We too are obviously concerned about the right to access a solicitor. My name, and that of my noble friend Lord Kennedy, is attached to all the amendments in this group, but the one I wish to speak to in particular is Amendment 86. As the others do, this amendment refers to legal professional privilege and to a person’s ability to consult a lawyer in private in relation to stops at the border. As has been said, there is a power in the Bill for an officer not only to watch someone receiving legal advice but to hear that legal advice being given.
Concerns were raised by the Government when the matter was discussed in the Commons. The first argument advanced by the Government was that, rather than contacting a lawyer, a person might contact someone they wanted to notify of the fact that they had been stopped. The Government further argued that that person might notify a lawyer who would not adhere to the professional standards that we would expect and who might pass some information on. The third argument advanced was that of a lawyer inadvertently passing on a piece of information. That appears to be the guts of the Government’s argument in favour of what is in the Bill at present.
As the Minister will know, the shadow Minister for Security in the Commons put forward a proposition that there should be a panel of lawyers, properly regulated, he said, by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Law Society. I have subsequently found out that not necessarily all lawyers hold those organisations in complete awe, but the principle was one of having a panel of lawyers that was properly regulated. In his response in the Commons, the Minister for Security said he thought that the suggestion was a good one and promised to take it away and look at it.
I hope that, in the light of that, we will be able to make some progress on this issue and that the Minister, on behalf of the Government, will be able to indicate movement—a great deal of movement, I hope—on the Government’s part towards the objective of ensuring a right to legal advice, to access a solicitor and to do so in private.