Committees

Legislative Scrutiny: Bill of Rights Bill

Legislative scrutiny

Background

On 22 June 2022 the Bill of Rights Bill had its first reading in the House of Commons. The Bill, if enacted, would repeal and replace the Human Rights Act 1998. The introduction of the Bill of Rights follows: a 2019 manifesto commitment to “update” the Human Rights Act; the Independent Human Rights Act Review; two previous inquiries by this Committee; and the Government’s public consultation exercise which elicited over 12,000 responses.

The Bill of Rights

Although the Government has confirmed the UK will stay party to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the Bill of Rights would make significant changes to the Human Rights landscape in the UK. Clause 1 of the Bill states that the Bill “clarifies and re-balances the relationship between courts in the United Kingdom, the European Court of Human Rights and Parliament.”

Our inquiry

On 30 June 2022 the Committee wrote to the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor, the Rt Hon Dominic Raab MP setting out our preliminary analysis of the Bill of Rights (available here). The Committee will continue to conduct legislative scrutiny of the Bill of Rights and produce a report in due course.

Help inform our work

Read the initial call for evidence for more detail about the inquiry.

In addition to calling for written evidence from people wishing to respond to the questions set out in the terms of reference, the Committee has also set up an online survey to hear a wider range of views on the Bill of Rights Bill.

Link to the online survey can be found here.

This inquiry is no longer accepting evidence

The deadline for submissions was Friday 26 August 2022.

Upcoming events

View all events

No upcoming events scheduled

Past events

Wednesday 14 December 2022
4:00pm Private
4:15pm Public
Legislative Scrutiny: Bill of Rights Bill - Oral evidence 14 December 2022
4:15pm
  • Rt Hon Dominic Raab (Deputy Prime Minister and Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice at Ministry of Justice)
Room 16, Palace of Westminster
Wednesday 7 September 2022
2:45pm Private
3:00pm Public
Legislative Scrutiny: Bill of Rights Bill - Oral evidence 7 September 2022
3:00pm
  • Sir Peter Gross QC (Chair at Independent Human Rights Act Review Panel)
3:45pm
  • Lord Sumption (Former Judge at Supreme Court)
  • Professor Tom Hickman QC (Barrister at Blackstone Chambers, and Professor of Public Law at University College London)
  • Kate O'Regan (Professor of Human Rights Law at The University of Oxford, and Director at The Bonavero Institute of Human Rights)
Room 16, Palace of Westminster

Contact us

The Committee is unable to look into individual cases

  • Email: jchr@parliament.uk
  • Phone: 0207 219 2793 (general enquiries) | 020 7219 8430 (media enquiries)
  • Address: Joint Committee on Human Rights, Houses of Parliament. London. SW1A 0AA