Clause 58
Coroners and Justice Bill
9:00 pm
David Howarth (Cambridge, Liberal Democrat)
I have a slightly different recollection of the end of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill. The outline that the hon. and learned Gentleman gave was in essence correct but he left out a number of points. One is that there was ping-pong between the Lords and the Commons, and the Lords inserted what was known at the time as the Waddington amendment—now section 29JA under the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008—late on in the process. The Government, along with the Liberal Democrats and other hon. Members, initially resisted that provision on the grounds that it was wrong and dangerous to have a blanket exemption. The way in which that clause—now section—was drafted, especially as it refers to urging people to change their sexual behaviour, was in danger of crossing the line between saying and doing things.
I had a further concern that it would be possible for a code to develop where people whose intention was to be threatening would develop an intimidatory language that technically stayed within the words of the clause. I had and still have doubts about the wisdom of inserting a clause that says
“for the avoidance of doubt”
when there was not much doubt about what the law itself was in terms of intention and threat.
As the hon. and learned Gentleman said, the time pressure was largely created by the Government because of the situation in the prisons, and eventually they gave way on the Waddington amendment. My memory of it is that that was unwilling, to say the least, and that from what Ministers said and from the way that they acted at the time, I had no doubt that at some appropriate time Ministers would invite Parliament to revisit that issue, and I am glad that they have, so I am fully in support of clause 58.
The only thing that I would add is something that I was trying to achieve at the time, which I thought might even achieve some sort of all-party agreement, perhaps not in the Lords but at least in the Commons, which is that statutory guidance could be issued to the Attorney-General on how prosecutions under this provision should proceed. That should be done to give comfort to the many people who in many cases have wrongly been given the impression that there will be a large number of unreasonable prosecutions under this legislation. There were some examples of ludicrous behaviour by certain police officers, not under this legislation, but through legislation that is much easier to prosecute under, such as that relating to general public order. I put forward a serious of proposals for that guidance, and I would have put forward new clause 36 at the end of the ping-pong had I thought about it more. The new clause that I put forward at the end was never selected. At the end of the ping-pong I urged the Government to adopt it as a Government new clause, as that would have meant that it got through.