Lord Brennan: I intervene only briefly, first to declare an interest that I did not expect to declare: I am the president of the Catholic Union of Great Britain. In speaking to a previous amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Pilkington, remarked on the historical absurdity suggesting that Catholics are always wrong. For my brethren in the faith generally and for my fellow Peers of this faith, I reassure him and...
Lord Brennan: Perhaps I may ask the Committee's forgiveness for joining the debate 46 minutes after it started in order to make three short points. First, the debate has illustrated the sensitivity of the faith school issue. It requires any legislative clause or amendment which seeks to affect such institutions to be phrased with absolute clarity; to be produced in a way that provides for open debate about...
Lord Brennan: The purpose of Amendment No. 176A is to assist admission forums to ensure that disabled children and those with special educational needs are properly catered for. On a careful reading of Clause 44, I advise the noble Lord, Lord Rix, that the amendment is not necessary, because the Government, local education authorities and admission forums should take those matters into account in any...
Lord Brennan: My Lords, I am sure that I speak on behalf of the whole House—those present and those absent—in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, on the honour accorded her today. It is a signal recognition of all that she has done over so many years to promote relationships between our country and South America. It is also a recognition of the depth of the relationships that have extended...
Lord Brennan: My Lords, I should like to identify a fact that dictates the course of this amendment to this clause. The fact is that, every year, 5 million people, including 2 million children, are killed by small arms. Bullets kill many more people than do bombs. That destruction, coupled with the incalculable numbers who are injured by firearms, should require any international legislature to consider...
Lord Brennan: My Lords, there can be no more important an occasion for this House than when it considers legislation affecting children. This Bill on adoption is just such legislation. It is also not surprising that it is 25 years since we last considered major legislation affecting children. The care of children and the way in which we permit adoption are not matters that should be changed annually. When...
Lord Brennan: My Lords, the Bill is notable, not only because of its volumetric contribution to our law, but also because of the quality of some of its proposals. I shall praise and question some of those proposals. First, I strongly welcome the role that the Bill gives not only to the interests of consumers, but also to organisations that exist to protect those interests. The idea of super-complaints—an...
Lord Brennan: My Lords, the critical need of parents of children with special educational needs is for clarity about what they are entitled to for the benefit of their children. It would be most unfortunate if, in that sector of needy society, a debate such as this led to division. I am sure there is no sentiment towards division, but rather a desire for agreement. I therefore invite my noble friend the...
Lord Brennan: My Lords, I want to raise two matters with the Minister. First, I commend the Government on consulting with the judiciary about the rules. Secondly, I invite comment on two consequences, by way of example, from Rule 4 in the Court of Appeal (Appeals from Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission) Rules. First, I invite the Minister to be careful before proposing in reply to the noble Lord,...
Lord Brennan: There are two points to be made about the amendment. First, the shorter the period, the more likely it is that the affected commercial enterprise will seek judicial review of the OFT for not taking long enough. Secondly, the longer the period, provided that it is within reason, the more the public interest is served by balancing the interests of the commercial enterprise with those of the...
Lord Brennan: At Second Reading I welcomed Clause 11 as a particularly important protection for consumers because it introduced a speedy and efficient system of dealing with major consumer complaints. I little thought that there would be attached to it what I might generously describe as a primitive framework bespoken by the two amendments; namely, a framework in which the least ability by the designated...
Lord Brennan: I hope that the House will forgive a moment of legal interpretation. We have here one extreme versus the other. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, is concerned to protect the interests of consumer bodies. I realise that that is a matter of importance. On the other hand, the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, is concerned to ensure that the industry or commercial entity can have a satisfactory...
Lord Brennan: I shall rise and complete my response without, I hope, falling. I start with the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland. That which requires a Minister to be "satisfied" will be determined by the evidence available to him. That which "reasonably appears to him" is a lesser test, as I interpret it. That test favours the consumer organisation and disfavours the commercial entity....
Lord Brennan: Perhaps I may raise two points. The first relates to the period of 12 months which Amendments Nos. 49 and 51 seek to introduce. That, it seems to me, would be an unduly onerous requirement on properly designated bodies. They would be spending the last three months of each year meeting a bureaucratic requirement to confirm that whatever standards that are thought necessary are being met. Much...
Lord Brennan: At Second Reading, I think that I was the only Member of your Lordships' House to speak about this clause on the constitution and functioning of the competition appeal tribunal. The emphasis with which I sought to endow it was flexibility and informality. The flexibility will come from a broad spread of expertise among those who constitute the tribunal. I entirely agree with my noble friend...
Lord Brennan: I hope that the noble Lord was not assuming, when I used the word "informality", such a superficial understanding of the word as he implied. I meant to suggest—I hope that this was clear—that expertise by lay members who know what they are talking about will enable the entire tribunal, including the chairman, to reach a much more informal solution to a problem, which will properly emerge...
Lord Brennan: My Lords, I again bring to the attention of the Minister the degree of concern felt on these Benches about the proper combination in such a Bill of national interest and of a moral commitment to sustainable development, especially in the developing world. There are those on these Benches who wish to be reassured, if there is a Division on the amendments, about the way in which the Government...
Lord Brennan: My Lords, in the spring of 2001 my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith, then a Back-Bencher, led a delegation of lawyers for the International Bar Association to Zimbabwe. They concluded that the rule of law in that country was in grave peril. A year later, sad to say, it has gone. I turn first to the judiciary. On 13th September last, 65 year-old Judge Blackie, who had previously made a...
Lord Brennan: My Lords, I support the amendment. At the Report stage, which unfortunately I was unable to attend, a debate took place which the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, led on the balance to be struck between the interests of competition as an economic principle and the interests of the community to have quality of justice. The one should not be invoked at the cost of the other. During the debate, as I...
Lord Brennan: My Lords, the Royal Air Force is the youngest of our services, but it quickly excited in all of us an admiration equal to that for the other services. The reason is clear, is it not? In peacetime or in war, air crew risk their lives in a particularly dramatic way. When things go wrong in an aeroplane, sudden death is often the outcome. Air crew, and pilots in particular, who run that risk and...