My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, gave some well-deserved compliments to my noble friend Lord Paddick, but he was not trying to improve these proposed clauses. He was trying to show why they should not go forward, and he did.
There are many points that puzzle me, but I will ask about two. First, on prevention orders, is the phrase “causing or contributing to” used elsewhere in legislation? Certainly, “contributing” is a vaguer term than I have come across elsewhere. Would it extend to financial contributions? Is a response to a crowdfunding appeal caught by it?
The second point, to which my noble friend Lord Beith referred, relates to Amendment 319J. It refers a person who
“intentionally obstructs a constable in the exercise of the constable’s powers”.
How does that fit with the advice given after Sarah Everard’s abduction and murder about requiring another constable to be called, flagging down a bus, and so on? I simply do not understand the policy.