Assisted Dying Bill [HL]
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve (CB)
My Lords, this is a clarificatory amendment looking at the purposes of the Bill. We might think that they are already entirely clear and I agree that in negative respects it is absolutely clear that this is not a euthanasia Bill. It is not comparable to legislation that exists in the Low Countries: it is something else. But I think we left Second Reading very unclear about what it is. It is labelled an Assisted Dying Bill, but its provisions are about assisting suicide. That makes a difference.
The evidence that the purposes of the Bill were not well understood at Second Reading can be seen in the number of speeches in which noble Lords related very sad stories about difficult deaths where the death would not have been eligible under this legislation, whether because it was a chronic not a terminal condition or because it was, although terminal, not the case that the person had the relevant mental capacity. It would be helpful to us all to focus on what the Bill is actually about, which is assisting suicide. As a number of noble Lords said at Second Reading, the legislation that is intended to be changed by this Bill is the Suicide Act 1961. It is intended to alter the provisions by which people aid and abet another person’s suicide. It should be very clear in the text of the Bill that that is what it is for. We all believe in truth in advertising. I suggest that we want clarity in legislation and the same sort of truthfulness. I beg to move.
Lord Gold (Con)
My Lords, I have put my name to this amendment because I agree entirely that we need certainty in our understanding of what this legislation is for. At the moment, although there is some reassuring language in the Bill, I do not think it clarifies what the noble Baroness has just stated, which is that this is a measure to assist suicide.
I am sure that all noble Lords have had correspondence—I have received many letters and e-mails—reflecting great uncertainty as to what this is all about. One of the things we in this House must do is make sure that, if we pass the Bill into law, we have spelt out exactly what it is for and the exact process that people will go through if they are to be able to take advantage—if that is the right word; I do not think it is, really—of this legislation. I hope that we will agree to clarify the position.
Lord Trimble (Con)
My Lords, my comments would have been most apposite when I tried to intervene earlier. At that point, the noble and learned Lord was quoting from the contribution from my noble friend Lord Mawhinney, who referred to Clause 4. I observe that that clause talks about prescribing,
“medicines for that person to enable that person to end their own life”.
Does he agree with me that the worst euphemism here is the use of the word “medicines”?
Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve
My Lords, we have had a very interesting debate on the first amendment in this group, which is very limited. I observe that the Bill does not alter the law on suicide. Suicide is not a crime. If your Lordships think about it, if suicide is successful, you cannot prosecute.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
It does alter the law on suicide because it gives a specified defence.
Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve
It alters the law on assisting suicide, and it will be for the Committee, during the discussion of the amendments that lie ahead, to determine whether it alters that law in an effective and secure way. That is not the issue here. The issue in the first amendment is simply: what is the Bill about? I hope that one of these days your Lordships’ House will consider a Bill on assisted suicide. As many noble Lords have said, that involves a much wider category of issues than this particular issue. We should not pre-empt a possible Bill in which we gave expression to compassion and care for the dying with this very specific Bill, which is about something rather different. I understand the reservations of the proponents of the Bill. They feel that this is an unpleasant word to have in the Bill more prominently, but it also represents the particular purpose of the legislation more accurately, and I wish to test the opinion of the Committee.
Assisted Dying Bill [HL]
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve (CB)
My Lords, this Bill, as we already have heard, arouses great passions and considerable confusion. No doubt we shall hear many claims and counterclaims about the adequacies of the supposed safeguards in the Bill, but I think that at Second Reading it may be more useful for us to concentrate on what the Bill aims to do, for there remain fundamental confusions. I shall try to be brief.
First, the Bill does rather little to assist the dying. That noble purpose would require legislation that entitles all of us in our dying months, weeks and days to the necessary help and care, and pain relief, whether or not we are competent to choose. A Bill with those aims would have to address very large issues, above all the currently patchy availability of high-quality palliative care and incomplete availability of high-quality pain relief. This Bill proposes little to assist most of those who are dying. I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, that it is mistitled. This is not a Bill about assisting the dying.
