Clause 5 - Right to make representations
Vehicles (Crime) Bill
4:45 pm
Mr John Bercow (Buckingham, Conservative)
Clause 5 relates to the right to make representations and follows logically from clause 4, which provides for the cancellation of registration. I shall not use a French expression, Mr. O'Brien; were I to do so, you would chide me. However, we have been down this track before in relation to another part of the Bill. It was a matter of some concern to my hon. Friends and me that the clauses appeared to provide no specific procedure for re-registration. That led us to fear that the Government might be thinking that once someone had been de-registered, the opportunity for him or her to re-register would not arise.
I was assuaged at the time by the Minister who replied, but given the other provisions in the Bill, I am still uncomfortable with the idea that it is sensible not to provide for the option and possibility of re-registration. The problem can be simply stated. The Secretary of State should not be able to assume that a de-registered person will never be allowed or inclined to reapply for the register. The circumstances in which someone might be so inclined are readily imaginable.
Even if our amendments were accepted, the de-registration process would still make it possible for legitimate companies to be removed from the register. There is no question of preventing a person from being de-registered where and when appropriate, but the Bill should provide the opportunity for that person to be re-registered when circumstances change. We want to alter the de-registration process to allow genuine businesses to reapply when circumstances have changed in such a way that they wish to reapply.
The de-registration process should also include sufficient information on being added to the register once more. After all, the register is an enabling rather than disabling device. Access to it should be made as easy as possible for legitimate businesses. At present, that does not seem to be the case. I am still not entirely clear why that is so, and I confess to being—if it is not an incorrect, inappropriate or trite term to use in this week of the parliamentary calendar—somewhat foxed as to why the Government are resisting what seems a fairly reasonable proposal.
I hope that the Ministers and the Whip have come to realise that, consistently throughout our deliberations, my hon. Friends and I have tried to make our points in a reasonable way, and not at inordinate length. I have advanced the basic argument before, so I see no reason to reinvent the wheel. The point is made and I am genuinely interested to hear comments from other members of the Committee, but I am particularly interested in the authoritative view of the Government.