Mr Edward Gardner: Yesterday the report of the Home Affairs Select Committee on prisons recommended that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary should consider whether the American practice of using private contractors to build, refurbish and manage prisons could be used here to overcome the problem of chronic overcrowding. Will he confirm that he intends to send a Minister to America to look at such prisons?...
Mr Edward Gardner: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that all the events that are the subject of the present allegations took place under a Labour Government and were inquired into by a Labour Prime Minister, and that all the personalities involved were either Labour supporters or even Ministers? Is it not a fact, therefore, that the Government have nothing to fear from having an inquiry? Are not the...
Mr Edward Gardner: When my right hon. Friend tries to identify the cause of the increase in recorded crime, especially crime concerning property, will he bear in mind the dreadful effect of the use of drugs that is reflected in the crime figures? Does he agree that, for example, in America 60 per cent. of all crimes against property are attributable to the taking and misuse of hard drugs?
Mr Edward Gardner: rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
Mr Edward Gardner: I know that my right hon. and learned Friend has had many interventions, but this is a particular, precise and important point—the danger that my right hon. and learned Friend foresees if judges are given the opportunity of interpreting the convention. Would he not agree that, when judges construe Acts of Parliament, they look at the intention of Parliament in passing the legislation, but...
Mr Edward Gardner: I have listened with great respect to my hon. Friend, but he must not mislead himself or the House about the aim of my Bill. I have already said, but shall repeat again now for the third or fourth time, that it seeks to incorporate into British law, the convention on human rights. That is its simple aim and purpose.
Mr Edward Gardner: indicated dissent.
Mr Edward Gardner: Of course I was reading the Lord Chancellor's words. I read them accurately and I have submitted them to the House. I said that they suggested that a mistake had been made and that the Bill would put it right.
Mr Edward Gardner: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. I am sure you will agree, Mr. Speaker, that the House of Commons is full of surprises. I have had the pleasure and privilege of being a Member of this House for 23 years and, faithfully each year, I put down my name for the ballot in the hope that, ultimately, I would be able to present a private Member's Bill. The years passed and...
Mr Edward Gardner: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, because I was about to come to that. I am sure that he will listen carefully to my argument. I was dealing with privacy and telephone tapping and saying that Mr. Malone complained that his telephone had been tapped. He went to the Chancery Division of the High Court, where the vice-chancellor said, "We are very sorry, but the convention is a treaty and not...
Mr Edward Gardner: I shall deal in some depth with that point, and I am sure that my hon. Friend will accept it from me, because it is one that will concern the House and opinion outside the House. I shall deal specifically with what I suppose is generally being called a politicising of the judges. It is an important point, and I have an important argument to meet it. I shall now deal with freedom of...
Mr Edward Gardner: That is so.
Mr Edward Gardner: I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend, but he leaves out the knowledge that the Government had and fear that the Government had, that that case was before Strasbourg. They anticipated the result.
Mr Edward Gardner: Perhaps fear is putting it too high.
Mr Edward Gardner: My right hon. and learned Friend pulls me up for using the word "fear". Perhaps I should say "influence". I accept everything that my right hon. and learned Friend says on the question of fact, but it does seem not unreasonable to suppose that the Government of the day could be influenced and could, among the influences that were being brought to bear, have taken these influences into account...
Mr Edward Gardner: I am not perorating. I am dealing with a point that my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) raises, rather like an elegant parrot. Anyone who goes to Strasbourg has to face the fact that it might cost more than £70,000. Where is the money coming from? It does not come from Europe, because the most that one can obtain from legal aid in Europe is £700. Apart from...
Mr Edward Gardner: My guess is that if everyone who has been asked these questions had read the convention, the figures would he much higher.
Mr Edward Gardner: I promised that I would deal wih that point. I shall come to it after I have gone briefly through the Bill. Time is passing, and many right hon. and hon. Members wish to speak. The purpose and effect of the Bill are made clear in the long title and the memorandum. That aim is that judicial remedies in the United Kingdom should be available for all who suffer, or who can establish that they...
Mr Edward Gardner: If I may say so, I take issue with that. Parliament is supreme. Its sovereignty will be unimpaired by the Bill. If Parliament in its wisdom wants to repeal any part of this legislation, it can. Under article 65 of the convention, if the House wished, it could denounce the convention. Is that the logic of my hon. Friend's point? There are some arguments on which those who oppose the Bill...
Mr Edward Gardner: I do not disregard in any way what my hon. Friend has said, and no doubt he will make those points in his speech. It is true that no law has been passed about judicial birching in the Isle of Man—my hon. Friend is right about that—but the judiciary there decided rightly or wrongly, that there should be no more judicial birching in the Isle of Man as a result of the Strasbourg case. The...