Tories in power 'would reject Bill of Rights'
A CONSERVATIVE Government would scrap the Human Rights Commission's controversial plans for a proposed Bill of Rights, Shadow Secretary of State Owen Paterson has said.
As speculation mounts that the proposed document will never make it into law, the Tories said if elected, there will be a process to draw up a UK-wide Bill of Rights and Responsibilities rather than implement the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) proposals.
Last month, Secretary of State Shaun Woodward told a Westminster committee that the NIHRC's proposals – encompassing everything from the age that young people should be able to join the Army to economic rights – were "unwieldy" and it would be months before consultation on the proposals even began.
Mr Woodward said that the NIHRC's recommendations for a Bill of Rights "created a problem" for him because it brought forward 80 new statutory rights, something which he said would "preoccupy huge amounts of time in a (Parliamentary) timetable for which there currently is not that sort of slot".
Mr Woodward also said: "I think that we have been given something which is admirable on the one hand, but unwieldy on the other."
Although careful to stress he was not criticising the commission, Mr Woodward said its recommendations were "well beyond the brief they were given", something opponents of the Bill of Rights proposals have repeatedly claimed.
He said it would take "much longer" than the commission wanted before consultation on the proposals began, later saying that it will be several months before the consultation process is announced.
Mr Paterson said that although a Conservative Government may accept particular points put forward by the commission, there was no way it would adopt the proposals as they stood.
"We would be looking at introducing a British Bill of Rights, because we think that the proposals may stray deep into the territory of elected politicians," he said.
In January, Shadow Justice Secretary Dominic Grieve told a Tory-UUP dinner in Bangor that "a rights culture" was "out of control", not just in Ulster, but throughout the UK.
It did not help that "the undeserving in society" could use rights legislation for personal gain, he added. Following Mr Grieve's comments in January, it is understood he met Human Rights Commissioner Monica McWilliams and some of her advisors in London and made clear his reservations.
DUP Assemblyman Nelson McCausland said the NIHRC proposals were "doomed to failure" because they could not command cross-community support.
"This is no mere unionist versus nationalist issue. In addition to the DUP and the Ulster Unionist Party, the business sector and the Roman Catholic Church also expressed severe reservations,” he said.
A NIHRC spokeswoman defended the scope of its advice and said: “At the recent Northern Ireland Affairs Committee hearing, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland was not critical of the commission and he has yet to formally respond to our advice.
“The commission will meet with the Secretary of State at the end of May to clarify the Government’s position on the Bill of Rights advice.”
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Tuesday 29 May 2012
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