Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

moved Amendment No. 149: 149: Clause 148, page 106, line 34, leave out ““the public”” and insert ““a person or specified persons”” The noble Lord said: Earlier my head was full of blasphemy law and the other matters we have been discussing today, but at around a quarter to one I received a letter from the noble Lord which indicated that very considerable changes are being made to this part of the Bill, covering violent offender orders. As was pointed out earlier, the Bill started its progress last July and has been with us in this House for a number of months, but only now have we received these concessions which have the effect of agreeing to some of the amendments we have proposed, but disagreeing with others. Noble Lords should note that I shall speak to Amendment No. 149A, also tabled in the name of my noble friend Lord Wallace, as well as the other amendments in this group. Not only has Amendment No. 149A been agreed to, it has been improved upon because the Government are prepared to limit the extent of a violent offender order to five years. The same can be said for the provisions in Clause 149 and therefore to other amendments addressing the clauses in this part of the Bill, but we shall come on to debate those later. However, some of our amendments have not been agreed, and I shall address my remarks to them. As Clause 148(1) points out: "““A violent offender order is an order made in respect of a qualifying offender which … contains such prohibitions, restrictions or conditions as the court making the order considers necessary for the purpose of protecting the public from the risk of serious violent harm””." Amendment No. 149 addresses the wording on the basis that a violent offender order should not be made generally to the public, but to a person or in respect of, "““a person or specified persons””." Our position is that making an order which simply protects the public from the risk of serious violent harm is far too wide. Similarly, Amendment No. 150 addresses subsection (2), which states: "““For the purposes of this Part any reference to protecting the public from the risk of serious violent harm caused by a person is a reference to protecting … the public in the United Kingdom””." Nothing could go wider than that. One has to go back to where these clauses came from. A violent offender order is essentially a civil order that derives from the civil procedure which enabled a court order to be made in respect of very specific harm against a particular person. We have been through various manifestations of this type of order. They started off as anti-social behaviour orders, subsequently developed into control orders and on to serious crime orders. Now we come to an order which is made in the widest possible terms, one that seeks to protect, "““the public from the risk of serious violent harm caused by a person””," where ““the public”” means the whole of the United Kingdom. Amendment No. 150 would limit that in the way I have indicated. Amendments Nos. 151 and 152 are consequential to the attempt that we are engaged in here to limit the orders in this way. I beg to move.