That this House has considered human rights in the UK.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes, I think for the first time. I am delighted to have the opportunity to introduce today’s debate.
Over the last few years, particularly since we began our Brexit journey, we have discussed human rights in the United Kingdom and the potential consequences for them were this country to leave the European Union. A number of colleagues, most notably my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), have sought assurances from Ministers that human rights protection in the United Kingdom would not be in any way diminished as a result of that process. By and large, those assurances have been given.
Why, therefore, is it appropriate to discuss this matter again? There are three reasons. First, we have moved on in the Brexit process. We now have a draft political declaration that seeks to define the relationship this country would wish to have with the other 27 members after it leaves the European Union—if, indeed, it does. A number of us noticed a slight change of language in that declaration regarding human rights. No longer is there a clear-cut commitment to embody in domestic legislation the European convention on human rights; instead, there is talk of respect for the framework that the ECHR provides. The other 27 signatories to the political declaration are quite clear in their commitment to the ECHR. That suggests the possibility of some divergence between the United Kingdom and EU member states regarding implementation of the convention.
Secondly, the Government are led by someone who could hardly be described as absolute in her commitment to the current human rights legislative framework in this country. When the Prime Minister was Home Secretary, she sought to undermine the Human Rights Act 1998 by suggesting that it was in some way soft on terrorists. It is also worth noting that when she stood to be leader of the Conservative party, she ruled out repealing the HRA, not as a matter of principle, but because there was, in her words, no majority in Parliament for doing so. One wonders what her position might be were the majority in Parliament to change.
Thirdly, the Conservative party was elected on a manifesto that pledged that the HRA would not be repealed
“while the process of Brexit is underway”.
Who am I to guess whether the Brexit process is nearing the endgame or not? It certainly looks likely that, in 2019, it will get to the final stages, and we may or may not leave the European Union. The question therefore arises: what would the governing party’s policy be on repeal of the HRA once the Brexit process has been completed or at least got to the position of being implemented? For all those reasons, the central purpose of today’s debate is to seek an assurance from the Minister that there will be no attempt to repeal, undermine, weaken or amend the provisions of the Human Rights Act 1998.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mike Gapes (in the Chair)
Order. I am conscious that several Members wish to speak. I intend to move to the Front-Bench spokespeople at 3.28 pm, so I advise Members that they will have to be relatively concise if everyone is to speak. I call John Howell.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes, and a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard), who is a fellow member of the Council of Europe. I understand and agree with a lot of what he said.
The European convention on human rights has been around since the early 1950s, and it is worth remembering that it was 1965 when we agreed to abide by the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in the UK. We have had almost 60 years of a relationship with the European Court of Human Rights and its decisions.
I start by making the point that the convention is not the same as the Human Rights Act, and the European Union is not the same as the Council of Europe. The two are very different and we should take them as such. I have a lot of time for the convention, and I agree with much of what the hon. Gentleman said about it. I was particularly irritated during the referendum campaign that a lot of people got the ECHR confused with the European Court of Justice. The two are completely separate. One is owned by the European Union and the other by the Council of Europe.
I would go on to say that the single biggest contribution to peace in Europe since the end of the second world war has come from the European convention on human rights, together with the work that NATO has done. We should state that, and we should be proud of it, because we have been very much involved in it from the beginning. As the hon. Gentleman and I know only too well, the European Court of Human Rights comes with a democratic mandate. I imagine the hon. Gentleman spends a lot of time, as I do, voting for the judges who are nominated to sit on the European Court of Human Rights. That gives democratic control and is also a means of reflecting, to some extent, the mixture of politics, competence and a whole number of other matters that give the European Court of Human Rights its character.
Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that there are countries across the world, such as South Africa with its new constitution and some Nordic countries, that have a right to adequate housing in their constitutions? Does he consider those to be socialist countries?
When the EU decided to bring out its own human rights framework, it thought very carefully about what should be included, and it differs from the European Court of Human Rights on only a few exceptions.
The European convention on human rights was opened for signature in November 1950 in Rome, and the Government in this country was a Labour Government from 1945 to 1951. Will the hon. Gentleman praise the socialist Government under which the ECHR was originally conceived?
