Lord Neill of Bladen: I support both the amendment moved by the noble Baroness for the reasons she gave and the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, for the reasons he gave. An explanation is seriously needed as to why existing Children Act legislation cannot be used as a model. I also have a problem with the closing words of Clause 36(3)(b) where it talks about the coroner being of the opinion that...
Lord Neill of Bladen: My Lords, up to now, those who have spoken have all been experts in the field. It may be a relief to have a non expert such as myself simply commenting on these proposals. I limit myself to Amendments 47 and 48. With great respect to those who are proposing the amendments, I do not think that in their present form they are of the necessary quality if we are seriously saying that there should...
Lord Neill of Bladen: My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 64. As the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, pointed out, I was chairman of the committee that recommended to Parliament that tax relief should be allowed on donations up to the sum of £500. In reply to something that I said on Monday, the noble Lord, Lord Bach, said that in nearly every case the Government of the day accepted the committee's...
Lord Neill of Bladen: My Lords, there are two debates going on. The first is whether the amendment is in substance correct, whatever nitpicking one can indulge in. The other is that we have a duty to give the other place a chance to vote on this issue. If I may take the liberty of pretending to be a member of the public, if asked, as a man in the street, whether I would approve of a wealthy foreigner—not even a...
Lord Neill of Bladen: My Lords, perhaps I should point out that I had ceased to be chairman of the committee when it was referred back for the Bill.
Lord Neill of Bladen: My Lords, I declare an interest in that I was the chairman of the standards committee when it produced its original report on political parties. Another Member present, the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, was with me on the committee. We indeed used such language. We may have created the term "permissible donor", but we then had to define it, which we did as including people who were on the...
Lord Neill of Bladen: My Lords, I, too, support the amendment. There seems no good reason why we do not have the normal formula, such as "by order of" or "with the authority of" a court. A further point is that the interrelationship between these powers of entry in paragraph 2 does not really tie in with paragraphs 3 and 4. I can see nothing in paragraph 2 about the commission having "reasonable grounds to...
Lord Neill of Bladen: My Lords, will the Minister deal with this point? All the documents that he has referred to would be documents which they had an obligation to produce voluntarily, and they failed to do it.
Lord Neill of Bladen: I, too, start from the premise that anything proposed by my noble friend Lady Finlay is almost certainly correct. However, I have a problem here which is different from the one that has been mentioned. The thrust of the noble Baroness's argument depends to a very large extent on cases of suicide, but this provision is not written in terms of suicide. I may be missing a very obvious point but...
Lord Neill of Bladen: When I saw from this amendment the alteration to the law that the Government want to make, it seemed that it could have the effect only of diminishing public confidence in the jury system. That point has already been made. One would seek a powerful explanation from the Government as to why they are making this change. It looks like tinkering for no good reason whatever and with one very...
Lord Neill of Bladen: Does the Minister thereby recognise that, in many cases, a full and accurate statement of the facts will inevitably expose responsibility? It is a complete fallacy to proceed on the basis that the facts are one package over here and responsibility is a separate package over there. The Minister is nodding as if I have got the point right.
Lord Neill of Bladen: Criminal liability may involve other factors such as guilty mind, but from the point of view of the civil law, the proposition which I put, which the Minister has accepted, is the general truth that, often, the accurate and full finding of the facts will point the way for responsibility for civil liability.
Lord Neill of Bladen: I wish to say a word in support of the amendment tabled by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley. It so happens that this Bill comes before us when we are engaged in fighting a formidable foe who appears to be well armed and getting increasing supplies from some sources. We read, sadly, of the deaths of our troops, particularly due to roadside bombs and suicide attacks. It is a...
Lord Neill of Bladen: My Lords, I am the 24th speaker in the batting order, so it is hardly surprising that some of the points one wishes to make have already been enunciated. Your Lordships may be pleased to hear that I want to be relatively brief and, by taking less than eight minutes, possibly return some of the time that one or two errant noble Lords have taken. One of the main topics to which I wanted to...
Lord Neill of Bladen: My Lords, I declare an interest as a former chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. That committee twice recommended that there should be a Civil Service Bill introduced rapidly, and on both occasions, if my recollection is correct, that recommendation was welcomed by the Government. The earliest occasion was 1998—more than 10 years, as the noble Lord, Lord Sheldon, said....
Lord Neill of Bladen: Is the Minister really agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Hoyle, that one of the things wrong with the amendment is that it is far too modest? It is aimed at a particular point in time: before an order is made. As I understand him, the Minister is saying that there should be a continuing duty to ensure that members and former members are kept informed—not just as a one-off, as the amendment...
Lord Neill of Bladen: Of course, the Minister will be a position to put great pressure on the trustees to carry out the duty that we have been talking about this afternoon.
Lord Neill of Bladen: I believed that I was making exactly the same point about practicalities as the noble Lords, Lord Lea and Lord O'Neill. We must look at this realistically. I fear that I am approaching this as a lawyer. What guarantee is there that you will find a partner to participate on a loan basis? There is no empirical basis for that statement. If we amended the Bill in the way that is now sought it...
Lord Neill of Bladen: My Lords, I declare an interest, which the Minister alluded to: I was chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. The noble Lords, Lord Goodhart and Lord MacGregor, were also members. The other representative of a political party was the late lamented Lord Shore—Peter Shore. They were the trio who represented the three parties. We produced the committee's fifth report, which, as...
Lord Neill of Bladen: My Lords, I thank the Minister for putting that right. I was not quite sure whether it would accept some increase, but my position is that I do not think that any of these figures should be increased. There is no justification for it. We talk about this leading to bureaucracy, but I do not see why it causes more bureaucracy to enter a small figure than to enter a large figure, and I do not...
