Lord Pannick (CB)

My Lords, this is a regret amendment, and the conduct of Ofcom and the Government on this matter is surely deeply regrettable, for all the reasons that have been given by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Morgan and Lady Kidron. The treatment of small but high-risk services in these regulations simply frustrates the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, to Schedule 11, which was approved by this House and accepted by the Government in the Commons. It contradicts what the Minister, Mr Scully, said in the Commons when he accepted the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, approved by this House, and it fails to address the mischief in this context, which the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and others have clearly identified. I, too, would like to see or even to understand what possible legal advice has led to this lamentable position. The impact of the service does not—it cannot—depend only on the number of users. That was the whole point of the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan. The Minister suggested two arguments, as I understood her, but it is not good enough for her to say—if I may respectfully say so—that small services are still unable to act in an illegal manner. The Act is, of course, designed to provide further regulation—especially so because the criminal law is, regrettably, a blunt and slow instrument. Nor am I persuaded by the Minister’s suggestion that it is simply too difficult to draft regulations to address small but high-risk services. I simply do not accept that the expertise of the department and parliamentary counsel cannot come up with an appropriate regulation to address this mischief.