Leaving the European Convention on Human rights would undo the government’s progress to stop the small boat crossings, the attorney general said today.

In his debut appearance before the House of Lords constitution committee, Lord Hermer (Richard Hermer KC) said the prime minister was ‘crystal clear’ that the UK will not be leaving the convention. ‘There are a number of reasons for that but at the heart of it is it would be completely contrary to the national interest were we to do so,’ Hermer said.

Hermer said the phenomenon faced with irregular migration was not unique to the UK and the solutions to the problem ‘will not be met simply domestically, in splendid isolation to our allies’.

To address small boat crossings, Hermer said the UK needed to cooperate with ‘friends and partners’ in Europe. ‘We are only going to be able to do that within the immigration and asylum context if we are compliant with the ECHR.’

Hermer said that since the Labour government came into power, the UK had reached agreements with ‘real, practical impact’ to address small boat crossings. The committee heard that agreements have been made with France dealing with boats in French territorial waters and the ‘one in, one out’ policy. Germany has agreed to amend its domestic law to deal with the problem of transport of boat materials through Germany to the beaches in France.

Portrait of Richard Hermer

Attorney general Richard Hermer says leaving the ECHR will be contrary to the national public interest

Source: Michael Cross

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‘Now it is inconceivable that our partners would have entered into those agreements if we were not members of the Council of Europe, if we were not signed up to the ECHR,' Hermer said. 'If we leave, those deals go. No one’s going to enter agreements with us if we’re not complying with the same standards across the immigration and asylum system.’

The committee also heard that the UK was adopting a ‘proactive litigation strategy’.

Hermer said: ‘When I came in, I was disturbed to learn that often Home Office officials wouldn’t attend first-tier tribunal decisions, let alone was there in place what I would consider to be a fit-for-purpose litigation strategy identifying the points that were important to the government, appealing cases that really should be appealed. So we’re changing all of that.’