My Lords, as we approach this last group for debate I shall be as brief as I can. This amendment inserts a new clause into the Bill and provides for the operation of the Act to be subject to a review. Whatever one’s views on the purpose of the Bill and whether it is sufficiently necessary, proportionate and effective, whatever one’s views are on the process of the Bill and whether it is too quick or perfectly adequate or whatever one’s views are on the implications of the Bill, one thing is certain: it has proved controversial. If this were not so, I am sure that the Government would not have agreed to the pause during the past few weeks. As the NCVO said in its briefing on this particular part of the Bill, three senior parliamentary committees have raised their concerns
about it: the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, the House of Lords Constitution Committee and the Joint Committee on Human Rights.
Yet at this stage, all our views and opinions are so far merely supposition. We have yet to meet my noble friend Lord Tyler’s unintended consequences. This probing amendment is designed to ensure that the operation of the Act, in particular Part 2, is reviewed once we have had some real-life experience on its operation. My amendment suggests a review within two years of it coming into force. This will, I presume, mean a review commencing in the spring of 2016—that is to say, about nine months after the next general election, close enough that the lessons learnt in that election will remain fresh, but not so close that those lessons are distorted by the passions inevitably aroused during the campaign itself.
This approach, which is supported by the NCVO, offers the Government the opportunity to say to the doubters, “Let us see what happens in the run-up to and during the general election in 2015, let us then have a formal review and then Government, Parliament and the parties affected, including the charity sector, can decide and lobby for whatever changes need to be made”. I beg to move.