Protection of Freedoms Bill

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Selsdon came to the House in, I think, 1963, as a member of the Independent Unionist Peers. I came somewhat later in 1977, and also joined that group. I was obviously not independent enough as soon after that they were rechristened the Association of Conservative Peers. Obviously, I take note of and am interested in what my noble friend said on these matters. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, I pay tribute to his diligence and doggedness in this matter over the last 48 years—or is it even longer than that? The noble Lord has battled with these matters for a long time. I was also fascinated to hear what he said about placing things in the Library. That is something that I have said on a number of occasions. I never knew that it was purely the prerogative of Ministers. If that is what my noble friend said then that must be the case. I also note with interest what the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, said in regard to one of the noble Lord’s amendments, which suggested that we could amend such a list by negative resolution. She wished to see it amended only by affirmative resolution. In due course, she might come to regret that. She might remember that there was a time when we had a very large number of paralytic shellfish orders going through the House, which, for some peculiar reason, had to all be agreed by affirmative resolution. I suspect that that was an opposition party—I do not know whether it was us or the party opposite—moving an amendment in the course of some Bill relating to shellfish, thinking, ““Gosh, here’s an amendment we can get the Government on. Let’s make it affirmative rather than negative””. The rather rash Minister may have agreed—just so that he had a concession to offer the party opposite—that it should be affirmative and then all of us came to regret it later when we had a whole raft of these affirmative resolutions to deal with, which would not have been necessary. In this case, that would be the case because there are a very large number of powers of entry and we would want to keep the list under review. But we think it is better to keep it under review by means of administrative methods rather than at a legislation level. The publication of a list in legislation requires that it is kept up to date and altered every time any power of entry was created, repealed or amended. I do not think that that would be the best use of parliamentary time. While I agree that there should be a readily available and up-to-date list of powers, I am not persuaded that what my noble friend suggests is the right way about it. We believe that clarity and transparency can be achieved by publishing an up-to-date list of powers of entry alongside the Bill or, for that matter, any other enactment. The list, which is currently available on the Home Office website, not only identifies the statutes conferring powers of entry but also lists the relevant sections within those Acts and the purpose of each power. Responsible Ministers will use this list as their starting point for undertaking the detailed review that we want them to do to look at all powers of entry, which is required under Clause 42. That review requires responsible Ministers to examine the justification for these powers and whether they are proportionate and contain adequate safeguards, which, again, is something that my noble friend wants. Those that are no longer needed will be repealed. All that work will be co-ordinated by my department, the Home Office, which is also responsible for managing the gateway that was established to limit the creation and amendment of powers of entry. We have made every effort to ensure that the list we have published is up-to-date, but the review of powers of entry will also cover any others that may be identified as a result of further research. Perhaps I may offer my apologies to my noble friend because it is only by doing further research that we discover that such-and-such a statute of such-and-such a year contains some powers and needs to be looked at. Finally, I turn to my noble friend’s Amendment 131A, for which I have considerably more sympathy if it is intended as an alternative to the approach proposed in Amendments 131 and 132. I can certainly accept the spirit of that amendment. As I have said, there should be a readily available and up-to-date list of powers of entry. Again, however, we do not think that it should appear in statute. I have some doubts as to whether to we need to write a duty to publish such a list in the Bill but I am more than happy to discuss that with my noble friend during the next few weeks before we get to Report. We want to be transparent and to make something available but we do not think that the Act or the Bill is the right places to do it. As I have said, I have a degree of sympathy for Amendment 131A. I am prepared to look at that and to discuss it with my noble friend.