Coroners and Justice Bill

I apologise for not having contributed to the debate in Committee and therefore coming to the argument very late. To begin, may I say how strongly I agree with what has just been said by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and other speakers thus far, including my noble friend Lord Soley? I do not pretend to have even a fragment of the expertise of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, in the matter of the human rights implications of the proposal, so I neither can nor should address it, but what I would like the Minister to explain is this. In what way will the legislation address the harm that it seeks to redress? Perhaps I have misunderstood it, but the legislation addresses only those circumstances in which prisoners or ex-offenders are paid for the work they produce. It seems possible, at least in principle, that someone could publish work that has the capacity to offend or distress victims or their families and not be paid for it, but the distress and harm would be exactly as if the writer had been paid. I cannot see how the linking of distress and harm to victims and their families—which is something we certainly should be concerned about—with payment in any way seriously allows the mitigation of that harm to be achieved. This proposed legislation falls at the first hurdle that must be the test of any legislation, which is that it does what it sets out to do. When the Minister comes to reply, could he address that issue?