Civil Contingencies Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 5:05 pm on 9 November 2004.

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Photo of Lord Stoddart of Swindon Lord Stoddart of Swindon Independent Labour 5:05, 9 November 2004

My Lords, now that we have had the erudite opinions of three legal minds, perhaps I could draw attention to the fact that I have two amendments in this group—Amendments Nos. 30 and 35. They deal with the question of "thinks" in a different way.

What I am proposing is that "thinks" should be replaced with,

"believes on the available evidence".

That puts the matter in a nutshell and cannot be argued with.

I am attracted to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, because it uses fewer words. I am always pleased when legislation contains fewer rather than more words. But we are in this situation because of the loose wording of this part of the Bill. It is really as simple as that. We must be extremely careful, when passing very important legislation that may impinge on the freedom and rights of citizens, that we get it right. As I and other noble Lords said in Committee, it is simply not good enough. When such serious decisions will be taken not necessarily by a highly placed Minister but by a lowly one such as a Lord Commissioner, we must get it right.

One can think of all sorts of instances of this issue. For example, the Prime Minister thought that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that could be used in 45 minutes. The fact of the matter is that he did not really have any evidence on which to base his decisions, but, because he thought that Iraq had weapons—which, of course, it did not—and he did not have proper evidence or, indeed, advice, we are now at war in Iraq and British soldiers are being killed and wounded.

Mr John Prescott thought that people of the north-east wanted regional assemblies. He only thought that—he did not have any evidence. The evidence was available. I knew how they were going to vote in the north-east, and if I knew that, and based my thoughts on the evidence, of course Mr Prescott should have known. He thought he knew, because he had no evidence, and he was wrong. He will now regret that he thought, instead of looking at the available evidence.

Something has to be done about that little word "thinks". I hope that the Minister will accept the amendment. If she did, I would be very grateful and so would other Members of this House. If she does not and if the noble Lord, Lord Elton, presses the amendment, I shall support him.