The hon. Gentleman plays politics with human rights, which is unworthy of him and of this Chamber.
To return to the issue I was discussing—the success of the British Government with the European Court of Human Rights—about 90% of applications that come before the European Court of Human Rights are deemed unacceptable and are not taken forward. Of those that are taken forward, since 1975, the Court has found no violation in a quarter. Our track record is particularly successful.
I want to bring up two cases that illustrate the extremes. The first is that of the Gurkhas. Members may remember that a few years ago we moved their headquarters back to the UK and their pensions on to the same basis as UK soldiers. They took their case to the European Court of Human Rights, which decided that there had been no real discrimination against them, and found for the British Government.
In a slightly different case on the UK’s mass surveillance regime, which it uses as part of security operations, the Court found that the UK had violated the convention and it asked for some changes. That brings us on to the very tricky issue of the role of human rights versus legislation regarding dealing with terrorism. I agree with the hon. Member for Edinburgh East that this should be looked at in the context of what makes a better world to live in—I am not one of those who believes that tearing up the European convention on human rights is the best way to protect us against terrorism—but, having said that, and as the hon. Gentleman will know, at the last Council of Europe meeting, when the issue came up of whether we deprive those who have gone to fight with ISIS of their passports, I enthusiastically supported that motion. We should not have them back. The role of human rights in this plays out at different levels and in different ways.
In terms of how the ECHR works, people should understand that they have to exhaust all domestic remedies first, before they have recourse to the European Court of Human Rights. They cannot go straight to the European Court of Human Rights. There has to be an alleged violation of the convention, and significant disadvantage from that.
I am grateful that we have you in the Chair, Mr Gapes, and it is a pleasure to serve under you. I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) on securing the debate. I certainly have concerns about the loss of the charter of fundamental rights of the European Union, including article 25, on the rights of older people. I have been campaigning for a commission for the rights of older people; they are very much voiceless in our institutions, and we need serious reparation.
Today, I will take a different perspective. People will be glad to know that I am going to talk not about Brexit but about my city of York, which became the UK’s first human rights city on 24 April 2017. Currently, there are 41 human rights cities across the world, including nine in Europe, which are networked together. That is something we are incredibly proud of, and it builds on a strong legacy. In setting out what a human rights city is, I hope hon. Members will be encouraged to take that message back to their own cities to develop a case like the one Swansea is currently developing.
York is a human rights city built on a legacy. We became a city of sanctuary in 2016. York Travellers Trust has done incredible work representing Travellers and Gypsies in our city. The York LGBT Forum has welcomed lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender asylum seekers and refugees, bringing them together in a safe space. The University of York has a global reputation, and its Centre for Applied Human Rights is famous for its protective fellowship scheme, which brings human rights defenders from across the world to the university not only to have some thinking space to make sure their human rights activity is sustainable globally, but to have some intellectual rigour in looking at best practice in terms of human rights defenders across the globe.
I ask the Minister to ensure that we do not face real challenges in getting visas for these individuals when they come to the UK, so that they can have that space. We are humbled to hear of the work they are doing, whether they are journalists, human rights defenders or people working in court systems. They come to the UK not only to have some respite, but to advance their human rights practice, yet visas are blocked time and again because these people do not have the resources, although they have people here who are willing to sponsor them. It seems a shame that doors are shut when we should be extolling the incredible work these people do.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mike Gapes (in the Chair)
Order. Three people wish to speak. If Members can keep their remarks to about five minutes, including interventions, that might allow Front-Bench speakers time. I intend to call the first Front-Bench speaker at 3.28 pm.
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, Mr Gapes. I am a little perturbed that my time has been cut, but that is by the way. I thank the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) for securing this debate. Although we champion human rights in this country, there are certainly cases that show we are not where we should be. Next year is the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower’s journey. In September 1620, a group of 102 people and 30 crew members sailed across the Atlantic to seek opportunity and to escape religious persecution in the UK. Some 400 years later, we still have some problems.
