Britain needs to look at scrapping the Human Rights Act, David Cameron has said.

The prime minister's comments are his strongest signal that he will promise to ditch the legislation in the next Conservative election manifesto.

Speaking in Lancashire on Thursday, Cameron also suggested the Liberal Democrats had been blocking Tory moves to abandon the legislation.

"We need to look at scrapping the Human Rights Act," he said. "There are some problems, like this issue of human rights where I think a Conservative-only government will be able to take more sensible steps."

Earlier this year Theresa May, the home secretary, and Chris Grayling, the justice secretary, hinted that a future Conservative government would get rid of the legislation.

At the time, Grayling said: "I cannot conceive of a situation where we could put forward a serious reform without scrapping Labour's Human Rights Act and starting again.

"We cannot go on with a situation where people who are a threat to our national security, or who come to Britain and commit serious crimes, are able to cite their human rights when they are clearly wholly unconcerned for the human rights of others."

May and Grayling indicated their support for scrapping the act in the wake of Ukip's success in the Eastleigh byelection, despite the prime minister's claim that he would not countenance a "lurch to the right".

Backbench Tories on the right of the party have been disappointed by the coalition's failure to scrap or reform the legislation over the last few years.

The Conservatives pledged to replace the act with a British bill of rights in their last election manifesto. However, the coalition has made no move to do so and Cameron has previously said his attempts at reform were going slower than he would like.