Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)

I am grateful to noble Lords for their contributions to this short debate. The government amendments were tabled in response to requests in Committee, not just from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee—who I hope to see back in her place as soon as possible—but the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, and others, including Members from the Opposition Back Benches and Front Bench. I hope I can reassure the noble Lord that we have taken all those matters into account in bringing forward the amendment today. On Amendment 41, tabled by my noble friend Lord Bach, I welcome the opportunity to discuss this issue with him outside the Chamber and get clarification on the points he is pressing me to examine. I hope that the explanation I give him now will meet his points of concern, but we will see whether that is in fact the case. We believe that the amendment, while testing the Government, is ultimately dealt with in other ways, and would make no material difference to the operation of the legislation. The Bounar case, which my noble friend mentioned, pre-dated changes to our bail accommodation guidance. The Northern Ireland Court of Appeal decision was handed down in December 2024, and the Home Office guidance was republished on 31 January 2025. There is a key extract from the guidance that I want to read to my noble friend, so I hope the House will bear with me: “Where an individual is not subject to a residence condition, but they are applying for accommodation under Schedule 10, they may request for their bail conditions to be varied to include a residence condition on the BAIL 409 application form. Bail conditions can be varied to include a residence condition at an address yet to be specified, where the individual does not have a residence condition imposed and a refusal of accommodation would be in breach of their Article 3 ECHR rights”. The key point for me in that extract is that in the case of Bounar the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal found that the person could not be given bail accommodation because they did not have a bail residence condition. Although that is technically correct, I believe and hope that our guidance—and I hope this satisfies my noble friend—now makes it clear that bail can be varied to impose a residence condition that will enable a person to be granted bail conditions, where to refuse to do so would breach the person’s human rights under Article 3. The key point that I emphasise to my noble friend is that our guidance is now clear that the situation in Bounar should not arise. If the person requires a bail condition in order to prevent an Article 3 breach, we will create one rather than refusing the application, and the courts can now apply that, as our guidance makes clear. I am genuinely grateful for the discussions that I have had had with my noble friend outside both Committee and Report. He has raised these issues with me regarding the Bounar case as recently as today, outside the Chamber, prior to Report commencing. I have tried to give him an answer based on our legal interpretation of the understanding of that case in relation to our guidance, and I hope that, with that clarification, he is able to reflect on that, if not today then later in Hansard. I am happy to have further discussions with him about the application outside the Chamber at a later date, but I hope that the explanation I have given meets the objectives in his amendment, and I ask him not to press it.