Clause 86 - Interpretation
Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill
3:00 pm
Mr David Heath (Shadow Minister (Home Affairs), Home Affairs; Somerton and Frome, Liberal Democrat)
I beg to move amendment No. 183, in clause 86, page 49, line 42, at end insert—
'(d) they have such a relationship to that person that their safety can reasonably be regarded to be at risk'.
The interpretation is significant, because the clause contains quite a narrow definition of a person associated with another person for the purposes of providing protection. Subsection (4) says:
''A person is associate with another person if any of the following apply . . . they are members of the same family . . . they live in the same household . . . they have lived in the same household.''
That raises the question of what happens to, say, the fiancé of a protected person, who does not live in the same household, however unfashionable that might seem, who has never lived in the same household and is not a member of the same family but who might be considered to share the same risk, if only as a way of putting pressure on the person in the first instance. A business partner of the protected person might also be considered to share the same risk, but would certainly not be a member of the same family and would not live in the same household or fall into any of the categories that have been mentioned. There is a gaping hole in the provisions in relation to people who are closely associated. I am not in the business of extending the protection measures to large groups of people; that is not appropriate. However, I want to ensure that we provide properly for people who are closely connected with a person who is at risk and who share that risk. That is the intention of the amendment, which I think is self-explanatory. I do not believe that the category of person that I have mentioned is identified within the clause as it stands.