My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will now repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. The Statement reads as follows:

“With permission, Mr Speaker, I should like to make a Statement on the Green Paper, Rights and Responsibilities: Developing our Constitutional Framework, laid before Parliament today. The Green Paper is the next stage in what has been described as a quiet revolution in our constitutional arrangements. Since 1997, we have had the independence of the Bank of England, devolution for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, independence for national statistics, the Human Rights Act, the Freedom of Information and Data Protection Acts, reforms to the House of Lords and party funding.

This Green Paper deals with some of the most fundamental questions we face as individuals and as a society: how we live together; what rights and freedoms we enjoy and from whom; and what duties and obligations we owe and to whom. These issues are not abstractions removed from the practical politics of jobs and housing, healthcare and education, crime and disorder, because these constitutional arrangements determine how power is distributed and, therefore, the conditions in which every other question in our public life will be answered.

It is because of the centrality of these issues that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister chose to make his first major policy statement, within days of taking office, on exactly this matter of constitutional change. My right honourable friend told this House that it was right to involve the public,

‘in a sustained debate about whether there is a case for the United Kingdom developing a full British Bill of Rights and Duties’,

as a step towards a written constitution.

The Green Paper presents the arguments for such a Bill. It does not reach final conclusions—that is for the end of the process of national discussion—rather, it sets the framework for this debate. Indeed, if by the end of the process the Bill is perceived to provide protection to rights and freedoms, it will become effective in defining common values so that people in Britain of different backgrounds may feel ownership of it.

From the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Arbroath, the 1689 Bill of Rights and Scottish Claim of Right, to the great reform Acts of the past two centuries, our history illustrates the proud traditions of liberty on which our nation is built. Although the profound changes which these great texts initiated were the subject of intense struggle at the time, the United Kingdom’s experience of constitutional development has been unlike that of almost any other democracy in the world.

The constitutional arrangements of most other nations have emerged from rebellion, revolution, civil war, occupation or oppression. The United States, France, India, South Africa, nations across Europe and the world, have had to set down their arrangements in a single text: a constitution, underpinned by declarations of rights. Whether legally enforceable or not, they have become abiding points of reference on how their citizens should relate to each other and to the state, and they help to define the kind of nation they wish to be. This Green Paper sets out the case for how a Bill could become a similar unifying force for the United Kingdom; not least because our society is much more diverse in race, religion and ethnicity than at any point in our history.

We are launching this Green Paper at a time of great uncertainty and anxiety. Tackling the global recession must be our immediate priority. But acting at the same time to strengthen communities’ and individuals’ sense of a stake in society, by better articulating the responsibilities that we owe and the rights that we have, is not an alternative to decisive measures on the economic front, but an essential complement to them.

One of the most significant constitutional changes in the past dozen years is the Human Rights Act. I worked hard as sponsoring Minister to achieve a consensus behind it, and I commend the Official Opposition for the support that they gave the Act in its final form. Prior to the Act, accessing convention rights via the Strasbourg court was a time-consuming, expensive and difficult process and, as such, prohibitive for many. Now those rights can be accessed in UK courts, with cases heard by UK judges.

The Act better protects the family. It has benefited all sections of society, from the elderly couple wanting to live in the same care home to the loftiest newspaper magnate. In providing a more practical mechanism to access rights, as well as a positive obligation on the state to protect them, countless thousands of people have benefited from the law, without necessarily having to resort to the law.

Despite this, the Act has its detractors, primarily because the atrocities of 9/11 occurred less than a year after the Act came into force. Had those tragic events not occurred, I suggest that the HRA would have slipped comfortably into the fabric of our lives without controversy. As it was, those terrible events threw into acute relief the tension between liberty and security. We recognise these tensions, but the Government are proud of the Human Rights Act. We will neither resile from it nor repeal it.

The principles and rights set down in the European convention, and now in the Human Rights Act, are timeless. They are the mark and measure of any civilised society at any time. But in the intervening 60 years, these rights have been added to by a great extension of social and economic rights—of healthcare, dignity in old age, education, housing and social security. But as our rights have become so much wider and stronger, one question is whether their claim is balanced properly by an equally strong sense of the responsibilities that we each owe.

