Clause 71
Coroners and Justice Bill
2:30 pm
Maria Eagle (Parliamentary Secretary, Government Equalities Office; Liverpool, Garston, Labour)
I certainly agree with my right hon. Friend that anonymity orders should not become routine instead of exceptional. That was quite clearly said during the passage of the emergency legislation and I will not repeat it now. Common sense should be applied, and the fact that all sides appear to accept that the provisions are working indicates that it is being applied.
I have probably said what I need to about harm to the public interest in relation to amendments 197 and 198. Amendment 453 would change the wording of the second limb of condition A so that it explicitly and exclusively referred to preventing
“serious harm to the functioning of a properly authorised undercover operation.”
We do not think that the amendment is necessary, simply on the ground that we have made explicit what the current wording means and changing it might present us with more of a problem in statutory interpretation than leaving it as it is and reiterating why it was put there in the first place.
Amendment 454 would remove the court’s duty to take the witness’s fear into account when considering whether the order was necessary to safeguard the safety of the witness or another person. I realise that the amendment is a way into a discussion about whether we are looking at some kind of reasonable fear for one’s safety, but fear is a subjective thing, and if we are talking about trying to protect somebody and enable them to give evidence, it is the subjective fear that one ought to consider. My right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East will confirm from his experience that, quite often, it is stress and lack of sleep rather than fear that leads a person to a much more fragile mental state than one might expect, after a series of intimidatory activities that provide the final straw. It is not necessarily fear as much as stress—and just being completely fed up of being treated badly and threatened the whole time—that finally leads people to flee or refuse to come forward with their evidence.
In any event, as I have said, the current wording appears to work. The court will still be able to have regard to the question of fear as a matter of discretion. It is unclear what benefit there would be in removing it—I know that it is a probing amendment to get us into the discussion that the hon. Members for Cambridge and for Daventry were having.
I hope that the hon. Member for Cambridge will withdraw his amendment on the grounds that we have had a good debate and that the present provisions appear to work. It is not sensible to interfere with them.