What recent representations he has received on the effectiveness of the Human Rights Act 1998.

Last year, my predecessor as Secretary of State and Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, was asked by the Prime Minister to review the implementation of the Human Rights Act. His review was published in July 2006—I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman has read every page. It concluded that the Act has had no impact on the Government's ability to fight crime, but that it has had a significant and beneficial impact on policy development.

I am grateful to the Lord High Chancellor for his answer and welcome him to his post. Has not the decision to enshrine in law the declaration of human rights proved to be an own goal, in that it has limited the power of Government to uphold the rights and security of the people of this country? Is not the underlying problem the fact that rights are not absolutes but need to be balanced against each other, which requires political judgment and common sense, and that that is best left not to lawyers but to Parliament, which developed those human rights in the first place?

Of course rights have to be balanced by responsibilities, and that is precisely what the European convention on human rights does. As the shadow Lord Chancellor, Lord Kingsland, has pointed out, it was drafted not by some rabid radical socialist-leaning French or Italian lawyers but by Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, later Lord Kilmuir, a senior and highly respected member of the Conservative Bench. Its rights are supposed to constrain the power of the state against the individual. If the right hon. Gentleman is serious about wishing to withdraw from the European convention or to reduce rights, he must say which rights he wants reduced. Does he want the right to life to be reduced? Does he want the prohibition on torture or the right to a fair trial to be abolished? Does he want the right to marry—I know that he is concerned about such matters—to be cut out, along with respect for private and family life? It is time for Opposition Members to move away from slogan-making and instead put up or be quiet about which aspects of this great convention they wish to be repealed.

Will my right hon. Friend say how he plans to extend the protection of the Human Rights Act to those who rely on privatised or contracted-out services not only in care homes but more generally, in order to put right the consequences of the YL case in the other place and to get back to what was originally intended when the Act was passed by this House?

As my hon. Friend knows, we left open as a matter for the courts the definition of a public authority to which the Act would apply. I am currently digesting the results of the decision by the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords, and I will consult my hon. Friend and his Committee about the best way forward.

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his appointment. As the only previous holder of his office not to be a member of the House of Lords was Sir Thomas More, he has quite an act to follow.

It is intolerable to members of the public that the courts should, again and again, refuse to deport people, even to places such as Afghanistan into which we have put considerable amounts of blood and treasure to get a grip, because of human rights legislation. The rights of citizens of this country must matter, too.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his congratulations and the reference to historical precedent, but I would rather not go the same way as Sir Thomas More—although one never knows in this business.

The provisions of article 3, which require that no one should be subject to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and their interpretation, go back way beyond the introduction and coming into force of the Act. The difficulty arises not under the Act, but under the decision of the European Court of Human Rights in the Chahal case in 1996. The British judiciary are members of the public and they have no interest in seeing terrorists at large, but they do have an interest, because we have asked them to do so—we signed the convention and the Conservatives have supported it—in genuinely ensuring that people are not sent back to be killed or tortured. We cannot do that. The question is one of balance, and we are currently backing actions in the European Court to get it to modify the Chahal judgment, which was made in different circumstances, to provide the courts with greater flexibility.

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman and his team on their appointments. I realise that he is new in his post, but I wrote to him on 5 July asking for an urgent meeting to discuss the whole question of Welsh language juries, which is a question of human rights under article 6 of the European convention on human rights. Will he please make time to see my hon. Friend Hywel Williams and me before we rise for the summer recess?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his congratulations and for giving me some notice of this question. I will of course make arrangements to see him and his colleague before the end of next week.

I add my congratulations to my right hon. Friend on his appointment as Secretary of State for Justice. On 3 July, the Prime Minister made an important statement on constitutional reform, involving the possibility of a new written constitution and a new Bill of Rights. Will he assure the House that any new constitution would be fully compatible with our obligations under human rights legislation, and deal not only with rights but with responsibilities?

I thank my right hon. Friend for his remarks. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made it clear that we want a debate on whether we should build on, not detract from, the European convention on human rights and what is in the Human Rights Act 1998. We have to get it across, and the Opposition make a fair point, that the Act and the rights themselves have to be balanced by obligations, duties and responsibilities. That is an important part of the debate that my right hon. Friend has now launched.

In the light of the answer that the Lord High Chancellor gave to my right hon. Friend Mr. Lilley, will he note that there are two House of Lords cases, one of which reaffirms the sovereignty of Parliament in relation to the question of the Human Rights Act? It is embedded in the Act. Will he also note that Lord Hoffmann recently said that the questions of the balance between security and human rights should be determined by the Home Secretary because he is required to answer to Parliament? Does he also note that only the other day Lord Carlile said that he thought that there was a case for extending the detention period of 28 days? Will the Secretary of State take note—

Order.

First of all, may I say that this is an historic first? This is the first time in the 11 years that I have been answering questions that the very assiduous hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) has asked me one and not mentioned Europe—a subject that normally features even in inquiries about drains in his constituency. On the other matter, though, he is absolutely right to say that this Parliament is sovereign. That is embedded in the Human Rights Act, and in our membership of the EU. We can withdraw any time that we wish, but I am against doing so.

The Minister will be aware that the many thousands of parents who are victims of malpractice in the family courts are prevented by law from making representations about the effectiveness of the Human Rights Act. Does he have any proposals to make it possible for such people to make representations about malpractice to Members of Parliament?

I do not have proposals at this stage, but I understand the concern that the hon. Gentleman raises and I am very happy to meet him and talk about how we deal with the problem.

In May, the previous Home Secretary, John Reid, who is in his place, said that human rights legislation needed modernising to protect citizens against terrorism and that, if necessary, the Government would even derogate from article 5 of the European convention on human rights to deal with terrorist suspects who abscond from control orders. Was the previous Home Secretary right, or is the new Lord High Chancellor so wedded to his Human Rights Act that he will not contemplate changes to protect the public from extremists who threaten this country and our way of life?

There is no difference between me and my right hon. Friend John Reid on this matter. What we all accept is that the fundamental obligations are embedded in the ECHR. Some sensible modifications to the Human Rights Act are already anticipated in our document "The Governance of Britain", which I am holding up for the House to see. As far as derogation is concerned, it is of course open to us under the convention and the Act itself to derogate, if we judge that that is necessary.