Secondly, the Bill does little to support the choices of those who are dying. A Bill that centred on protecting the choice of those who are dying would concentrate on choices to refuse treatment, which can be, but so often are not, set out in advance directives, or choices about where to die. Do those who purport to care about the choices of the dying really have nothing to say about respecting or protecting the wholly uncontroversial choices of many who die on general wards, when they would have preferred to stay at home or in their nursing home with appropriate care and pain relief? Do they have nothing to say about choices that can be set out in advance directives? Seemingly so. The Bill supports only the choices of the few who might choose to commit suicide.
Thirdly, the Bill is not about altering the law on suicide. Suicide is not now a crime. It would be impossible to prosecute those who succeed. Attempted suicide used to be an offence, but it was decriminalised in the Suicide Act 1961. Fourthly, the Bill is about selectively decriminalising actions that, in the words of that Act,
“aids, abets, counsels or procures the suicide of another”,
by defining exceptions to this provision. The offence of aiding and abetting suicide was amended in the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, with greater emphasis on the element of intention.
So, we are dealing with a proposal to amend the law on aiding and abetting suicide. There are many good reasons, which I need hardly spell out, why we need legislation that makes it an offence to aid and abet another’s suicide. The question actually raised by the Bill is whether it is feasible or advisable to create an exemption for certain cases. The 1961 Act already provided that prosecution should not be automatic. In the wake of the Coroners and Justice Act, the Director of Public Prosecutions published a policy which sets out considerations for and against prosecution; and prosecutions are very few. However, this policy would be dislodged if the potential offence that warrants investigation or requires an inquest were abolished. The policy works because there is no immunity from investigation, from an inquest, or, if the facts of the case prove adverse, from prosecution. If there were no offence, none of these protections would remain. We shall have to see what case can be made for such a risky move.
Some of the Bill’s proponents have recently publicly recommended it as a modest proposal. I wonder whether they have recently read Swift’s great satirical essay that gave this notable phrase such long-lasting currency in our language.
Digital Bill of Rights
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Faulks
The noble Lord is of course right to remind us of Magna Carta and its impending anniversary. The Government are not, at the moment, minded to introduce a Bill or any legislation of the sort that the noble Lord refers to. Of course we must be nimble to protect those rights which are expressed digitally. However, there are, as I said in my Answer to his Question, a number of remedies available. The Information Commissioner’s Office performs its task well and, for the moment, any legislation brought in by the Government or the party opposite should emphasise not only rights but responsibilities.
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve (CB)
Does the Minister think that the new draft data protection regulation now in process in Brussels will provide more or less adequate protection of personal privacy in the event that it is passed without further amendment?
Lord Faulks
I think that the noble Baroness is referring to the so-called “right to be forgotten”. The Government have some reservations about this. Anxiety has been expressed in the light of this proposed amendment to the directive and the recent decision of the ECJ. The progress of this directive is still a matter of active consideration and negotiation by the Government.
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve
My Lords, I was referring to the draft data protection regulation—which is not a directive—not to the right to be forgotten.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, rightly raised this privacy issue in the Queen’s Speech debate. Most of us are, I suspect, blissfully unaware that the so-called location services on our mobiles act as an insidious spy in the pocket, constantly recording our every movement wherever we go. Should we not at least start by obliging smartphone and network providers to tell us clearly what personal information they collect and how, and how we, as consumers, can turn it off?
Defamation Bill
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve
My Lords, I have put my name to this amendment to Amendment 1, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, because it is urgent to establish an effective, affordable and independent route for resolving claims of defamation. In doing so, I declare an interest as chair of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission. Unlike my noble friend Lady Hollins, who also brings the expertise of experience of intrusion and defamation to this debate, I bring only a track record of speaking and writing on the conflict between rights to freedom of expression and other rights, including the right to reputation.
I do not think that it is a matter of dispute that we need a cheap and effective way of resolving claims of defamation. However, the mechanism for resolving such claims needs also to be fair, and that means that it has to be independent not only of the interests of both parties but also of the Government. The noble Lord’s amendment seeks to achieve that. I think that this amendment to the amendment would do so rather more effectively; it is at least more explicit, which enables your Lordships to consider what it would actually take to achieve independence in this matter.
Both amendments build on Lord Justice Leveson’s proposal to create an independent recognition commission that will validate the standards to which any voluntary regulatory body for the media works. Lord Justice Leveson’s proposal is, as we all recognise, ingenious because it offers a way of retaining media self-regulation while requiring that self-regulation to meet adequate standards of fairness and independence as certified by a recognition body. The amendment sets out incentives for media organisations to participate in a voluntary regulatory body—it will be much cheaper for them if that body is recognised by an independent recognition body—and it also sets out incentives for claimants to use the arbitration service. Again, it will be cheaper and quicker.
