Meeting of the Parliament 08 December 2022
No, thank you. I will carry on, because I think that we are pretty tight for time. I might take an intervention from Mr Kerr at another point.
The Scottish Government’s human rights bill will give effect to a wide range of internationally recognised human rights. It will strengthen domestic legal protections by making them enforceable in Scots law. The bill will include provision to ensure that everyone—including LGBTI people and older people—has equal access to the substantive rights that are contained in the bill. In addition to incorporating rights from core existing UN human rights treaties, it will establish a new right to a healthy environment.
The Government has a clear vision for human rights in Scotland, which includes resolutely defending the existing Human Rights Act 1998 in the face of UK Government attempts to replace it with a British bill of rights. The 1998 act is one of the most important statutes ever passed by the UK Parliament. It plays a critically important role in protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms throughout the whole United Kingdom and is woven into the fabric of the constitutional settlements in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It has a 22-year track record of delivering justice, including for some of the most vulnerable people in society. It has ensured that gay couples have the same housing rights as heterosexual couples, protected the rights of disabled and older people who receive care and enabled victims of the Hillsborough disaster to obtain justice. In other words, the 1998 act has brought human rights home.
The UK Government’s ill-considered Bill of Rights Bill poses a clear and present danger to our most fundamental rights and freedoms. The bill has been roundly condemned by some of the UK’s most eminent legal experts and was the subject of repeated expressions of concern when the UK’s human rights record was reviewed by the UN Human Rights Council in November. Even Liz Truss, in her short-lived tenure as Prime Minister, seemed to understand the dangers posed by that bill. She halted its progress at Westminster and sacked the Secretary of State for Justice.
For the time being, the bill, and its principal architect, are back. The proposals in that bill are alarming. If passed, it would substantially change the convention rights embedded in the Scotland Act 1998 and put the UK on a collision course with the Council of Europe. That all remains uncertain: the bill might yet be shelved, for the third time, by a second Prime Minister. The Secretary of State for Justice has no mandate to force through the bill of rights because repealing and replacing the Human Rights Act 1998 act formed no part of the UK Government’s election manifesto.
On our part, the Scottish Parliament has repeatedly expressed its support for the Human Rights Act 1998. We have called on the UK Government to avoid any action that would weaken human rights protection in Scotland and throughout the UK.