Serious Crime Bill [HL]

I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Carnegy of Lour because she highlighted exactly my concern that it is a case of ensuring that there are parameters and that Parliament takes proper responsibility for setting the boundaries within which the judiciary then acts in specific cases. I am concerned that there is so much flexibility and lack of clarity that there could be problems. However, I agree entirely with what the Minister says. There are ways in which one can have safeguards in other parts of the Bill. Therefore, my paving amendment was purposely in Clause 1 because I accept the Minister's argument that Clause 1 of itself does impose on the courts parameters that set the scene before they get to Clause 5. I appreciate that I will always have to look at Clause 5 within the terms of what steps the court has had to go through before it reaches that. The noble Baroness and I are also at one in wanting to get at the pernicious people who may well be dealt with properly by some of the examples given in Clause 5. In particular, the noble Baroness mentioned the case of those who compile what are called ““sucker lists””. They carry out mail shots that offer prizes that may not exist or, if they do, are worthless and when people reply, not only do they find that they have to phone a premium-rate phone line, but also when they reply their details go on to a sucker list which is sold on, as a big-business effort, not only to people in this country who exploit them, but also all around the world. Cases have been well set out in newspapers, particularly in the Sunday newspapers in the money pages, of vulnerable and elderly people—““vulnerable”” and ““elderly”” do not necessarily go together—whose lives have been ruined by these people. The noble Baroness is always very good at presenting to us the hard case which would make us bite our tongues and accept the argument of the Government; ““Oh, well, we’ll take what the Government propose because it could catch these serious criminals””. I agree with the noble Baroness in everything, except that I need to look very carefully at the detail of Clause 5 and whether part of it towards the end may need to be amended to make it a little less flexible and to give it a little more clarity, without undermining its purpose. I shall consider that before Report stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendment No. 9 not moved.]