Lord Fox (LD)

My Lords, this debate has been more interesting than I expected. In looking at Amendment 65, we should acknowledge that the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, with his former ministerial responsibilities, had considerable interaction with the services that he described, so we should take him seriously. In Amendment 65A, he sets out certain sectors. However, in seeking to deliver unambiguity, I think he has introduced new ambiguity. Sector-specific exemptions are bringing their own problems. I asked the noble Lord, Lord Murray, what a journalist is. Is it a card-carrying member of the NUJ or is it someone who blogs and calls themselves a journalist, or a group of people? That is just one example of the ambiguity that a sector system brings in. So I am drawn to the idea that we have something like subsection (1ZA) in Clause 9(3). If noble Lords are worried about the wooliness of it—I am not sure that was the word that the noble Lord, Lord Murray, used—we can work to firm that language up. But to describe the job, rather than try to think of every single job title we want to include in primary legislation, is a better way of going about it. If the description is too difficult to nail, I am sure it is not beyond the wit of us all to find a better way of describing it. Had the noble Lord, Lord Murray, been here a little earlier, he would have heard the shortcomings of the tribunal system being well exercised, and some comments from the noble Lord to the effect that the MoJ is looking at it. To return to that point, in my speech on the last group I asked for a meeting, so perhaps the Ministers could facilitate a meeting with interested parties on the Bill and the MoJ to find out how it is moving forward on tribunals; we need some line of sight on that. It is something of a capitulation if we say, “The tribunals are no good, so we’re not going to make the right legislation because they won’t be there to uphold it”. We have a duty to make the right legislation, to put it in place and to make sure that the tribunals can deliver.