Serious Crime Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 64: 64: Clause 7 , page 6, line 30, at beginning insert— ““(1)”” The noble Baroness said: I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 65, 66 and 130 as well. Clause 7 provides that the Secretary of State may, by order, expressly exclude the application of a serious crime prevention order to those people who fall within a specified description. The order is currently subject to the negative resolution procedure. Our amendment has adopted a probing approach and would make the process subject to the affirmative procedure. We have tabled it simply to ask the Government which classes of people might be added in the future by this procedure. At present, the only class specifically excluded in the Bill is those who are under the ageof 18. The fifth report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee states that it is common practice for powers to except from a statutory regime and common practice that the powers should be subject to the negative procedure. We recognise that, and we are not contesting the procedure in this case; even though we have tabled this amendment, it is probing. However, I wish to follow up the committee’s observation at paragraph 8 in particular, when it states that the memorandum from the Home Office says that, "““there may be certain persons that should not be capable of being subject to a serious crime prevention order because it would not be appropriate for them to be so subject. The House may wish to seek a fuller explanation of the Government’s intentions for the use of this power””." I certainly would like a fuller explanation. I agree with the committee that the Government have not yet given further information; the memorandum could hardly be more vague on this point, hence these amendments. Might the Government, for example, consider exempting those who have a history of mental incapacity, to return to some of my earlier concerns? At the moment, the answer that was given by the Home Office in the memorandum to the Select Committee appears to undermine some of the arguments that were used against me earlier in terms of a person’s mental state and the issue of intent. I feel sure that that is not the objective of this part of the Bill, but it is important for the Government to flesh out which categories of people they think could have this blanket exemption in future. I beg to move.