My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 38A, 38B and 39A. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has made a very powerful case against Clause 14, in which he referred to the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, particularly our concerns about the “little weight” point.
The Joint Committee acknowledged that Clause 14,
“could be considered to be Parliament's fulfilment of the important obligation imposed on it by the principle of subsidiarity, to take primary responsibility for the protection of Convention rights in national law by providing a detailed legal framework to give effect to them”.
But, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said, we expressed our unease about the “little weight” provision, which we considered to be,
“a significant, and possibly unprecedented, trespass by the legislature into the judicial function”.
Our concerns remain despite the Government’s response to our report, which did not,
“specifically address our concern about these particular provisions going too far by seeking to prescribe the weight to be given to certain considerations, but merely repeats the Government’s general justification”—
this seems to be a pattern: the point is made and the Government justify it with exactly the same point without any real engagement with the arguments that are being made—
“for the provisions in clause 14 of the Bill: that it is ‘right and helpful that Parliament should set out what the public interest requires in the clear and practical terms reflected in clause 14, which reflect the case-law’”.
I think that the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has fairly well demolished that argument.
The report continues:
“We remain concerned by these provisions in the Bill, which do not seek to guide the courts about the public interest considerations to be taken into account in deciding whether an interference with private or family life is justified, but rather seek to influence the amount of weight given to the right itself in particular types of case”.
The amendments to which I am speaking would give effect to the Joint Committee’s original recommendation that,
“the Bill be amended in a way which retains this as a relevant consideration to be weighed in the balance, but does not seek to prescribe the weight to be given to the right in that balancing exercise”.