03.10.11
May ‘would like’ Human Rights Act to be scrapped
Home Secretary Theresa May has said she would like the Human Rights Act to be scrapped, just weeks after Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg had maintained that it was going to remain.
In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, May said: “I’d personally like to see the Human Rights Act go because I think we have had some problems with it. I see it, here in the Home Office, particularly, the sort of problems we have in being unable to deport people who perhaps are terrorist suspects.
“Obviously we’ve seen it with some foreign criminals who are in the UK. We’re not standing still on this issue; we are actually looking at what can be done.”
Clegg had recently told the Liberal Democrat party conference: “Let me say something really clear about the Human Rights Act. In fact I’ll do it in words of one syllable: It is here to stay.”
There is currently a commission of human rights experts working on a report on the possibility of replacing the Act with a ‘British Bill of Rights’ by the end of next year – yet many believe that no serious changes will be made.
Commentators have noted that Clegg’s and May’s comments are not necessarily contradictory – by saying she would “like” the HRA to go, May is thought to be sending a message to Conservative activists about what her intentions would be under a majority Conservative Government, without guaranteeing to do it now because of Coalition politics.
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