I want to write to Viscount Goschen
Viscount Goschen: Are there any provisions in the Bill that would remove access to the courts?
Viscount Goschen: I asked the noble Baroness whether there was any power within the Bill that could be used to remove access to the courts.
Viscount Goschen: I shall make a severe attempt to intervene less as we proceed. However, Clause 22 states that any Act of Parliament may be set aside. Surely the rights of a citizen to access to a court is laid down in statute and that statute, whatever it may be, could be temporarily set aside. Is that not right?
Viscount Goschen: We are in Committee, which may assist the noble Baroness in responding to my noble friend's point. I ask her to cast her mind back two years or thereabouts to the fuel protests. It would be very helpful if she were to tell us whether the level of disruption caused then by the fuel protesters would constitute a serious threat to the transport system. On its own, would that trigger the...
Viscount Goschen: I certainly accept the point of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer, that one has to be very careful about putting any hurdles in the way of an urgent decision that requires speed above all else. However, the phrase that was suggested by my noble friend—"believes on reasonable grounds"—is a fairly low hurdle, but it is a hurdle of sorts. The Bill as a whole, particularly in Part 2,...
Viscount Goschen: I would never cross swords with experienced lawyers in this House. Surely the Minister makes the decision. A court would have to make a decision only if there was a challenge. The Minister would make his decision on reasonable grounds. Unless the Minister is going to tell us that Ministers will make decisions on unreasonable grounds, surely it is reasonable to ask them to make their decisions...
Viscount Goschen: Before my noble friend Lord Jopling responds, it would be extremely helpful if the Minister could clarify whether he really feels that the small cohort of 140-odd doctors and 140-odd nurses is the right number of people. Is it just difficult to get more people vaccinated? This really comes to the crux of the issue about whether people should be forced to be vaccinated or whether it should be...
Viscount Goschen: I thank the noble Lord for giving way. I was extremely interested in the last point he made. It is the key to the whole issue. Will he expand a bit further on why he is so confident that all Travellers—a notably independent-minded group of people—would use sites officially approved by an authority, if they were provided, rather than those of their own choice? As the noble Lord has said,...
Viscount Goschen: asked Her Majesty's Government: Whether it is appropriate for general practitioners to be paid for referring patients to personal injury lawyers or claims management companies.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, is it not wholly unacceptable to have two professional regulatory bodies at odds with each other on this issue? As the Minister said, the GMC has been extremely clear in its views that this practice is unethical and improper, whereas the Law Society earlier this year amended its own regulations for this practice to allow fee sharing despite the fact that the GMC had ruled it...
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, we have heard it suggested that introducing this amendment is an irresponsible act. Nothing could be further from the truth. My noble friend Lord Rotherwick is quite right to draw attention to the fact that, at the moment, we have a totally unacceptable situation with a de facto speed limit on motorways of around 85 miles per hour, below which the police will not stop drivers in...
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for giving way. I have no desire to prolong the debate. There is an obvious answer to the noble Lord's argument: enforcement. Technology now allows us to enforce speed limits perfectly well. If the speed limit that is eventually decided were properly enforced, motorists could not travel at 10 to 15 mph faster without being apprehended regularly. Proper...
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I draw the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, to subsection (1C) of the amendment. It says, "Subsection (1A) shall not apply in the case of a scheme already in operation". That addresses the point.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, apart from those in subsection (1C). Let us not argue over the legalese or whether it could be drafted in a more concise way. The point that the noble Lord was worried about is taken care of in the amendment. I support my noble friend in his desire to ensure that those affected most by the congestion charge should at least want it. That is what the amendment boils down to. My...
Viscount Goschen: asked Her Majesty's Government: Further to the Written Answer by the Lord Bassam of Brighton on 1 March (WA 89–90), whether they will establish a running cumulative record of the costs and benefits of regulations introduced, derived from individual regulatory impact assessments.
Viscount Goschen: asked Her Majesty's Government: Further to the Answer by the Lord McIntosh of Haringey on 23 March (HL Deb, col. 588), whether civil servants were involved in briefing the Financial Times on the draft Gershon report.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, like other noble Lords who have spoken in this debate this afternoon, I believe that the objectives behind this Bill are certainly admirable. There are a number of provisions here that we can all support wholeheartedly. Indeed, I recognise some of the issues that this Bill seeks to address from days gone by, from a different era, in the latter part of the last century, when I and my...
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Astor on initiating this debate. Perhaps I may say what a pleasure it is to follow the noble Lord, Lord Paul, with his great experience and expertise in the field of engineering. I am sure the Government would do well to listen to his recommendations. I wish to concentrate on the motorsport industry. It is a considerable British success story, as...
Viscount Goschen: asked Her Majesty's Government: Whether they believe that the regulatory impact assessment procedure is effective in ensuring that the benefits of regulation justify the costs.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, if the system is to be taken to be working well, could the Minister quantify the benefits that justify the more than £30 billion of regulatory costs that the British Chambers of Commerce calculates to have been imposed in the United Kingdom since 1997? If the Minister disputes the latter costing, could he give us his own?