Walsall Liberal Democrats

Howarth highlights grave danger of creating rights that are not enforceable

Lib Dem Shadow Secretary of State for Justice David Howarth responds to Government's Green Paper on Rights and Responsibilities

David Howarth criticised both the Government and the Conservative Party for their approaches to human rights. He explained the incompatibility of Conservative policies, accusing them of "[wanting] the plaudits of populists for calling for the abolition of the Humans Rights Act, but also [craving] the respect of civil libertarians." They simply can't have both, he said.

David also rebuked the Government for making a distinction between "enforceable rights" and "purely declaratory or symbolic" rights in its Green Paper on Rights and Responsibilities. He suggested that by creating rights that are not enforceable, the Government will be "diluting the whole idea of rights themselves".

See the full speech below:

David Howarth (Cambridge) (LD): I, too, thank the Secretary of State for early sight of the Green Paper and of his statement. With all due respect to the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve), I do not understand the position that the Conservatives are taking. They seem on some days to want the plaudits of populists for calling for the abolition of the Human Rights Act, but also to crave the respect of civil libertarians. They simply cannot have both. However, does the Secretary of State not recognise that he, too, seems to want it both ways, in how he attempts to link rights to responsibilities? He seems to want not only to satisfy those who rightly say that human rights set up a minimum standard of which no civilised Government-no matter whom they are dealing with-can fall short, but to please those who say that some people do not deserve human rights; that latter position is simply a watered down version of the position of those who want to get rid of the Human Rights Act altogether.

More fundamentally, does the Secretary of State recognise the fundamental distinction between human rights on the one hand, and the rights and responsibilities of citizenship on the other? They are not the same. Human rights set up obligations owed to all humans, and cannot be conditional. The rights of citizens, on the other hand, are not universal, and there are far fewer problems in saying that responsibilities are attached to citizenship.

Does the Secretary of State not also agree that there is a crisis of citizenship in the simple sense of people taking part in the government of their own communities? He is a great supporter of first past the post, but does he not at least accept that one of its effects is to narrow electoral politics to a few swing voters in a few marginal constituencies to the exclusion of everyone else? Is there not an irony in calling for greater commitment to citizenship just before a debate in which, as the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield said, the Government seek to restrict one of the best traditions of our citizenship-namely, the jury system.

The statement also seemed confused and vague on the relationship between constitutional texts and a sense of national unity. Does the Secretary of State not agree that it is not a text in itself but the experience of acting together to govern one's own community that creates a sense of democratic identity? National identity itself very rarely creates democracies-in fact, things might be the other way round: too strong a sense of national identity might have been destructive of democratic ideals in the past century.

The Government are right to be cautious on economic and social rights. It would be a mistake, I believe, to constitutionalise too many essentially political decisions about taxing and spending. At the same time, it is already a human right not to be left in destitution and it is a plausible extension of the rights of citizens that they should have an entitlement to sufficient access to health, education and welfare services for them to be able to take part in a practical way in governing their own communities.

However, I agree with the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield that such rights as are included have to be properly enforceable in the courts. I am disturbed by what the Secretary of State has said about a range of rights-rights that are enforceable on the one hand, and rights that are purely declaratory or symbolic on the other. Does he agree that there is a grave danger that in creating rights that are not enforceable, he might end up diluting the whole idea of rights themselves? We have had enough of government by press release; the last thing that we need is a constitution by press release as well.