We believe that there is a case for drawing out more clearly and explicitly the responsibilities that go with rights. Duties and responsibilities are to be found in the convention, in statute, in common law and woven deeply into our social and moral fabric. We have a latent understanding and acceptance of our duties to one another and to the state. That said, responsibilities have been something of a poor cousin to rights. The Green Paper proposes that responsibilities are given greater prominence in our constitutional arrangements, the better to articulate what we owe as much as what we expect. This is how we can move away from a ‘rights culture’ to a ‘rights and responsibilities culture’.

Some responsibilities are obvious: obeying the law, paying taxes, jury service. Others are less obviously recalled at the moment that they should be exercised: a responsibility towards future generations by living within environmental limits; the duty we have to protect the well-being of children in our care; a civic duty to vote; responsibilities towards our neighbours; respect for those public sector workers who care for us; responsibility towards the taxpayer not to claim benefits if able to work.

If we are to fulfil our responsibilities, we have to have a clear understanding of what they are. As the Green Paper sets out, an accessible bill of rights and responsibilities could be emblematic of the fair society that we want to live in, where awareness of our rights is matched with a greater understanding of our responsibilities to each other.

Most of the social and economic rights to which I have referred are already embedded in law, but they are scattered across myriad legal texts. The Government believe that we should encapsulate these rights in a single document, bringing together the ‘new’ post-war rights of social justice and the welfare state, victims’ rights, rights of equality and of good administration.

A key question set out in the Green Paper is whether any Bill should have, directly or indirectly, the force of law. Bills of rights from around the world are a combination of symbolism, aspiration and law across a spectrum of legal effect. There need not be a binary choice between the justiciable and the declaratory. As the Green Paper points out, the Government do not necessarily consider a model of directly legally enforceable rights or responsibilities to be the most appropriate.

Even without full legal enforcement, words have power. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights contained no legally enforceable rights; rather, it was the global expression of a shared commitment, a recognition of humanity’s common dignity, what Eleanor Roosevelt described as the ‘Magna Carta for all mankind’. A bill of rights and responsibilities for the United Kingdom could be this kind of declaration to set in stone the values we cherish.

I have had the rare privilege to take through this House many of the constitutional changes of the past 12 years, or have been closely involved with their development. Throughout that time, I have looked to secure the broadest political consensus behind them. Reforms of such importance to our democracy require nothing less. Constitutional change should take place only on the basis of full and proper deliberation. This Green Paper has been through such a process within government and now it is time to take the debate out to the people we all serve. This deliberation must not and will not be rushed, and so this Green Paper will not precede any legislation this side of a general election. We are dealing here with the fundamental building blocks of our democracy, and as the Prime Minister made clear:

‘Constitutional change will not be the work of just one Bill or one year or one Parliament’.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/07/07; col. 815]

A bill of rights and responsibilities could form the next natural and necessary step in a process which began 60 years ago with the universal declaration. It is an opportunity to bring together existing rights and responsibilities in one place and better to define the relationship between citizen and state in a new and unifying constitutional document fit for this century. I commend this Statement to the House”.

My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

My Lords, I have had only a very short time in which to glance at the Green Paper, which is 63 pages long. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, has found himself in exactly the same boat.

Inevitably, in skimming a document as weighty as this, one’s eye is attracted to those passages in which one has been most concerned in one’s political life. In those circumstances, when responding to what I have to say, the Minister might find that he is in a position to point me to other parts that I have not been able to read that successfully refute my observations. That is a risk that I shall have to take.

I have the impression that the Green Paper is a massive exercise in sitting on the fence. If we needed any further proof that the Cabinet is deadlocked over enacting a Bill of Rights, here it is in this document. Nothing confirms the state of utter confusion that engulfs the Government more than paragraph 4.30:

“If a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities took the form of an Act of Parliament, there would be a range of options for dealing with the Human Rights Act and the Convention rights. The Bill might subsume the Human Rights Act as part of the new Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. The Bill of Rights and Responsibilities might preserve the Human Rights Act as a separate Act. It might also be desirable to signpost the Convention rights in some way, for example by crossreference to make clear that neither they nor the Human Rights Act were affected by the new Bill”.

This is a monument to indecision.