There are also cases that show us that one person’s human rights should not be laid on the altar of someone else’s perceived rights. An example was the case of Ashers Bakery in Northern Ireland, when the question was raised as to whether we still have the right to refuse to serve based on a message that directly contradicts a sincerely and dearly held faith. After much legal wrangling, the case upheld the right to refuse a message, but not a customer. The idea that you cannot be forced to advocate something that you do not believe in is fundamental, and the decision was very important. The case was taken to the UK Supreme Court and in a unanimous decision five of the UK’s most senior judges upheld Ashers’ appeal against claims of discrimination. They agreed:
“The objection was to being required to promote the message on the cake. The less favourable treatment was afforded to the message not to the man...Nobody should be forced to have or express a political opinion in which he does not believe.”
That is what the court said, and it is very important to have that decision when it comes to human rights in the United Kingdom.
Although the case was ostensibly about a message on a cake, a section of Christian people were fearful that it was also about an impact on their right to hold their belief and to live their belief out. We are so good at protecting the rights of everyone to live their beliefs inasmuch as they are not harmful or destructive, and yet increasingly we have a section of the UK beginning to fear what can be said or not said when it comes to their Christian beliefs.
3:14 pm
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I often feel that our discussions on human rights can become somewhat abstract and go over the heads of the ordinary man or woman in the street. It is important that we state clearly why human rights are so central to everything we believe in. In essence, human rights are an expression of what we mean by civilisation. They define how individuals should act towards one another. They confer respect and dignity on the individual. Crucially, as well as setting standards for the behaviour that we expect from others, they set obligations on how we ought to behave towards others. I would argue that the existence of human rights is central to our wellbeing as a healthy and dynamic society.
It has been rightly suggested that few people ever think about their human rights; they certainly do not feel the need to go to court to have them upheld. I doubt if more than a tiny percentage of the population even know of someone who has gone to court on a human rights matter. That in itself suggests how powerful and useful the legislative framework is. The central point of human rights legislation is not to allow people to seek redress if their rights are infringed, but to protect people in the first place from others doing bad things to them. The fact that there is so little court activity in this field vindicates the view that the system is working.
Of course, there are cases where the system does not work and people feel the need to have their rights upheld. It is interesting to refer to a few of those, so that we, and the public, can understand how central these matters are. Celia Peachey did not think that the Human Rights Act related to her at all. Her mother was killed at the hands of a violent partner. She tried for years to get the police to do something about it, but could not persuade them to intervene. After her mother died, she was able to use the Human Rights Act to secure an inquest, which returned a verdict of unlawful killing and criticised the police for refusing to take action despite her representations.
The Driscolls were an elderly couple who depended on each other for care and support to go about their daily lives. When Mr Driscoll was rehoused in a residential care home, his wife was not allowed to live with him. They used the article in the Human Rights Act on the right to a family life to argue that they should be rehoused together, and they won and were rehoused as a couple. That was of benefit not only to them; they set a precedent, and in such cases it is now normal to consider rehousing elderly couples together.
Members will know of the case of Gary McKinnon, a young man with Asperger’s who allegedly hacked into a National Aeronautics and Space Administration computer database and who was wanted by the United States of America. They tried to have him extradited, which would have led to 60 years’ imprisonment had he been found guilty. He tried to resist that extradition. To her credit, the then Home Secretary said in 2012 that she would not allow his extradition, because, under the Human Rights Act, his rights would be breached were he extradited to stand trial in the US.
There is also the celebrated case of the black cab rapist, John Worboys. Two of his early victims, in 2003 and 2007, went to the police to complain about what had happened to them, and their complaints were not investigated at the time. After the case came to prominence, they used the Human Rights Act to get an inquiry into how the police had dealt with their complaints. It found that they had not done so correctly. The police were reprimanded, and the victims received compensation as a result of that use of the Human Rights Act.
Many people will know of the continuing campaign of the families of those who died in the Hillsborough disaster to seek justice for their loved ones. They have repeatedly used the Human Rights Act over the last 20 years to move their cases forward.
The final example I will give is that of people trying to get redress against public authorities—particularly health authorities, such as the Mid Staffordshire NHS hospital trust. I do not want to go into detail about the sad state of affairs in that institution; suffice it to say that 119 families have used the Human Rights Act to seek redress for the treatment they received from that hospital. Those are all important uses of the Act. Often, they quite literally make the difference between life and death, and are central to the quality of life of our citizens.
