Ms Helen Flynn:

We are grateful for the opportunity to present our evidence and I thank the Chairman and members for their invitation to address the joint committee. We last gave evidence to it in May 2012 and I propose to provide an update on that evidence.

On the previous occasion we identified two main obstacles to progress on a bill of rights for Northern Ireland. The first was the work of the United Kingdom commission on a bill of rights, while the second was the lack of political consensus in the North. A substantial amount of our work since last May has focused on the work of the UK commission on a bill of rights. The commission was established on 18 March 2011 as a coalition compromise to address the opposing visions of the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats Party for the future shape of human rights protections in the United Kingdom. Put simply, the former wishes to scrap the Human Rights Act, while the latter wishes to protect it. This was highly worrying, but the work of the commission also had wider implications.

Throughout the lifetime of the commission the UK Government repeatedly used it as an excuse to defend the lack of progress on the Northern Ireland bill of rights, stating a section or an add-on to any UK bill of rights proposed by the commission would be the Government's preferred vehicle for developing rights specific to Northern Ireland. We strongly disagreed with the idea of tagging on a Northern Ireland bill of rights to a UK bill of rights in the event that one was introduced. For this reason, we ran a short campaign to allow members of the public in Northern Ireland to respond to the second consultation process of the UK commission last September. The subsequent responses outline two main concerns. A distinct debate is under way in Northern Ireland on a bill of rights and nothing done at a UK level should be allowed to cut across this initiative or reduce current protections. The Northern Ireland debate takes as its starting point the existence of the Human Rights Act since it gives practical effect to the European Convention on Human Rights. This Act should, if anything, be augmented and must not be weakened.

The responses to our campaign accounted for slightly more than 60% of all submissions received by the UK commission on a bill of rights. We followed up this work with meetings with the chair of the commission and UK politicians to ensure our message was as clear as possible. The consortium was relieved to note that the report of the commission on a bill of rights released on 18 December 2012 as it validated our assessment. While the commission failed to reach consensus on many topics in its report, including whether to proceed with a bill of rights in the United Kingdom, its report had this to say about a Northern Ireland Bill of Rights:

In particular we recognise the distinctive Northern Ireland Bill of Rights process and its importance to the peace process in Northern Ireland. We do not wish to interfere in that process in any way nor for any of the conclusions that we reach to be interpreted or used in such a way as to interfere in, or delay, the Northern Ireland Bill of Rights process.

The barrier created by the UK commission on Human Rights process has been unambiguously removed. Furthermore, recent parliamentary questions clarified that the Human Rights Act would not be tampered with under the Government. This proves what we have been arguing for almost two years, namely, that the process was a complete distraction which served only to delay and confuse our process in Northern Ireland. The challenge we now face is to identify how to move forward.

The remaining barrier, in the opinion of the UK Government, is a lack of political consensus on a bill of rights among parties in the North. It could not be argued that the UK Government has been overly-zealous in attempting to overcome this hurdle. On the contrary, it appears to be using it as a reason to sidestep the issue. The only intervention in the debate by the UK Government was in 2011 when it wrote to all five main political parties and tagged on a line about seeking suggestions on ways to make progress on a bill of rights. This is not an adequate display of leadership. The UK Government is failing to fulfil its responsibilities under the Good Friday Agreement. Fifteen years after the agreement was signed, the time to hold the British Government to account is long overdue.

The Human Rights Consortium is encouraged by recent statements by the Irish Government, as co-signatory of the agreement, and look forward to hearing from the joint committee on its work plan for a bill of rights for Northern Ireland. Ms Reilly from the Committee on the Administration of Justice will now speak about the impact of the absence of a bill of rights.