Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

Let us have a crack at looking at the McCann case. In the Joint Committee, we considered that violent offender orders were not the same as ASBOs, and therefore that the McCann case probably did not apply. When the Minister said, ““something bloody something””, I thought, ““That’s Jolly Jack Tar talking if nothing else, not a government Minister””, but it definitely lightened the proceedings. During the past 10 or 20 years, we have had a problem with police and what can be classed as ““the usual suspects””. We have had a problem, certainly in two IRA cases, where the police thought that they had got the right sort of person, and even the criminal level of proof was established. But that was because of what can be called ““the usual suspects””. So that part is not good enough. The Minister’s defence of there being no need for witnesses reminded me of a certain piece of land on the edge of a Caribbean island where people are seen in shackles wearing orange suits; in other words, it sounded like the Guantanamo Bay answer. I am afraid that the Government’s response to the amendment has not even begun to be satisfactory. I hope we can come back to it on Report—and that the orders will be taken out of the Bill, because they offend me, the most reverend Primate, the Tory Front Bench and the Liberal Front Bench. The lovely noble Baroness, Lady Stern, is waving from the back, as is the noble Lord, Lord Judd. In other words, they offend absolutely everybody except the Government. That is a thoroughly unsatisfactory way to make law. It is time that the Government realised that we have had habeas corpus, trial by jury, the glory of common law and the protection of the innocent, and that we have not locked people up. They must stop behaving as if that tradition is alien to us. On that sour note, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendment No. 155 not moved.] Clause 151 agreed to. Clause 152 agreed to.