Let me turn to the implications of Brexit for the protections in the Human Rights Act. I have already discussed the wording of the political declaration with respect to the European convention on human rights, but in a sense I have to wonder why it is even an issue. The ECHR is the creature not of the European Union, but of the Council of Europe—an organisation to which this country subscribes and that involves 47 European countries, 40% of which are not members of the European Union—so one wonders why this is even being talked about in the context of Brexit.
It has been suggested that a commitment to the ECHR, if taken seriously, is in some ways a hindrance to the process of government and that it prevents the Government from acting freely. Some people on the extreme wings of the Brexit movement would suggest that it means foreign interference with the ability of an independent United Kingdom to do whatever it wants. Well, it is a good hindrance, because it obliges us to conform to international norms of civilisation to which most people throughout the world subscribe.
In terms of complaints under the ECHR and judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, the United Kingdom actually has a very good record: it is right down at the bottom of the list of countries having cases lodged against them. Our association with the Court and with the processes upholding the convention should not be seen as some sort of hindrance; it is a vindication of the fact that this country is actually quite good at upholding human rights when it comes to how things are governed.
There is a concern that one reason behind the debate on revisiting human rights legislation may be a desire to free up the United Kingdom for international trading arrangements post Brexit—the International Trade Secretary is not doing that well at signing us up to them, but I am sure more will come on the agenda in time. It is important that we say at the outset that we are not prepared to accept any trade-off in human rights standards from third-party countries as part of securing trade agreements. Surely we need to be seen as a country that not only upholds its own human rights standards, but uses its power and authority to ensure that such standards are upheld internationally. I therefore ask the Minister, first, to confirm that there is no intention to diminish current protections, and, secondly, to explore how in a post-Brexit scenario—if indeed that comes about—human rights will be protected not just in this country but around the world.
One problem is that we are talking about something that, to some extent, has already happened. Last summer, in debates on the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, the Government were keen to ensure that the EU charter of fundamental rights would not be included in British legislation, despite opposition from my party and many others. Their case was that including the charter would be unnecessary duplication, since all the individual rights in it were replicated elsewhere. That was not quite true—some rights in the charter are not in the ECHR—but, in any case, it missed the main point: the charter’s purpose was not just to define people’s rights, but to create obligations on EU member states regarding how those rights would be upheld and, in particular, to assert their primacy over other legislation.
Jason Coppel QC’s advice to the Equality and Human Rights Commission cites a 2017 case of cleaners in the Sudanese embassy who had tried to go to court to uphold their employment rights but had been told that, under the State Immunity Act 1978, foreign embassies were exempt from employment claims. They used the charter to go to court and to argue and win their case that their employment rights and human rights at work are more important that the 1978 Act, which should be set aside to ensure their rights. The tragedy is that if we exit the European Union at 11 pm on 29 March, the charter will be gone, so those cleaners would not be able to bring such a case. That is a diminution of people’s rights.
It is important not to be complacent about this, so we need to look at ways of strengthening and developing the application of human rights in our country. To that end, I want to say something about the situation in Scotland, because developments there can provide some leadership to the United Kingdom and the other nations in it. The Human Rights Act is a reserved matter, but the European convention on human rights, which the Act enshrines, is fundamental to the devolution settlement in Scotland and Wales and to the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland. Scottish Ministers are required to comply with the ECHR in everything they do. For that reason—and for the simple reason that upholding most people’s human rights has an awful lot to do with the day-to-day processes of government—the Scottish Government are keen to look at how human rights can be developed and incorporated into Scots law.
Just before Christmas, the First Minister’s advisory group on human rights leadership, chaired by Professor Alan Miller, published a very good report, which I commend to colleagues. It sets an agenda for taking things forward over the next five years and sets out three central principles in the context of Brexit. The first, which I have already mentioned, is that there should be no regression in human rights protections as a result of Brexit. The second, which we do not often talk about, is that we need to keep pace with any improvements in human rights protections in the European Union. That is a matter of having policies to ensure that this country does not lag behind the EU27, or indeed the Council of Europe 46. The third is how to make it real—how to integrate human rights protections into the very processes of government.
