Raab says he wants to stop UK being bound by injunctions from European court of human rights
The deportation flight to Rwanda was stopped from leaving the UK on Tuesday night not because the European court of human rights ruled that the policy was illegal, but because the court granted what was effectively an injunction saying the removal of one of the people on the flight should be halted.
In interviews this morning Dominic Raab, the justice secretary and deputy PM, said the UK government wanted to stop the court having that sort of power of injunction in Britain. He said the government’s bill of rights – legislation promised in the Queen’s speech amending the Human Rights Act – would address this. He told Times Radio:
In relation to the latest intervention from Strasburg, so called rule 39 interim orders, which are not grounded in the European convention [on human rights], they’re based on the rules of procedure, internal rules of the court. I certainly believe – and our bill of rights would provide – that they should not have legally binding effect under UK law.
In terms of the rule of law, I think when the high court, the court of appeal, have considered the matter, the supreme court, and said there is no grounds for an appeal, it is not right. And there is no basis in the European convention for Strasburg to intervene.
I’ve always said I think we should stay a state party [to the court]. But I think it requires us to respect the obligations, but also the Strasburg court to respect the limits of its mandate and it’s a two way street.
Waiting list for hospital treatment in England reaches 6.5m – new record high
The number of people in England waiting to start routine hospital treatment has risen to a new record high, PA Media reports. PA says:
A total of 6.5 million people were waiting to start treatment at the end of April, NHS England said.
This is up from 6.4 million in March and is the highest number since records began in August 2007.
The number of people having to wait more than 52 weeks to start hospital treatment in England stood at 323,093 in April, up from 306,286 the previous month.
The Government and NHS England have set the ambition of eliminating all waits of more than a year by March 2025.
Journalists often like to take credit for forcing the resignation of politicians or senior public figures. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein set this as a benchmark for journalistic virility with Watergate and – rightly or wrongly – this has been a feature of newspaper culture ever since.
Normally it is news reporters or investigative journalists who get to claim scalps. But in the case of Lord Geidt, it may be the sketchwriters – including my colleague, John Crace – who forced him out. Geidt experienced a very bruising session with the Commons public administration and constitutional affairs committee on Tuesday, but facing the questions can’t have been as painful as reading about it in the papers the following day. Here is John’s sketch.
On Sky News this morning Dominic Raab, the justice secretary and deputy PM, said he thought the committee hearing was a factor in Geidt’s resignation. He said:
He had a pretty rough grilling by MPs this week, I think sometimes we in the media and as politicians maybe underestimate how civil servants feel with that kind of scrutiny.
Raab is right to say Geidt is someone who for most of his career has not had to put up with media vilification. For 10 years he was private secretary to the Queen and in that post he was regarded as a sophisticated establishment powerbroker.
Being turned into a figure of ridicule at the select comittee can’t have been pleasant for him. But the hearing did also force him to face questions about his own role that he found hard to answer.
Cabinet Office minister to respond to Commons urgent question about Geidt’s resignation at 10.30am
A Cabinet Office minister will answer an urgent question about the resignation of…