Further confirmation of the Government’s state of mind is furnished by Chapter 5, entitled “New Steps”. I apologise to your Lordships for reading out another passage but I think it is the most telling way to make the point. At paragraph 5.3 the Government state:

“It is that process of consultation upon which we now embark. We intend to involve all parts of our country and our society in discussions both about the fundamental arguments for and against such a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities as well as the advantages and disadvantages of the individual components of any such Bill. Full consultation and debate about such a constitutional development will inevitably take some time. It cannot be the property of one Parliament and one Government. All sections of the UK will have a view. As part of the consultation process, we expect that Parliament will want to make a contribution to the debate and we will bring forward proposals for that in due course. The need for such extensive consultation means that, if it were concluded that the time was right for a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities, it would not be possible to bring forward any legislation before the next general election”.

If, by some remote chance, the Government were to win the next election, that should be substituted with “before the general election after the next general election”.

Behind this political paralysis lies a forbidding complacency about what has happened to individual rights in our society since the Government came to power, despite their much vaunted Human Rights Act. The undermining of personal privacy was described by the Joseph Rowntree Trust today as,

“the most invasive surveillance … of any western democracy”.

And it is soon to be amplified and further intensified by a centralised databank on all telephone and e-mail communications together with records of when we all travel abroad.

On the right to a fair trial and trial by jury, paragraph 3.30 states:

“Much of the argument for enshrining a ‘right’ to jury trial into a constitutional document may be driven by the deep cultural attachment to jury trial, originally deriving from its inclusion in Magna Carta. Notably, many other countries, including signatory nations to the European Convention, do not have jury trials even for the most serious cases—jury trial is not necessary for compliance with Article 6 of the Convention. Moreover, the arguments in favour of jury trial in some serious cases are open to debate”.

What better example do your Lordships need for establishing the proposition that, for the Government, British history began in 1997? In their attempts effectively to remove the protection of habeas corpus in this country—your Lordships will recall the famous attempt to extend arrest without charge to 90 days—to reduce the circumstances in which individuals are entitled to jury trial and to change the burden of proof from beyond reasonable doubt to a balance of probabilities, the Government have always justified themselves by claiming that these initiatives are consistent with the European convention.

The worrying thing about that assertion is that they probably do conform to the European convention because continental judges who sit in the European Court of Human Rights have no experience of our system of criminal procedure and often little understanding of it.

One might expect the Government to have seen the folly of their ways in this crucial area of rights—heaven knows, they have been reminded to do so often enough by noble Lords throughout this House—and to have taken steps to enshrine these great common law protections in legal form.

But not a bit of it. If we turn to paragraph 3.31, this is what we learn:

“Additional protections in relation to liberty of the person or fair trials may not be necessary as the belief in their fundamental nature is already so deeply entrenched, culturally and politically, and there is no fundamental threat to them”.

I stop in the middle of the quotation simply to ask: can we really believe that? The Government then go on to say:

“At this stage, the Government does not propose the inclusion of the principle of habeas corpus or a right to trial by jury in any new Bill of Rights and Responsibilities, but it remains open to all arguments for and against as part of an informed public debate”.

Of the paragraphs I have read, I find that quite the most astonishing in the whole document; because nothing is more important to the rule of law and democracy in our society than these common law rights, which have been so severely undermined during the past 12 years.

The Green Paper is entitled Rights and Responsibilities. In a legal sense, of course, as your Lordships well know, these two are inextricably linked: a right generates an obligation to respect it; equally, an obligation not to do something to someone else gives someone else an implied right. But the Government may well be trying to define responsibilities in some other way; if they are, from my cursory reading, I am not clear what it is. If they are trying to redefine responsibilities in some way outside their strictly legal meaning, then I have reached the preliminary conclusion that they have failed.

The main reason they have failed is because they have concentrated on the responsibilities of the state and local authorities. The executive summary at the beginning of the document states:

“Now is the time to discuss whether a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities should bring together those rights which have developed in parallel with the European Convention, but are not incorporated into it. A new Bill of Rights and Responsibilities could present the opportunity to bring together in one place a range of welfare and other entitlements currently scattered across the UK’s legal and political landscape”.

But what about creating a society with room for individuals to exercise responsibility? What about the role of the family, where the fundamental values of life are imbibed, or at least ought to be? Indeed, one looks in vain in this document, at least in the short time I have had to study it, for any mention of the family as being the most important institution of all for establishing a responsible society.

