Call over scope of Bill of Rights

The cross-party Joint Committee on Human Rights said a new Bill should take in new areas of international human rights, and contain a specific guarantee of the right to asylum.

It should also maintain peoples' rights to a "healthy and sustainable environment", the committee added.

But MPs and peers rejected the idea that any rights spelt out in the document could depend on individuals living up to their responsibilities. "We conclude that a Bill of Rights and Freedoms should not include directly enforceable duties," their report said.

Instead, the basic duties of a citizen to have a "civic duty" to their community, the country and future generations could be spelt out in a preamble to the Bill. It also rejected the idea that any new law could be called a "British Bill of Rights" and proposed the name "UK Bill of Rights".

The Government said last year that it would explore the possibility of a new Bill of Rights, while the Conservatives have said they will replace the existing Human Rights Act (HRA) with a similar Bill.

The report said the new Bill should include all the rights spelt out in the HRA plus other new aspects. It should not detract from existing rights in the European Convention on Human Rights, which in enshrined in UK law in the HRA, added the paper. And the HRA should not be repealed until a new Bill of Rights is in place, it insisted.

"We recommend for inclusion, amongst others, the right to trial by jury, the right to administrative justice and international human rights as yet not incorporated into UK law," it said.

"We believe that there is a strong case for... detailed rights for children, and we recommend that the public should be consulted about including specific rights for other vulnerable groups."

Social and economic rights should also feature in the legislation, including the right to health, housing, education and an adequate standard of living, it said.