Coroners and Justice Bill

We on this side of the Committee have a free vote on this matter; so it would be inappropriate for me to wind up on behalf of the Opposition. I shall say only that I shall be supporting my noble friend Lord Waddington in voting that Clause 61 should not stand part of the Bill. There is one other observation that I want to make about the circumstances in which we find ourselves this afternoon. The Government did not choose to oppose the decision taken in your Lordships’ House last year to support my noble friend Lord Waddington’s amendment, which subsequently became Section 29JA of the Public Order Act 1986. It is, in my view, an abuse of parliamentary procedure to bring this matter back to Parliament without any evidence that Parliament had made bad law, especially when the same Government are in power. Indeed, the Government say, in terms, that Section 29JA is not bad law. Their case is that it is unnecessary law because the definition of the offence of incitement implies, in terms, the contents of my noble friend Lord Waddington’s amendment. In these circumstances, it cannot be good constitutional practice for a Government to compel Parliament—the law-maker—to spend further time on this matter. Indeed, I would describe it as an abuse of legislative procedure.