My Lords, just as I thought the Government of Mr John Major would be remembered primarily for their cones hotline, so I thought that the only positive memory one would have of the Government who have been ruling this country over the past 12 years was devolution and the Human Rights Act, both the legacy of the late and much lamented John Smith. This Green Paper, in the very short time that I have had to look at it, is exactly about resiling from the Human Rights Act. For example, Article 2 on the right to life and Article 3 on the prohibition against torture are both absolute rights in the European convention. In relation to the prohibition against torture, we still have not had the inquiry that we have been seeking over the past few months about what has gone on in the torture of Guantanamo Bay detainees.

Are these absolute rights to be undermined by making them contingent on responsibilities? That seems to be the thrust of the document. Paragraph 2.25 says:

“It is fundamental to human rights theory that human rights cannot be claimed or exercised by individuals without regard to the rights of others, and that most human rights (with exceptions like freedom from torture and slavery) are inherently subject to balance and qualification”.

The paragraph ends:

“It would be possible in a future Bill of Rights and Responsibilities to highlight the importance of factors such as an applicant’s own behaviour and the importance of public safety and security”.

So when the Government talk about rights and responsibilities, they are really saying that those responsibilities, in the sense of an applicant’s own behaviour, should be taken into account when he is seeking to exercise the rights we currently enjoy in the European convention.

The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, has referred to the familiar territory—old ground—about criminal justice. Again, there is an attack upon the right to trial by jury and an attempt to make it seem fusty and out of date by referring to its,

“deriving from its inclusion in Magna Carta”,

in 1215, as opposed to the fact that every day and in every major Crown Court in this country, jury trials, which have the confidence of the public, are being carried out. Here again we have this Government’s persistent, recurring theme of attacks on trial by jury.

The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, also referred to habeas corpus. It is said to be “seldom used”. I drafted a habeas corpus writ about four weeks ago which fortunately did not have to be used. It is a fundamental freedom which we have enjoyed in this country for centuries. The Government say:

“At this stage, the Government does not propose the inclusion of the principle of habeas corpus or a right to trial by jury in any new Bill of Rights and Responsibilities, but it remains open to all arguments for and against as part of an informed public debate”.

We see, therefore, the return of the authoritarian attempt of this Government to cut down our traditional freedoms.

As I have very little time, I move on to welfare rights. One would have thought that if the European convention rights were to be expanded, something would be said about economic, social and cultural rights, which should be guaranteed. Paragraph 3.53, however, states:

“In drawing up a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities, the Government would not seek to create new and individually enforceable legal rights in addition to the array of legal protections already available”,

in the field of welfare. Do not expect, therefore, this to be a charter for economic, social and cultural welfare rights.

One would have hoped that by now the Government would have considered incorporating the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into English law instead of constantly saying it is an unincorporated convention which does not have any force. But they say:

“Any Bill of Rights and Responsibilities should allow for recognition that responsibility for many aspects of child wellbeing is devolved and the different ways in which outcomes are achieved for children across the UK”.

There is nothing about incorporating the convention into English law. As to how it is to be enforced, paragraph 4.25 states:

“The Government does not consider that a generally applicable model of directly legally enforceable rights or responsibilities would be the most appropriate for a future Bill of Rights and Responsibilities”.

In other words, you could not take a government department to court for a breach of a British convention on rights and responsibilities that is now being put forward as a pale reflection of the existing rights and responsibilities of the European Convention on Human Rights which British lawyers drew up to emphasise in a war-torn Europe that human rights apply to human beings. That is the important message that we should take away. This is just a muddle; it is an attempt to palliate the Daily Mail while trying to keep on board those of us who have a fundamental belief in the future and the continuation of human rights in this country.

My Lords, I owe an apology to the two noble Lords on the Front Benches for not having arranged for them to have copies of the Green Paper beforehand. I apologise for their not having had longer to consider it. However, when they have had chance to do so a little more closely, their attitude, which they put over with the eloquence that I would expect from both of them, may change and they may regret some of the expressions that they used at first glance at the document. They have got it absolutely wrong.

The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, who is normally so fair, says that, by starting a debate on this subject, the Government are somehow showing weakness and not making up their mind. That is rather an unfair criticism. Let us just imagine the scene if I had come here this afternoon and said, “Well, we’re going to introduce a new bill of rights and responsibilities. Here’s what it’s going to say. We’re going to get it through Parliament before the next general election”. The noble Lord would have quite rightly castigated me and the Government harshly for doing something such as that without due consultation, without finding out what people thought, without a draft Bill and without deciding what should and should not be in it. I think that we have been rather unfairly treated this afternoon. This is a Green Paper to start a debate—as it clearly has done—on the merits or otherwise of having a bill of rights and responsibilities in this country. It is a perfectly serious issue that needs serious attention, which I am sure it will be given in due course.

