in framing the matters which we think ought to come before parliamentary scrutiny. I hope that the Committee will feel that this amendment is very much in keeping with the way in which these matters have been developing over the past few years, and that we have framed the amendment by taking full account of the issues which it is suggested should form the subject of parliamentary scrutiny. I am happy to support the amendment.
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