James Toon, who helped develop the act in the 1990s, responds to an article by Shami Chakrabarti on the pressing need for equal treatment
I read with interest Shami Chakrabarti’s article (The big idea: why we need human rights now more than ever, 6 May). The context for her article is the Conservative right’s repeated calls to repeal the Human Rights Act 1998. This was one of the landmark statutes of the first Blair administration, and its legal and constitutional significance is immense.
Although now retired, I was a member of the Home Office bill team that developed the policy broadly set out in the 1996 Labour document Bringing Rights Home, supported ministers during its passage through parliament, and started work on its implementation. I had several discussions with Jack Straw, the then home secretary.
