Baroness Coffey (Con)

My Lords, I rise to support the amendments in my noble friends’ names, particularly Amendments 3 and 26. They are useful. I am conscious that this law, if passed, will apply to the Covid inquiry, because that is not yet complete. What is not clear—we will come to this in later groups—is whether the modules that have already been published will be out of scope if, as a consequence, some of this might get involved. I mentioned “may be relevant” because, during an inquiry process, often you will put in a lot of information—although not all the information—and the inquiry will determine what gets published. I am not aware that you are allowed to publish anything until the inquiry decides to publish. As a consequence, there may be elements that you feel were missed out, for whatever reason, by the people running the inquiry, and which you think are relevant to why, for example, a departmental body acted in particular way. In supporting Amendment 3, I just wanted to get that clarity. I also agree entirely about the definition of “reckless”. I think it is important it goes on the face of the Bill. Not that I believe all judges are activists when it comes to widening the scope of legislation, but it certainly happens a lot. Getting into the ins and outs of what may be considered relevant or reckless could well become a very wide-ranging beast, depending on the case of the day, which then has knock-on implications. It is better to support what my noble friend has tabled to make sure that, when we are considering this in terms of the inquiries and investigations, it is much more precise.