Baroness O’Loan (CB)

The noble and learned Lord is interrupting me but I am not going to give way. As the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House said, it is our duty to scrutinise, approve, amend or reject any Bill. Constitutionally, we are under no duty to pass a Bill simply because the other place did so. No constitutional crisis will ensue when this Bill fails, as it probably will do today. A majority of MPs now agree that that is the case. Government Ministers have told the House that the Government are not responsible for ensuring that safety is considered and provided for in legislation —that it is a matter for the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, and, ultimately, a duty of this House to scrutinise draft legislation in order to ensure that what we pass is safe. Yet what has happened is that, although the noble and learned Lord has made multiple commitments to table amendments to remedy problems, he has not done so. Indeed, some of the amendments that he has tabled have reduced the safeguards contained in the Bill, such as those inserted by Daniel Francis MP and Jess Asato MP, which relate to people with learning disabilities and domestic abuse. We know that it has been said that MPs expected this House to scrutinise the Bill and improve it, but, as The Parliament Politics reports: “New data has emerged suggesting that the initial support for the bill was not an endorsement of its specific mechanics, but rather a tentative nod toward a concept that many MPs now believe is fundamentally unsafe”. Now, only 40% of them would vote for the Bill, while 45% would not. As has been said, there was no pre-legislative scrutiny, consultation or proper impact assessment before the Bill was introduced. The result was widespread concern, not least among the professional organisations. The short Lords Select Committee that took evidence received very specific, detailed criticisms and concerns from stakeholders. Most of those concerns have not been addressed by the Bill’s sponsor, including concerns articulated by the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Royal College of Pathologists, the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Physicians, the British Geriatrics Society, the Law Society, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and the organisation Standing Together Against Domestic Abuse. These are very real concerns about the safety of the Bill, its impact and its effect on professionals and ordinary people. The debates at Second Reading and in Committee have enabled very extensive and necessary discussion on much of the Bill—but because it was so deficient when it came to your Lordships’ House, much remains to be considered. At least 244 Peers have been directly involved in scrutiny of the Bill in Committee. The average speech has lasted less than seven minutes. It has been said that only a handful of Peers tabled amendments. In fact, 92 Peers tabled or supported amendments. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, tabled 76 amendments. The noble Lords, Lord Birt and Lord Pannick, tabled 35 amendments jointly. Apart from that, the supporters of the Bill did not table any amendments and nor, for the most part, was there any constructive contribution to improving the Bill. We have now debated more than 800 amendments. In the course of that debate, we have considered not just seven clauses, as has been asserted. Rather, we have considered Clauses 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 41, 42, 43, 47, 49, 50, 51, 56, 57, 58 and 59, and Schedules 1, 2 and 3, in whole or in part.