Tory: 'Scrap' Human Rights Act

The Justice Secretary Chris Grayling has defended his announcement that the Conservatives would pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights if they won a majority in 2015.

He said that "If anyone sits down and reads it (the convention) as a document (they) would struggle to find a word they disagreed with. It was written in the aftermath of the Second World War, the Holocaust, all the issues in the eastern bloc."

"What's happened since then, the decision-making in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, has moved I think that convention further and further away from the original intentions of its authors."

He added: "To my mind human rights is about some of the appalling things happening around the world, people being brutalised for their political views, people being put in jail. It's not about saying a prisoner has a right to artificial insemination while they're in jail."

Following report in the Mail on Sunday that Britain is set to pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights in a move to be announced by the Home Secretary Theresa May, a home office spokesman said

Meanwhile, the Justice Secretary Chris Grayling was quoted in The Sunday Telegraph as saying that said a Conservative majority would repeal the Human Rights Act.

The Justice Secretary said a Conservative majority would repeal the Human Rights Act, which the Liberal Democrats are pledged to defend.

In comments made to The Sunday Telegraph, Chris Grayling said his party needs to be “clear” ahead general election that it would “start again” after abolishing the Act, which enshrines the European Convention on Human Rights in domestic law.