Coroners and Justice Bill

It is my own fault for offering an opening to the noble Lord, and I will try to restrain myself from doing that in future. I think the Minister will accept that it is still possible to publish; there is just the impediment that he referred to that the individual cannot be paid for it. He might remember what Dr Johnson said about people not writing for money, which has some bearing on that. If he does not know the quotation, I think the great doctor said, "No one but a blockhead ever wrote but for money". I can have that corrected if I have got it slightly wrong. A court may hear an application for an order only if it has been authorised by the Attorney-General. We have voiced doubts at times about the Government’s proposals, but we accept that checks, balances and safeguards are built into the process. It is not simply a grabbing exercise but what we trust could be a carefully targeted system that would deny offenders convicted of some of the worst crimes the opportunity to profit from their misdeeds. Having said that, we await assurances from the Government on a number of points. Clearly there are people who have reformed or are reforming and who make a positive virtue out of their past offences. An ex-convict who draws on his experiences to make critiques of penal policy, or who writes about their experiences as a warning to others, should not, under any reading of these clauses, be swooped on by the enforcement authorities. When determining the application, the court will be mindful of such requirements in Clause 151(3). We have asked the Minister to confirm that. We think that these orders should be applicable only in the case of the most serious offences. Again, we would like to have some confirmation to that effect. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, has proposed Amendments 106A and 107A, which would put in the Bill a direct reference to the convention rights. No doubt the noble Lord might intervene again, but while he has made a good point, in our view it is an unnecessary one; as I understand it, the courts have to make their decisions in the light of the convention in all cases. His amendments are therefore unnecessary. It is clear to the Government that there is significant opposition to the clauses in the Bill. However, we have endorsed the principle behind them, and we look now for assurances from the Government to the House that they have struck the right balance between protecting the right to free speech and the rights of victims and their families. For that reason, we cannot support the amendments but we will leave it to others in this House to decide what they wish to do with them. We want further assurances from the Government.