The report splits human rights into categories, of which the most familiar is civil and political rights such as the right to life, the right to vote or the right to free expression. Those rights are central to the ECHR and the Human Rights Act, but there is a whole other dimension of human rights that is essential to defining the nature of our society: social and economic rights, such as the right to health, the right to shelter or the right to work. The report is instructive in how it takes forward the debate; rather than describing those rights as abstract principles or objectives to attain, it examines how to shape Government policy towards their delivery.
I am happy to debate the point, because colleagues from the libertarian right may be able to put an alternative point of view, but, to my mind, delivering social and economic rights has to address the question of regulating resources in society. Essentially, such rights are about a fair allocation and sharing of resources between people. That does not mean that it is the Government’s responsibility to provide everybody with the keys to a three-bedroom house, but it does mean that the Government ought to be responsible for ensuring that there is a housing public policy framework with the objective that everyone should be adequately housed. In cases where regulation or the market fail to achieve that objective, the Government should also be responsible for ensuring safety-net provision of basic shelter. To test whether Government policy is delivering those rights, we need to ensure that the notion of human rights is integrated into Government at all levels.
There is much that can be learned from the debate in Scotland, so perhaps the Minister could comment on it, and on whether such a debate could happen in the United Kingdom as a whole. Human rights cannot be seen as an add-on or afterthought to Government policy; they need to be central to it at all levels. In future debates on the subject, rather than having a reply from a Justice Minister, perhaps it would be more fitting to have one from a Cabinet Office Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister or even the Prime Minister, because human rights need to be driven into every aspect of Government policy. They should not be seen as the concern only of lawyers or legal departments; they should be central to how we do the business of Government.
I am not as enamoured of the EU’s involvement with human rights, which I think has created a very mixed picture. If I am not using the term wrongly, I think that the European Union has tried to steal the mandate of the Council of Europe, which applies to almost twice the number of countries as the EU does—that is where a large part of its strength lies. The relationship between the EU and the European Court of Human Rights is something that we are still debating at the Council of Europe.
UK involvement with the European Court of Human Rights has been a huge success story. It has been a very good illustration of how human rights overall are doing quite well in this country. I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman on the need to extend those human rights to matters such as housing. That is a route to socialist involvement in the running of this country that I do not agree with, and would steer clear of.
The response I would like to hear from the Minister is along the lines of what has already been said—indeed, it was this Minister who said:
“The UK will remain a party to the ECHR after it has left the European Union. The decision to leave the European Union does not change our strong commitment to recognising and respecting human rights.”
I am not sure whether he remembers making that statement, but it was in response to a question from the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake).
I agree with the Minister wholeheartedly: human rights are too important to be used as a political football in this game of Brexit or, indeed, in anything else. We have a long and successful track record of using our involvement with the European Court of Human Rights and our long relationship with the Council of Europe, which oversees the Court, and of protecting the interests of British citizens.
As a human rights city, York has signed up to a charter to work on the domestic human rights agenda. I disagree with the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) on the importance of these issues, because human rights must also apply at home in the UK. The five areas that York has chosen—they are not circumscribed—are equality and non-discrimination, education, decent standards of living, housing, and health and social care. In becoming a human rights city, York embraces a vision of a vibrant, diverse, fair and safe community built on the foundation of universal human rights. It is a vision that is shared by all citizens and institutions in our city, including the council, the police, the voluntary sector and the faith communities. It puts fundamental rights at the heart of policies that are passed by these authorities, and builds on hopes and dreams.
People who know the history of York will know that this follows a strong legacy. On housing, human rights is such an important issue to our city, where the Rowntree family built our country’s first garden village in New Earswick. That stimulated the Housing Act 1919, which was the foundation of social housing in our country, and the model was then taken forward into Tang Hall, further into the city.
As a city, we have had pioneering mental health services—first at Bootham Park Hospital, which was established in 1777. When a patient tragically died there, the Quaker movement said, “We can do better” and set up a retreat. To this day, there has been competition to advance the human rights of people with mental health challenges in our city.
We then had Seebohm Rowntree, and many people will know that he wrote three incredibly powerful reports on the issue of poverty—the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has followed that through until today. Even in the 1899 report “Poverty, A Study of Town Life”, the authors talked to over 46,500 residents of York to look at the serious poverty in our city. What an incredible study that was, taking the stories as well as the statistics to try to advance our city.
