Commons Bill [HL]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendments—particularly Amendment No. 57. My noble friend talked about retrospective cases that might be brought by the relevant authorities. Of course, that could be extended to the present. It is now extended to include the general public, and we go back to the whole question of vexatious legislation. I certainly do not wish to go through that again, but I suggest to your Lordships that if anything seriously untoward had taken place before the date mentioned in my noble friend’s amendment—that is, June 2005—surely the relevant authorities would already have had the opportunity to take action. In Committee, when we debated the possibility of reopening the whole question of registers, the Minister said, ““Let sleeping dogs lie””. I suggest to the Minister that perhaps he might take a similar approach in this instance. I feel strongly that every effort should be made to reduce conflict between the access providers and the access users, as my noble friend said when she spoke to other amendments. I think that this would be a small but important example where that concept could be implemented and so I very much hope that the Minister can take a magnanimous view in this case.