The attack on the Government for restricting freedom again seems a little rich, bearing in mind that this is the Government who passed large amounts of equality legislation, devolution legislation, the Freedom of Information Act, the Data Protection Act, the Civil Partnerships Act, the Gender Recognition Act, the Human Rights Act, new proposals for a further equality Bill, a Bill on welfare reform and the NHS Constitution for England. I do not recall any of those measures being put forward by the party that now suggests that it is on the side of freedom and liberty. This legislation has made millions of our citizens free in a way in which they were not previously, which should be recognised.

Trial by jury and the right to a fair trial were lauded by the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland. I remind him that trial by jury is of course deep set in the British way of life, but his party restricted it for a number of offences when it was in power, as have all Governments. No party has for a very long time suggested that trial by jury should be the remedy for every criminal wrong. It should be available for those charged by the state with serious criminal offences. We stand by that, as I know does the noble Lord.

The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, really could not be more wrong when he claimed that the Green Paper is the death of the Human Rights Act because we are going to make those rights contingent on responsibilities. I know that he has not had long to look at the document, but I refer him to the first page of the executive summary, which states:

“The Government is clear that the rights in the European Convention cannot be legally contingent on the exercise of responsibilities. However, it may be that responsibilities can be given greater resonance in a way which does not necessarily link them to the adjudication of particular rights”.

There is no question of fundamental human rights being diluted or made conditional on fulfilling responsibilities. A criminal may lose his or her right to liberty by going to prison, but nothing could lawfully detract from his or her right to a fair trial or to be free from ill treatment by the authorities. A bill of rights and responsibilities provides an opportunity to set out the relationship between rights and responsibilities and to emphasise that most rights must be exercised responsibly, bearing in mind the rights of others, rather than in isolation. Of course we believe in absolute rights—for example, freedom from being tortured—so I think that the noble Lord’s criticism was unfair, if I may say so, although I concede that he has not had long to read this document. I am disappointed that his response was not slightly more welcoming for what is, in many ways, an opening up of this serious subject, which needs discussion in this House, in another place and around the country.

My Lords, I welcome the Government’s intention to promote discussion and debate on human rights. While paying tribute to the achievement of this Government in securing the enactment of the Human Rights Act, I ask the Minister whether he agrees that it is difficult to promote public enthusiasm and indeed understanding of the Human Rights Act, a measure that simply implements an international convention and does not attempt, as a fundamental constitutional document should, to express its contents in terms specific to the history, the values and the needs of this country. Does he agree that that is the potential that a British bill of rights and responsibilities offers? Does he agree that only such a document can perform the educative function that a constitutional document should perform? Finally, does he agree that, if we are to move to a British bill of rights and responsibilities which is a fundamental constitutional document, which is principled, which commands public support and which speaks to the ages, it is vital for the discussion and the debate to try, so far as is possible, to avoid party-political considerations?

My Lords, I certainly agree with the noble Lord on that last point—we shall look for consensus. I thank him for his general support for the Green Paper and the ideas behind it. I think that he has a point as far as the introduction of the Human Rights Act is concerned. He wrote an important article in the Times newspaper some months ago in which he made the same point, among others, arguing that the Government may have missed a trick when it introduced that Act in not setting out more clearly and in more detail the values and history behind its principles. I take the point and I hope that, if we got it wrong, we will learn from that experience if there is to be a bill of rights and responsibilities in the future. Of course, one of the values of such a bill would be its educative effect and the way in which it would point out the history and tradition and bring up to date the rights and responsibilities that are crucial to the United Kingdom. There is nothing in what he had to say that I can disagree with and I look forward to his contribution to the debate.

My Lords, is it not important that the public should be aware of something fundamental said by the Minister, Mr Wills, and in the Statement—namely, that the Government have not even made up their mind whether the new rights specified in the Statement should be enforceable in the courts? Does not that really expose an enormously difficult problem? If the Government determine that the new rights should be enforceable in the courts, will there not be legitimate fears of a flood of litigation? If they decide that the new rights should not be enforceable, how on earth can they guarantee that outcome? Have there not been plenty of examples in the past few years of the courts and the ECHR claiming jurisdiction when the Government thought that they had cast-iron safeguards written into the legislation that they were passing to prevent that from happening?

