Member

I turn to Amendment 5, the “reasonable excuse” amendment. As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said, we had a discussion on Report in which I did not actually put forward what a reasonable excuse might be, but in a subsequent private discussion, I postulated that it might be a young person or somebody who lacked mental capability. I still think those are cases where one might advance that argument, but a more general point is that it is very common in courts up and down the land to have “reasonable excuse” arguments. One hears those arguments all the time, and it is for judges and magistrates to decide whether they think they are indeed a reasonable excuse. There is nothing unusual about that at all. Since the offence itself is, first, so widely drawn, and, secondly, novel, it is prudent to include the “reasonable excuse” wording within the definition of this offence. So, we will be opposing the noble Baroness’s Amendment 5.