The complaints system run by the PCC—or should I perhaps say the former PCC?—was in many ways cheap to use, but it had a range of deficiencies, which have been much discussed in your Lordships’ House and in Lord Justice Leveson’s report, and it lacked that crucial form of independence. I do not think that we should pass a defamation Bill that fails to address these fundamental defects. The connections between intrusion and defamation are too close for us simply to overlook them.
The detail of these amendments and of Schedule 17 is complex, although they have been much discussed by those with the relevant drafting expertise. I do not think we are likely to come much closer to satisfying the requirements of all parties. I hope very much that the Minister can indicate that the Government will accept these amendments or at least can indicate that their fundamental purpose will be secured by government amendments at Third Reading. I beg to move.
Lord McNally
Have I said something that I should not have said?
I should like to update noble Lords on some of the discussions that have already taken place on Lord Justice Leveson’s recommendations. First, recommendations concerning the press and police have been considered by the cross-party group and measures are being developed further by the Home Office, on which the Home Secretary will report to Parliament shortly. Secondly, Lord Justice Leveson’s recommendations regarding the press and politicians have been considered and are now being taken forward by the Cabinet Office.
Thirdly, there have been discussions on the complex issues raised by data protection. As the Minister with responsibility for data protection, I am looking with my right honourable friend the Justice Secretary at the best way to take this forward, preferably once we have a clear idea of what we are doing as far as the tripartite talks are concerned. This is a complex series of decisions. Furthermore, the talks continue to consider, among many other issues, the best way to recognise the new press self-regulatory body. While there are areas of differences, there are also many areas of agreement. There is a widespread desire for a cross-party solution to this issue of fundamental importance to our democracy. A great deal of work has already taken place in talks and these amendments risk pre-empting their outcome.
This brings me to the key issue: whether statute is the most appropriate route to delivering the underpinning that Lord Justice Leveson sets out. This question has been the topic of impassioned debate not only today but across the weeks since the report’s publication. The cross-party talks have considered a number of options, including various draft Bills—among them the Bill prepared by my noble friend Lord Lester. In addition, there have been discussions about a proposed royal charter. To add to the debate and to demonstrate to this House that concrete progress is being made, I can announce today that a draft royal charter proposal will be published next week—the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, is well informed.
As I hope noble Lords will recognise, I have outlined just a few of the issues that are subject to detailed consideration in cross-party talks and with stakeholders. I am convinced that an approach agreed cross-party, if it can be secured, is the best way to do justice to Lord Justice Leveson’s proposals and to ensure a new system of press regulation which can enjoy secure and real public confidence.
I recognise the strong feelings in this House and the desire to send a message. I am sure that that message has been clearly heard. However, I ask noble Lords to allow those cross-party talks to reach their full and considered conclusion rather than to bring legislative proposals before this House at this stage. The noble Lord was wrong to say that this is the end of the matter; the Bill will have a Third Reading and go back to the other place.
This is, of course, a matter of judgment. However, I feel that with the progress that is being made on the kind of things to which the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, referred, and given that the royal charter proposal will be on the table next week, there will be a chance in the next few days to give some real impetus to these talks. As I said previously, there is no doubt in my mind that the real prize is not a victory or defeat on this amendment today but a successful outcome to the tripartite talks. That would give us the real holy grail here, which is a cross-party endorsement which sticks in parliamentary and legislative terms and has widespread support among the public. I hope that, with those remarks, my old friend will agree to withdraw his amendment.
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve
My Lords, it has been a very instructive debate. I think that it has become clear to many of us how little many of us who are not close to the cross-party talks know about what is actually being said or discussed. There is, I am sorry to say, and as the most reverend Primate reminded us, a serious question of trust here that is not going to be remedied quickly. A number of issues speak directly to that. Perhaps I may address one which the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, raised. He spoke repeatedly, as he has previously, about independent regulation, and he was reminded by the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, that independence is not just a matter of one’s belief that one is a person of independent judgment; it is also a question of institutions, structures, how one is appointed and to whom one is accountable. Our debates would be very much clarified if we did not speak of a self-regulation body that lacks an appropriate form of accountability to a recognition body as a form of independent regulation. It is less than that.
