Dominic Raab is blocking Priti Patel’s demands for an overhaul of human rights laws amid a cabinet rift over the reforms, The Times has learnt.
The home secretary is understood to be pushing for a wider reform of the Human Rights Act to make it harder for foreign criminals and failed asylum seekers to avoid deportation.
Patel wants to make it more difficult for people to claim that they would face torture, inhuman or degrading treatment if they were deported to their home countries.
Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which the Human Rights Act enshrined in law in 1998, prohibits signatories from actions that would lead to people facing “torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”. Patel wants to add a legal definition of Article 3 into the act to prevent judges making “subjective” decisions on what conditions may be faced after deportation.
Government sources say that Raab is blocking the move, insisting that Article 3 is an unqualified right from which signatories cannot deviate. The justice secretary has insisted on limiting the overhaul to tightening the interpretation of Article 8, which protects the right to a family life and privacy.
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He told MPs last week that two thirds of successful appeals against deportation related to Article 8. Raab is expected to publish a report on his plans to overhaul the Human Rights Act next week but has promised MPs that Britain will remain signed up to the ECHR.
Patel dropped similar attempts to reform Article 3 this year after they were reportedly “blocked by other departments”. She is said to have put the demands “back on the table” after the migrant crisis in the Channel.
Last month 27 migrants died trying to cross the Channel in the biggest disaster of the crisis. Almost 27,000 people have sailed to the UK this year, more than triple the number last year.
Patel’s attempt to reform the Human Rights Act is understood to have the support of Steve Barclay, the Cabinet Office minister Boris Johnson put in charge of tackling the migrant crisis.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the House of Commons, is said to support Patel’s push for changes. He has hinted that he would back the move, saying: “We must be able to govern ourselves . . . in a way that secures safety and wellbeing for people trying to come here and people who are already here.” A government source said: “MPs have made very clear they want to see changes and Priti is listening.”
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Patel has argued that the act must be overhauled to reduce the pull factors that encourage migrants to cross the Channel. She has claimed that making it easier to deport people refused asylum will make the journey less desirable.
Raab assured MPs this week that Britain would not withdraw from the ECHR — a position that Patel is understood to support. But he insisted that his reforms, to be published in a report next week, will be limited to tightening interpretation of qualified rights.
It is understood that the reforms will increase the evidence threshold a person must prove to claim that deportation would disrupt their family. The changes are also expected to tighten the rules on family reunion rights.
