Clause 18
Serious Crime Bill [Lords]
11:45 am
Jeremy Wright (Rugby and Kenilworth, Conservative)
I have a specific concern regarding clause 18, which I hope that the Minister can reassure me about, that relates to the provisions dealing with applications to vary an order that may be made by the relevant applicant authority. I assume that the situation envisaged is that the authority that originally sought an order and had it granted wishes to go back to the court for a variation on that order. The conditions under which the authority is able to do that, as set out in clause 18, are different from the conditions faced by the person subject to an order who then wishes to go back to court to have it varied. That causes me a little concern.
Clause 18(4), which deals with the conditions attached to the person subject to the order, states:
“The court must not entertain an application by the person who is the subject of the order unless it considers that there has been a change of circumstances affecting the order.”
By comparison, however, clause 18(8) states:
“A variation on an application under subsection (3)(a)”—
in other words, an application for variation by the relevant applicant authority—
“may include an extension of the period during which the order, or any provision of it, is in force (subject to the original limits imposed)”;
in other words, the five-year time limit. But in the case of an applicant authority making an application for variation, there is no requirement regarding a change of circumstances. I am concerned about that, simply because I do not think that the Government would wish to create a position in which the relevant applicant authority can have another bite of the cherry, in order to obtain a more stringent set of restrictions on the liberty of the person subject to the order than it was able to get in the first place.
The courts should not be tied up with repeated applications by the relevant authority, just to get a few more restrictions than were obtained in the first place. The Minister said earlier in relation to a different clause that it would be for the court to decide what sort of restrictions are appropriate and for how long. That was in connection with the argument that we had about the proper duration of the orders. It would not be right in that context for the relevant applicant authority to keep coming back to court to make that application. Can the Minister explain why the requirement that there should be a change of circumstances affecting the order should not apply equally to applications for variation made by the relevant authority, as well as to those made by the individual subject to the order?