I have every faith in the good intentions of the noble Lord and his colleagues in seeking to define a way forward, but without the statutory recognition body which is integral to Lord Justice Leveson’s proposals, we have no reason to expect that that will endure across the vicissitudes of time and self-interest. We have repeated experience that what passes for self-regulation has been self-interested regulation. That is why many of us are extremely anxious on behalf of our fellow citizens who have been victims of intrusion and defamation, and lack remedies.
I will withdraw Amendment 1A, tabled in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Hollins. It is a complex amendment and it is imperfect. Greater clarity will be served if noble Lords make a straightforward decision on supporting the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, and colleagues. That puts the issue squarely. We would all acknowledge that the details of these amendments—Amendment 1 and the amending amendments—are not perfect. They probably cannot be perfect at this stage. However, I hope that noble Lords will feel willing to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, knowing that it affords the Government more than one opportunity to reconsider the matter and come back on it. As the Minister indicated in his very interesting reply, it also affords some further time for reflection. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 1A.
Defamation Bill
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve Excerpts(12 years, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve
My Lords, it is a great honour to speak after the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill. We all owe him a great debt for his persistence, his focus and his depth of knowledge on these topics. I shall be briefer but I have two interests to declare. First, I am a trustee of Sense about Science, which has worked to improve the ways in which scientists and science writers communicate with the public and to reduce the risk thereby of them being taken to court for defamation if they are challenged by received views or very often by commercial interests. My second interest is perhaps proleptic: I have been nominated, but not yet confirmed, to chair the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
Defamation raises extraordinarily complex issues and the Bill not only has to deal with the deficiencies of current legislation, on which there is a considerable measure of agreement—its costs, its delays, its uncertainties and its clarities—but it has to do so, as many noble Lords have noted, in the context of huge transformations in communications technologies, about which I shall say nothing in detail. However, these changes are central to many other pieces of legislation that we have considered and shall be considering. We need to take a consistent view across different pieces of legislation. For example, I have in mind legislation that bears on copyright in the digital age and on the need to reformat material—for example, for archiving, preservation or republication—but not on material that is deemed thereby to have breached copyright or to have published a new work.
We need to take account of that in debates about the draft regulations for data protection, which, if implemented, will lead to a uniform approach to data protection across the EU. We need to bear that in mind in all legislation that bears, or purports to bear, on forms of transparency and openness and on the protection not only of rights of reputation but of rights of privacy. I believe that this is a central piece in a jigsaw of legislation that has come before us, and will come before us, which makes it all the more complex and important to get it right and to test it in a full range of ways.
It has been widely said, and it is expected, that your Lordships’ House will insert a public interest defence into the Bill to distinguish between different types of communication, with the aim of protecting those in the public interest from accusations of defamation—at least up to a point. For example, communicating scientific findings needs protection precisely because some may think that this is very unwelcome and may harm certain reputations, including, of course, commercial reputations. I believe that Karl Popper’s famous claims in The Open Society and Its Enemies are still a landmark in liberal society because of his insistence that science and the public understanding of it proceeds by conjecture and refutation. Science is not a matter of discovering and then asserting what is true, but a systematic practice of identifying claims that might be true, testing them against evidence, seeking new evidence if necessary, and discarding claims that fail the test of evidence. Scientifically impressive claims are those that survive energetic attempts at refutation, so we must allow the statement of scientific claims that might turn out to be false in order to test them.
Unless we allow the publication and promulgation of claims that may be false, science cannot proceed and communicating science to wider audiences will be severely harmed. However, I do not think this means that anything goes. While the legislation provides for protecting peer-reviewed scientific publication, which is very important, it does not yet offer ways to protect science journalism, other science writing and other journalism that seeks to investigate matters of academic substance from the risk of silencing by corporate or other interests. Given the costs—of which we have heard a certain amount—to those sued for defamation, such silencing is likely to be mainly invisible: a matter of subtle deterrence that prevents the public knowing what is not published.
