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Human Rights

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. That matter was not high up in my mind, but I thank him for his valuable contribution. I believe that there are alternative ways in which we can defend individual liberty. Those of us who believe in genuine liberty should be concerned to protect the individual against the overbearing state, but we should not regard the Human Rights Act as a measure that empowers individuals against the state—instead, it hands to unaccountable judges powers that should rightfully rest with accountable parliamentarians through the ballot box. Human rights legislation ossifies the public policy-making process. It prevents us from developing innovative answers to new challenges. It makes an unresponsive state even less responsive. It puts more power in the hands of remote and unaccountable elites. In this country we have a long tradition of individual liberty—a tradition that was not guaranteed by some charter adjudicated on by judges. There is a growing public perception that human rights legislation, in the shape of the Act and the convention, protects the undeserving—the criminal and the terrorist—at the expense of the law-abiding. That view is largely justified. This criminal rights legislation must be repealed, but we must not merely axe the Act—the European convention on human rights must go as well.