I hope I will not detain the House for too long. I have had the opportunity to speak about many of the issues in Committee. It is good that so many members of the Public Bill Committee are in the Chamber. I have just two specific issues to flag up before we pass the Bill from this House to the other place; I suspect that neither of them will be a surprise to Ministers.
The first issue is the entire aspect of part 4 of the Bill on judicial review, particularly the provisions on interveners. I thank the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara), for his earlier comments about how he sees the Supreme Court approach as a way forward. I look forward to working with him to come up with something that will enable judicial review to continue and interveners to act sensibly, in a way that is helpful to the court and to British justice. There is a lot of work still to be done on that issue in the other place. I suspect that their lordships will be interested in other aspects of part 4. I dare say that they will be able to improve much of it.
It is a shame that amendments that could be made in this place are so often made in the other place, whether that applies to this example or not. There are a number of instances when it is this House that should act. Members of this House should not be asked to vote for things if the Government intend to change their mind later on.
I touched on the other issue that I want to raise in my comments on the Queen’s Speech. It is the issue of revenge porn. I notice that the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller) has secured an Adjournment debate on that issue. I hope that provisions can be slid in between clauses 19 and 20 because the issue relates to both those clauses. I hope that the Secretary of State will look carefully at the matter and listen carefully to the right hon. Lady. The issue could be addressed in the Bill. Had I thought of that early enough, I would have
proposed an amendment to part 1, but we dealt with it before I was ready. However, I am happy to send in my ideas. I hope that we can make those changes and make the Bill substantially better.
6.41 pm