Patel forced by Whitehall to drop curbs on migrants’ use of human rights laws

Reform that was sidelined over fears of challenge to ECHR ‘back on the table’ after Channel drownings

PRITI PATEL dropped plans to restrict the use of human rights laws to block deportations, because of concerns in Whitehall that the move would be too controversial, The Sunday Telegraph has been told.

This newspaper disclosed last year that the Home Secretary was preparing to use the new Nationality and Borders Bill to make it more difficult for failed asylum seekers and foreign criminals to avoid deportation on the basis that they would face “inhuman or degrading treatment” in their home countries.

Under the plans, the Bill would have included a legal definition of the phrase, which is contained in Article Three of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Ms Patel was said to believe that the change could restrict the ability of judges to make “subjective” decisions about the conditions potential deportees would face in foreign countries.

But a source said the proposal was “blocked by other departments” amid “scepticism” in Whitehall of any reforms that could “rub up against the European Convention on Human Rights”, which is applied in the UK using the Human Rights Act.

At the time, Dominic Cummings, the Prime Minister’s then senior adviser, was pushing for sweeping human rights reforms, prompting “scepticism” about the specific change being pushed by Ms Patel, sources said.

The proposals are now understood to be “back on the table” after the deaths of 27 people in the Channel last week.

Tory MPs are now lining up to call for reforms to human rights laws to help prevent thousands of people risking their lives by crossing the Channel in small boats.

Those in favour of reforms believe that migrants would be less likely to risk the crossing if they believed they would be unable to stay in the country having had an asylum claim rejected.

One senior Tory said the reform was “exactly” the type of measure Dominic Raab, the new Justice Secretary, should be considering as part of his planned overhaul of the Human Rights Act. John Hayes, a former Home Office minister who is chairman of the Common Sense Group of Conservative MPs, said: “Parliament does have to wrest back control from courts that are over-interpreting both their role and the Convention.

“We recognise that the Home Secretary is trying to do the right thing and she deserves the support of Parliament and the party.

“We think of ‘wokes’ as weird people in academia but unfortunately woke influence extends even into Whitehall. The champions of the people have to push back against it.”

Article Three of the European Convention on Human Rights states: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

Senior Tories say the clause derived from horrors perpetrated by the Nazis, and has been interpreted too widely by judges, and abused by those seeking to avoid deportation from the UK.

Judges in UK courts and the European Court of Human Rights generally interprete Article Three on a case by case basis, with the definition of inhuman or degrading treatment depending on circumstances in each case.

Last year a Whitehall source said ministers wanted to remove the “ambiguity” around the application of Article Three rights, and “reduce the scope for judges to answer philosophical questions”.

Before entering government, Mr Raab insisted that the interpretation of Article Three had “expanded too far” through judgments at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

‘Parliament does have to wrest back control from courts that are overinterpreting their role’