Clause 5
Serious Crime Bill [Lords]
10:00 am
Douglas Hogg (Sleaford and North Hykeham, Conservative)
The hon. Gentleman is not right. If one looks at the identity of the person who seeks the orders, one will find that it is the Executive. It is the various agencies who are designated in the Bill. They will certainly on occasion abuse their powers. The plain truth is that the courts are not given the ability to prevent that abuse because we have struck out all suggestion that mens rea should be included. We have not included any suggestion that the order should be necessary, proportionate and just; we have given unfettered powers to the court which can be exercised on the initiative of the Executive. I am against that.I am against it for the civil libertarian reasons that I have advanced and I have stood by in this House for30 years.
May I move on from that point? I am waxing unduly powerfully on the matter. My second point is this. The Minister’s case was something like this: is it not right that an order should be made when the facilitator continues an activity after the facilitator has been warned? The Minister made that point time and time again—after the facilitator had been warned.
There are two points to be made. First, the language of the Bill does not require a warning. The facilitator can be made the subject of an order whether or not the facilitator had knowledge of the activity on which complaint has been made.