Serious Crime Bill [HL]

We have some sympathy for the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, but at the same time we also have sympathy for the arguments put forward by the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe. If that sounds confusing, I have to say that the Government’s own position is somewhat muddled. The noble Baroness will recall that the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, intervened in her speech at Second Reading to ask whether an undertaking could be given to add the words ““beyond reasonable doubt”” to the Bill. That followed her statement that in effect it was not necessary because, "““where serious assertions are made, the civil standard can be virtually the same on certain issues as the criminal standard. Recent case law has stated clearly that in proceedings like these the court will look at the civil standard as a sliding scale, with the likely standard of proof for these orders being very close to the criminal standard of ‘beyond reasonable doubt’””.—[Official Report, 7/2/07; col. 729.]" If that is the case, I fail to see why the noble Baroness resists actually having the words ““beyond reasonable doubt”” on the statute book. When considering the first amendment, my noble friend made it clear that we are sceptical about the Government’s proposals and that at this stage all our amendments are designed to probe exactly what they intend and whether what they are doing is really a step too far in terms of how they intend to deal with serious crime. For the same reason, we have some sympathy for this amendment in order to tease out exactly what the Government intend—whether they really believe that ““beyond reasonable doubt”” can be inferred, as the noble Baroness put it, as a result of recent case law, or whether it might be better to add the words to the Bill.