Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

Precisely. It may be that an order is made on ordinary evidence called before the magistrates’ court, but that is not the idea. The idea is to use the civil procedure so that the rules of civil evidence, which include hearsay, can be relied on. The magistrate sits there as the risk assessor and under Clause 148, which we are considering, he can make such prohibitions, restrictions or conditions as he thinks necessary. At the moment, there is absolutely no limit on that. We are promised indicative conditions by the noble Lord but not an exhaustive list. Therefore, the magistrate, as the risk assessor, has to ask himself, ““How do I cope with dealing with this particular person, against whom so many neighbours speak?””. The answer is that he makes a wide order, and he is entitled to do so because a magistrate can pass such prohibitions, restrictions or conditions in the order as he, "““considers necessary for the purpose of protecting the public””." The public are defined as, "““the public in the United Kingdom””." Therefore, he is being asked to protect not the people in the street in north London in which the noble Lord lives or a particular individual but the public in the United Kingdom. How can that magistrate, who is trying to become a risk assessor, make an order that will impose a restriction or condition in relation to all the public in the United Kingdom without making it so broad that inevitably it will be broken? The subject of the order will not be allowed to go outside his neighbourhood because he might attack someone in Scotland. The purpose of my amendment is to limit the scope of the order to a specific individual or number of individuals so that at least there will be something concrete for the magistrate to grasp on to and he will be able to devise a set of personal rules for the individual that possibly can be obeyed. Imposing conditions and restrictions that relate to everyone in the United Kingdom is so wide as to be impossible to maintain. That is what we are on about here. What is more, according to the noble Lord, those conditions and restrictions are not to be punitive or additional punishment, even though a person will go to prison if he breaks them. The fact that he is not allowed to go into a pub or down the street or get on a train and go somewhere else in the United Kingdom is not punitive or additional punishment. The whole system that is envisaged is illogical, unjust and unfair. Clearly, we have to see what sort of amendments the Government will produce on Report, based on today’s letter. I plead with the Minister not to give us things just before we walk into the Chamber, expecting us to pick up instantly what is being proposed and giving us no time to consult others, to have discussions among ourselves or to have cross-party discussions. Please at least give us proper notice of what the Government intend. The Bill is not new and it has been strung together from the very beginning. I mentioned at Second Reading the 200 clauses and amendments placed before the House of Commons on Report when there was no possibility of debating more than a fraction of them. The same thing is happening to us. We are given not a list of amendments but intentions of the Government just before we walk into the Chamber. I hope that we will know what the Government have definitely in mind long before we get to Report stage. Having got that off my chest, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.