My Lords, my right honourable friend Mr Wills was quite right. One issue for debate is that, if there is a bill of rights and responsibilities, what should be the consequence of breaching those requirements of an Act of Parliament? A bill could take a variety of approaches across a spectrum of legal effect. Even if it had a merely declaratory effect, as some bills and Acts around the world do, such an instrument could still have considerable political and symbolic value. The bill of rights and responsibilities could also provide for different legal effect in relation to different rights. Of course, they would have to be set out clearly; some could be enforceable through the courts, whereas others could be expressed as principles that Parliament has passed and that courts could take into account when trying cases. Principles could be intended either to have symbolic resonance or to act as guidance for politicians making the law, administrators applying the law and courts adjudicating the law. There is no need for every single right and responsibility as legislated for in such a bill to be justiciable. It is not necessarily the case. This is one matter that is crucial to the debate, which is really in two parts: should we have such a bill and, if so, what should be in it?

My Lords, the Minister will be aware that I am in the strange position of having spent 15 months as the unpaid independent adviser on these questions. I eventually resigned in November because I became convinced that the Government would not propose anything that I thought was sensible in terms of constitutional reform. He will be aware that I saw no reason to have two documents, one called the Human Rights Act and another called a bill of rights and responsibilities, the latter not proposing any new enforceable rights or even adding new responsibilities. Today, we have heard the Minister seeking to justify what is now in this document. I must disappoint him by saying that nothing that I have seen and heard about it makes me think that I was wrong to leave my post.

I have a couple of questions. I shall certainly not detain the House with a further explanation of why I think that the poet Horace might have said something about the mountains labouring and producing something not very satisfactory. First, why does not the Green Paper deal with the real, practical problem created by the YL decision, which means that private bodies exercising public functions are outside the scope of the Human Rights Act? Why does not the Green Paper or any other measure propose to fill that gaping hole in the Human Rights Act as it stands? Secondly, building on a question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, I wonder why the Green Paper does not address the question of the language in which the Human Rights Act is expressed. Does the Minister accept that we are the only country in the world for which the first question is the very odd, “Is this compatible with a convention right?”, whereas for the rest of the world the first question—apart from “Is it right?”—would be, “Is this compatible with our bill of rights”? If the Government wished to persuade the public to feel warmly about human rights, would it not have been more sensible to produce what we hoped that they would—a bill of rights and freedoms that did not detract from the convention but added those few extra rights that are lacking in what we now have? Why was that strategy of building on the convention and the Human Rights Act as I have described not even mentioned in this document or, as far as I know, in any other?

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Lester, and thank him for the help that he gave when he was advising the Government. I put on the record the fact that we regret that he felt the need to resign when he did. However, I am disappointed that he is not in some ways enthusiastic about this Green Paper emerging to start a national debate on moving the whole human rights debate forward. I would have thought that he, of all people, would in many ways like to see the possible addition of other rights related to the social and economic changes that have taken place since the post-war convention was negotiated and signed. The Green Paper does not deal with all the issues that he raises because, frankly, it tries to look forward and ask whether it is in this nation’s interests to have a bill of rights and responsibilities. It poses some of the issues that need to be considered if such a course is taken.

My Lords, without wishing in any way to resile from the Human Rights Act and the discussion so far, may I ask the Minister whether he agrees that there is a danger of the discussion being set up in terms of the power of the state and the rights of the individual in a way that is too exclusive of all the other institutions of society that, it seems to me, embody our values? The noble Lord mentioned the family; it is, in fact, mentioned in paragraph 2.33, but very briefly. In our society, beyond the family or other groups, we now have whole communities with particular ethnic traditions and backgrounds. How we allow them an opportunity to flourish and to continue their traditions within the framework of British values is, it seems to me, part of the key discussion that needs to take place. Let me choose the issue of education as an example. A constant sniping at faith-based education tends to occur in our society. There must be a way of enshrining a right to education, coloured by the traditions of particular communities, which nevertheless respects the fundamental values of our society. In the consultation that is about to take place, may I urge that a particular effort is made to consult the new communities and ethnic traditions that are part of our society? The success of this operation will largely depend not on a binary dynamic of the state and the individual but on that whole area of society in between, which Governments cannot control and which transcends individuals.

