A draft bill of ‘British rights and responsibilities’ to replace the Human Rights Act has failed to appear on the timetable set by the Conservative party.

The bill, announced last October in the party’s paper Protecting Human Rights in the UK, had been due to appear before Christmas. However the Conservatives admitted last week that it was not yet ready for publication.

‘It has been pushed back a little for fine tuning,’ a party source told the Gazette. Publication will ‘definitely’ be before the May general election, the source added.