This week the House of Commons has been debating the EU (Withdrawal) Bill. Yesterday we focused on the Government’s plans to abandon the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, which Labour is saying will reduce human rights protections.

The Government has claimed that no rights will be lost because the Charter created no new rights. However, their cover has been blown.

In an article from November the new Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Department for Exiting the European Union, Suella Fernandes, wrote that the Charter does indeed create additional “layers of rights”. I brought this up in my speech to the House of Commons yesterday (watch a clip here or read my whole speech here).

Labour’s amendment would have given the Charter rights the same level of protection as those in the Human Rights Act. We must ensure that Brexit is not hijacked to reduce rights for UK citizens.