My Lords, I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate for his remarks. We of course want this discussion and debate to go much wider than the political classes. We want it to involve all of society. One difficulty is in getting people interested in a debate such as this, which is why I hope that there will be a programme later this year to take these ideas out into communities. That will of course include ethnic minority communities and have an emphasis on families. One argument for the proposed bill is that it may be desirable to have in one place, although they may not necessarily be suitable as legally enforceable duties, the key responsibilities that we all owe as members of society, one of which might be safeguarding and promoting the well-being of children in our care. That issue really affects everyone, as the right reverend Prelate was saying. Therefore, his comments will be taken very much on board.

My Lords, I share my noble friend’s surprise about the puzzling situation of the two opposition parties confessing that they had not read the paper but then going on to say that it is muddled. It reminds me of the student who knew he was going to have trouble doing his homework so he got his strike in first. Both these parties have—if I may use an inelegant legal term—form. Both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats supported the Prevention of Terrorism Act with its internal exile, and the Conservatives supported a ban on Gerry Adams being broadcast on the BBC. They also supported certain aspects of locking people up without trial in Northern Ireland, as indeed did my own party at times. It shows the delicacy of the relationship between society and government.

I have two brief points for the Minister. First, I very much welcome the rights and responsibilities argument. However, does he not accept that the responsibility bit has to be at least in part about education, because it is difficult to legislate for that? The other point we need to remember in this debate is that technological change has a dramatic effect on society. The data collection methods available to us now are a very important part not only of the protection of society but of the need to enhance the rights of individuals. Perhaps we have not given enough attention to the principles underlying the complexity of data and the scientific methods of collecting them as we should have done. As a result of this change, society is fundamentally different from what it was even 50 years ago, never mind 100 years ago.

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend, and I take his last point. One of the reasons we have raised the issue now is that British society has changed so hugely over recent years, not least in the field of technology. As for responsibilities, education of course plays a crucial and vital part in those. We hope that regardless of what view is ultimately taken on whether or not to have a Bill, the effect of the debate will be to bring out more into the public domain the issue of the responsibility that we all owe each other and the responsibility that the state owes the citizen.

My Lords, perhaps I will be pardoned if I do not join with the noble Lords, Lord Kingsland and Lord Thomas of Gresford, in the icy welcome that they gave to the Green Paper and the Statement. If one looks at the views expressed by juridicial constitutional writers over the past century, one finds such a huge range of views expressed that one could well say that it was a muddled situation. I have not read the Green Paper but it seems to me that it refers to both the treasury of possibilities that exist and the thicket of problems that are clearly attached to almost every consideration. Perhaps I may therefore ask the Minister the following. Even though it is sensible and inevitable that there should be no legislation before the next election, will he consider publishing even before the next election a White Paper—not a paper of pristine whiteness; a paper possibly with green edges—that sets forth some leadership on the part of the Government on this crucial, central question which is the heart and kernel of it all, as to whether the rights and responsibilities that we are talking about should be of a declaratory nature or whether they should have the binding force of legislation.

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his support. The initial plan is for the consultation responses to be submitted by 15 June, in 12 weeks’ time. We will use the evidence gathered from written responses for our proposed regional events, which will take place over the summer and into early autumn. We need to discuss with the devolved legislatures their position on this. As I say, we do not propose to bring forward any legislation in this Parliament. Before legislation is brought there will undoubtedly have to be a White Paper, and probably a fairly pristine White Paper in this case. I fear that that White Paper may well not emerge until after the election.

My Lords, does the Minister agree that one of the greatest threats to our civilisation, perhaps the greatest threat, comes from violent Islamism? Does he further agree that all must be equal under our law, including women, gays and those who wish to convert from Islam to another faith, and that Sharia law should therefore not be allowed to go on holding sway in this country? Will this or any more urgent legislation achieve that?

My Lords, Sharia law does not hold sway in this country.

My Lords, the Statement refers to paying taxes as a responsibility. However, the duty to pay taxes is not mentioned in the Green Paper. If we are to have a bill of responsibilities as well as of rights, should not the use of artificial tax avoidance schemes be made a breach of the responsibilities in that bill?

My Lords, I am delighted to say that I think the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, will be playing a leading role in the debate that will take place on this Green Paper.