My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and to hear about the environmental protections she is concerned to protect. There have been very many eloquent speeches, and insightful remarks over the last couple of days. Many see the Bill as a technical process: a legal pathway, albeit complex and fraught with constitutional threats and dilemmas. But, to many, it is as much about the country we want to be, the values we hold, the beliefs we fight for and, not least, the people we serve. Omitting the European Charter of Fundamental Rights is seen by many as not preserving the rights of the people we serve and rejecting the values of fairness, justice and freedom. The provisions of the charter are wide-reaching: dignity, the right to life, right to care and rights of the elderly; freedoms, including freedom of thought, conscience and religion; equality, non-discrimination on race, religion and sexual orientation; rights of minorities; solidarity, employment rights, rights of association; and citizens’ rights and justice rights—rights to representation and advice.
The charter, as other noble Lords have said, also offers remedies when human rights are violated which are not available if the charter is to be excluded from the Bill. The Government’s explanation is that the substantive rights included in the charter are protected in different places in EU and UK law. However, legal opinion published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission is that failure to preserve relevant parts of the charter after Brexit will lead to the weakening of the current system of human rights protection in the UK.
In its recently published report that many Members have referred to, the Constitution Committee said:
“If, as the Government suggest, the Charter of Fundamental Rights adds nothing to the content of EU law … we do not understand why an exception needs to be made for it”.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights says that,
“the exclusion of the charter from domestic law results in a complex human rights landscape which is uncertain. Legal uncertainty is likely to undermine … rights”.
All of this should set alarm bells ringing for the future of human rights. For example, the National Union of Students is greatly concerned with any negative implications that removing the charter could have on students and on citizens across the country. Article 14 of the charter gives the right to an education for every individual, including “vocational and continued training”. With the removal of the charter there is a worry that new wording may mean that this no longer applies in the UK. Furthermore, the charter includes a number of vital protections for the most marginalised students, particularly LGBT, women, disabled and black students, who typically face barriers to engaging and succeeding in education.
Following the referendum, we saw a huge increase in hate crimes, with some parts of the country suffering more than a 50% increase in racial and religious persecution. There were also large increases in the persecution of people with disabilities and those in the LGBT community. We really need to ask how any diminution of human rights can be acceptable in the light of this. Yesterday evening I was struck by the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Triesman. He asked who will suffer if all of this goes wrong. Who will be blamed? Who will be scapegoated? That is what we need to ask ourselves. The exclusion of the charter sends a powerful message that the poorest and most vulnerable citizens can expect things to change for the worse, certainly as far as the protection of their rights is concerned.
If ever there was a time that human rights needed full protection under the law, it is now, particularly in light of the cuts in local services. Minimal support is now being provided for the most vulnerable. Refuges for victims of violence are in crisis, advice on debt has been drastically cut, and the number of homeless and rough sleepers is soaring. All in all, the services that support basic rights are struggling for existence. The Government have pledged to scrap the Human Rights Act and replace it with a less robust British Bill of Rights and have been consistently sceptical about and resistant to attempts to extend human rights, so any weakening in this Bill of the legal framework to enforce human rights must be opposed and the charter needs
to be incorporated with the rest of European law. We must not permit the weakening of human rights through the back door, rather we must retain the charter and its protections against violations of human rights. This is all the more important as the country faces a time of massive and unpredictable change.
I hope that this is not a matter of too much difference between Members of parties or of no party and I hope, given that many noble Lords have spoken about this issue, that we can work across the House to make sure that these values are upheld and the charter is retained in the treaty.
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