Responding to the speech given by the Home Secretary at the Conservative Party Conference today Tara Lyle, Policy Adviser at Amnesty International UK, said:

“Theresa May is tangling herself up in contradictions in her apparent attempt to play to the crowd.

“With one hand she acknowledges that human rights legislation does not make the right to a family life an absolute, and then says that she is going to legislate to make sure that it is not an absolute right in the future.

“The notion that rights are blunt and inflexible is not correct. The Human Rights Act is often made into a pantomime villain. In fact it is a list of protections that apply to every person in our society.

“It is a shame that the Home Secretary has added to the myths and misunderstandings that abound about the Human Rights Act, as opposed to clearing them up.

“That someone in Theresa May’s position can be so misinformed as to parade out a story about someone being allowed to stay in Britain because of a cat, is nothing short of alarming. She urgently needs to get her facts straight.”