My Lords, I should probably start by saying, “as I was saying”. I apologise again to the Committee for some confusion about an earlier amendment. Members of the Committee were either excessively polite, in the manner of your Lordships’ House, or completely unengaged with what I was saying, and did not interrupt me for some time. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, for eventually doing so.
I do not want to repeat what I have already said, but refer the avid reader of Hansard back to the report of earlier this evening. I will repeat my requests that we discuss before Report the relationship between how statutory nuisance and nuisance under the Bill are dealt with. Community protection notices, particularly noise abatement notices, address very similar problems. I am aware that guidance will have a role to play here, and I hope to contribute to it.
Amendment 22NA, which provides that the detriment under Clause 40(1) should be significant, speaks for itself. It should be more than a de minimis matter. Amendment 22ND deals with the possible clash of the use of CPNs and existing statutory powers, as does Amendment 22NE. Amendment 22NF, unlike the earlier amendments, seemed desirable to me—I do not mean that the others are not desirable but that this is my drafting, not someone else’s. I suggest that the community protection notice should explain not only the points set out in Clause 40 but the remedial action proposed given the powers to be provided under Clause 44, which will essentially allow the local authority to go in, carry out work and charge.
Amendments 22QD and 22QE take us into Clause 43, which is about appeals against community protection notices, and are probing in the hope that the Minister will be able to confirm that modification of a notice which the magistrates’ court may make on appeal can be only in favour of the applicant and that modification can include variation by reducing the requirements—in
other words, that the appellant will not be in danger of finding himself with harsher restrictions or provisions. I beg to move.