Then we had Joseph Rowntree himself—yes, he of chocolate fame—who outlined what good-practice work should look like in our city. He provided not only jobs with decent pay, but pensions, healthcare, education, housing, a park, theatres, access to the arts, a swimming pool and decent conditions. He and his family understood the real importance of that holistic agenda for advancing individual rights, and he sewed that legacy into our city. That is why we are proud to be the UK’s first human rights city.
However, we are on a journey, and it is fair to say that there is a lot that we need to achieve. As we map our way forward, we are looking at statistics and stories to tackle challenges where, quite frankly, our city needs to improve. Over the last year, we have seen wages fall in York by £65, causing greater economic inequality when we are already the most inequitable city outside London. By using the human rights framework to look at economic disadvantage, we will be advancing opportunities for people in our city. We have a gender pay gap of £117, which has to be addressed—it is above the national average. We have also looked at the issue of food bank use, which is up 25% in the last year—over 4,000 residents needed to use a food bank. How can that be ignored when we look at a human rights framework? These are fundamental issues facing our society today.
There is an eight-year gap in life expectancy in York. In the wards of Clifton, Westfield and Tang Hall, men die eight years earlier than their counterparts elsewhere—they are disadvantaged both economically and in terms of health.
On education, using the human rights framework we have established, we have already seen the number of NEETs—people who are not in education, employment or training—fall. That is a really positive outcome, which is due to our tracking through the causation and then introducing the restorative means to get more people into work. However, York has received the worst school funding in the country from the Government. In areas where we have the lowest attainment—we have the biggest attainment gap in the country—we are not building a legacy for the future. I urge the Government to look at the data and make the link between funding and attainment, which our human rights framework clearly does.
Cuts to social care have had a real impact. To go back to the fundamental rights I mentioned, we know that contact with social care services has fallen in our city. On the important issue of housing, although we are a low-wage economy, we have people with high skills and therefore under-employment. That makes it harder to access housing, because we have a very high cost of living. Purchasing a property in York requires 10 times the average annual income, and it is incredibly expensive to rent. We have poor access to housing, and greater inequality is therefore being created between the haves and have-nots in our city. We therefore use the human rights framework to advance opportunity and map a way forward for people in our city.
Since 2017, we have established a human rights and equalities board and developed community voices, ensuring that those who never engage in our democracy, and whose voices are silent, are at last being heard. We reach out particularly to the homeless, disabled people, women and young people. We also support others who hope to develop the framework to advance rights in their own city. York has been built on its history and social traditions, and we want its legacy to move forward. The Labour party in the city has a vision of building a fair city for the future and re-enacting and repeating the work that Seebohm Rowntree did.
A 78-year-old preacher in Northern Ireland was questioned and tried for preaching from his pulpit regarding a biblical story and hell and the fact that if someone does not have faith in Jesus Christ they cannot go to heaven. He was found not guilty. That is another example of human rights. We have registrars who have lost their jobs as they cannot oversee the marriage ceremony of same-sex couples, which is against their held beliefs. Other people are happy to do it, and yet registrars have lost their employment. It is little wonder that Christians question their human rights when all seem to say, “Believe anything you want, tolerate everything possible, except for something based on the word of God and personal and heartfelt beliefs.” The court cases have proven that that is not the case. We must question how such cases get to court. There is a real fear within Christian circles at this time.
I have heard more than one Christian preacher warn his congregation that a time is coming when all will be persecuted for their faith, and many people believe that will happen in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I want a message sent today, very clearly and specifically, that that will not happen in this country while we are still a democracy—that we will allow people to hold on to their belief and live by it as long as there is no harm to others around them. This nation was founded on biblical principles from the time of Alfred the Great, and it is time that we reminded people that, whether we personally believe or not, Christians will not be persecuted for living their faith, in the same way as we do not allow the persecution of other religions. It goes without saying, and yet a growing section of our community need to hear it said in this debate today as we talk about human rights. We also must speak up for those who have been persecuted because of their religious and heartfelt views. It is very important that these matters are put on the record.