My Lords, I can be relatively brief. Do not worry—it is a temporary blip.
Amendments 298, 308 and 319 question “serious disruption” being decided by the Secretary of State rather than being either defined in the Bill, as my noble friend Lord Beith proposes, or simply left to its natural meaning, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, suggests in his Amendment 308.
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In the debate on the previous group, the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, quoted what the former Prime Minister and Home Secretary Theresa May said during Second Reading in the other place. The full quote is actually slightly longer than what the noble Lord quoted:
“It is tempting when Home Secretary to think that giving powers to the Home Secretary is very reasonable, because we all think we are reasonable, but future Home Secretaries may not be so reasonable … I would urge the Government to consider carefully the need to walk a fine line between being popular and populist. Our freedoms depend on it.”—[Official Report, Commons, 15/3/21; col. 78.]
Along with the right honourable Theresa May MP, we support these amendments.