Serious Crime Bill [HL]

My Lords, perhaps I may apologise to the noble Baroness. Because I thought that we were in agreement, I did not avail myself of the opportunity of dealing with all the technical niceties. As always, the noble Baroness, as quick as a flash, has reminded me that ““full and long”” often ends up being ““shorter””. Amendment No. 39 makes provision for the protection that I have already described. The second subsection reminds the reader that, while compliance with any requirement over-rides any restrictions on disclosure, there are still restrictions on the requirements that can be imposed. There is now a significant number of such signpost provisions on the statute book and we consider them to be a useful tool to help in the understanding of the legislation. Perhaps I may provide the noble Baroness with examples of where she can find similar signposting provisions, not just in relation to the Home Office. Provisions similar to subsection (2) of the new clause are to be found in Sections 1(3) and 4(4) of the Companies Act 2006, Sections 1(6), 2(2) and 3(2)of the Income Tax (Trading and Other Income)Act 2005, and Section 5(6) of the Housing Act 2004. There are similar provisions in the Armed ForcesAct 2006, the Charities Act 2006 and the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, the last of which the noble Baroness will remember. This tool has been used with effect in the past and it helps better to understand the legislation. To make the amendments as tabled would be inappropriate, as they do not reflect the order of events that would occur. The order of events is that a requirement is imposed in an order, a person complies with it and that compliance does not breach anyother restrictions on disclosure that might exist. The statement that the compliance does not breach any restrictions on disclosure is not, strictly speaking, limited by the statements in Clauses 11 to 14 about the types of requirements that can be imposed. Rather, the statements in those clauses merely help to set the context within which the statement about compliance operates. Logically, they predate it. I hope that that explanation will help the noble Baroness to understand how the draftsmen have crafted the Bill to do exactly what she would want it to do, as is often the case.