Lord Sandhurst (Con)

My Lords, I did not speak at Second Reading and for that I apologise. On this side of the Committee, we support the direction of travel of this Bill. We agree and endorse the principle that all those before the criminal courts should be treated equally and without special treatment. We have heard, however, compelling arguments from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett, and other speakers about the difficulties with the drafting of this Bill and the way it is framed. What I will say about the amendments is on the basis that, while we support the purpose of the Bill and in particular stand by our amendments in the third group—we believe they will bring to Parliament its proper role when it comes to guidelines—we see that there are issues with the terms to which these amendments are directed. Having said that, I can deal quite quickly with the amendments, without any disrespect to those who have spoken in support of them. We believe that Amendment 1, from the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, would detract from the Bill. We refer to our amendments in the third group and say that what is contained there would enable Parliament to address the points the noble Baroness made in practice. Similar arguments apply to Amendment 3, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. We do not favour this amendment and believe it goes too far in reversing the purpose of the Bill. We listened with great respect, as I have already said, to the arguments advanced by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett, which we think have great force. We can see that there could be unforeseen and unintended—perhaps they are foreseen, but they are certainly unintended—adverse consequences. With this and the other amendments, we await with interest what the Minister has to say in reply. We would make similar observations in respect of Amendment 4, from the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and Amendment 5, which we believe, to the extent that it adds to the Bill, detracts from its message and is a move in the wrong direction. On Amendment 6, again from the noble Lord, Lord Marks, we advance the same reasons as we have done in respect of the other amendments, and his Amendment 4. On Amendments 11 and 12, we have nothing to add to what I have said before, but we believe that the Government must address the arguments advanced to ensure that the Bill is clearly drawn and does not have unintended adverse consequences that simply make the situation worse. We invite the Government to look carefully at this and, indeed, the aims of Amendments 12 and 13, although we believe that the Bill is right to focus in the direction that it does. The noble Lord, Lord Beith, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester also raised important specific points in relation to specific matters. Again, we will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say, but we see merit in the view expressed by the Constitution Committee, not in respect to those amendments in particular but, of course, in relation to other amendments. That is all that I propose to say at this stage in respect of this group.