Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his lengthy letter of 14 October, which sets out in greater detail the Government’s thinking on this issue. However, having read it and listened to the powerful comments and questions put by Members of your Lordships’ House today, I think that the Government should take away and rethink the set of clauses dealing with this issue. The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Soley, is powerful because the question of the trigger is the essential one, but it is far from clear in the Bill. Perhaps I may cite the Minister’s letter where he talks about seeking the consent of the Attorney-General, who will weigh up matters of public interest. Although the Government have now tabled an amendment to address the issue of public distaste, the Attorney-General will nevertheless have to weigh up something when a case is put before her. The Minister then goes on to talk about how the court will have, ""wide discretion as to whether or not to impose an order, taking account of a number of factors"." Lengthy arguments will arise in court where offenders will no doubt have great difficulty representing themselves—we have not touched on this issue—but what it comes down to is the chilling effect spoken about by many noble Lords. The Minister’s letter does not give any sound examples of what drove the Government to introduce this provision. The noble Baroness, Lady Stern, asked why that is so, but none of the examples quoted in the four pages of the Minister’s letter really answers the question. The Minister will recall that he quoted the case of Nick Leeson. That, as the noble Lord mentioned, is clearly a victimless crime for the purposes of this Bill. If that case informed some of the thinking behind these clauses, that might explain why these clauses are so inadequate to deal with the problem which the Government are struggling to address. The noble Baroness, Lady Rendell of Babergh, made a powerful point. There is no doubt that, as I mentioned, there will be a chilling effect, even when this is never going to come to court because the books or works of art will never be produced. That is something that we need to worry about. This is not adequately drafted. No doubt there are other approaches and solutions that would not have this effect. We are unhappy with the way that these clauses are drafted. The book Cries Unheard, which was one of the major reasons why the Government moved down this road, was written by someone else. The Government do not address at all the issue of books written by someone else, and although I gather Mary Bell received a payment for it—we have never seen any evidence of that, but she may have received a payment—this would not prevent someone else writing about a crime. This catches only the person who has written themselves about their crime, which leaves a bit of a gap if the Government are trying to prevent the victims from suffering more. For all the reasons that we have heard today, we shall be supporting these amendments.