Lord Hacking (Lab)

My Lords, I echo a lot of the concerns that have been expressed so far in this debate. The scrutiny of the Bill by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, is something that I hope we will all take very careful note of. I particularly support my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti in her first intervention. She is very experienced in social matters from her days in Liberty, and she rightly warns us that there will be a lot of problems if respect orders are brought in as they are legislated. Incidentally, respect orders cover 11 pages of the Bill, a Bill that I, for legislative complaints, described at Second Reading as “a monster”. I shall not describe these 11 pages on respect orders as being a monster, because I think the Government have been trying very hard to get it right, but they have not so far done so, and therefore the sensible thing—and this is not to criticise the Government—is for there to be a pause, and for these new respect orders not to be brought in as such in the Bill but only after we have been able to review the entirety of these orders, anti-social orders and orders to protect citizens from being badly disturbed living in their homes or walking the streets. I urge my noble friend the Minister to move with caution and to accept that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, is not a destructive amendment but a sensible amendment to achieve the one thing that we should be achieving in the Bill, which is to get it right, as right as we possibly can.