Of course, we cannot demand that science writing, science journalism or other journalism on matters of fact should undergo peer-review processes. Peer review has different aims and is too slow and too costly, although I accept that the reality is that much of this writing and journalism is done by practising scientists and reflects a culture that takes those standards seriously. However, we can say something about some of the more elementary standards which science writing and other serious writing should meet if it is to be protected by any public interest defence. Even if we cannot immediately set out sufficient conditions for publication to count as a matter of public interest, we can set out some necessary conditions for it to do so.
A few years ago, as all of us remember with some nostalgia—or perhaps not—we were fairly good at distinguishing between gossip and publication. Publication could be regulated to prevent defamation if one knew who the publisher was. Defamatory gossip often did not travel far and was dealt with by local social sanctions. Gossips acquired a bad reputation and malicious gossips acquired a poisonous reputation. Malicious gossip traditionally became a matter for legal action only in unusual cases. Today that boundary is eroded. As the noble Lord, Lord Mawhinney, said, we encounter anonymised publication on a global scale and with global reach. These waters can be dangerous. Anonymised communication may cloak poison pens, those bent on revenge, those with undeclared financial interests and, of course, good old malicious gossip. Anonymity with global reach is available and makes defamatory communication much easier. A problem that we must address in passing this legislation is first to distinguish communication that is in the public interest—and so should receive protection—from quasi-communication that should not.
Let me explain quasi-communication. Part of the remedy here is quite simple; any speech or writing that is in the public interest should at least meet minimal standards to count as communication and not the lower standards required for mere dissemination or disclosure of content, whose origins, assumptions and authors can remain hidden and immune from questions about their methods and assumptions, their claims and their evasions. The public interest is indeed an interest in openness but not an interest in mere disclosure. That, so to speak, is the unintelligent form of openness. The intelligent form of openness meets more than those minimal standards; it opens matters to check and challenge by members of the public.
The communication, as I see it, that deserves protection is forthright and challengeable. It is designed to be accessible to others, is intelligible to them and provides adequate information for readers, listeners or viewers to assess the evidence and assumptions on which it was based and, if they choose, to respond. I do not see a case for protecting quasi-communication that does not meet the adequate standards for the openness to check and challenge, except in a limited number of cases, which I will come to.
A great deal of content that floats around the internet may be accessible. Some of it of course is very hard to find. Much of it is intelligible, at least to some, and often to many, audiences. However, anonymised content often is simply not assessable. By contrast, responsible journalism and other writing, including science writing and broadcasting, are both intelligible and assessable by others. There may, as I suggested, be limited exemptions, for example for highly sensitive types of investigative journalism, which we shall have to consider, but by and large anonymised communication is simply not assessable by the public. They cannot tell whether it is rumour—and if so, malicious rumour—or whether it is the smoke of a burning fire that they need to look at closely. When a query about data, evidence or measurement arises, no one can seek clarification because the information is just floating around as mere content and no one’s word.
The communication that we need therefore to protect is not mere dissemination or disclosure but genuine communication that seeks to reach its audience, aims to be intelligible to them and is assessable by them. That, I think, is the starting point for public interest defence that would reach into many of the areas that have worried many Members of your Lordships’ House who have spoken in today’s debate and many members of the public.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve Excerpts(12 years, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve
My Lords, I know that it is Third Reading and at this point I shall speak to process and not to substance. We already have in the Bill two exemptions from certain provisions relating to success fees and cost recovery via insurance—Clauses 44 and 45. The existing exemptions for those two clauses relate to respiratory disease and industrial disease, particularly when there has been a breach of a duty of care.
Amendments 25 and 28, to which the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, has just spoken, and to which I am speaking, seek to establish parallel exemptions for proceedings that include a claim for damages or other relief that relate either to personal information or breach of privacy or defamation. This is simply not the moment to try to alter the costs regime in actions pertaining either to privacy or defamation. The tectonic plates are shifting in this area. We have around us many cases that relate to criminal breaches of existing legal protections of privacy as, after all, not all have been settled. We also have a report by the Joint Committee on Privacy and Injunctions from only a fortnight ago to which nobody has yet been able to give much attention, but it deserves some attention. We have notably Lord Justice Leveson’s ongoing inquiry and we have a number of parallel inquiries going on into other aspects of the phone-hacking scandals that came to light last summer.
In some quarters, it is an expectation that defamation legislation will have a place in the Queen’s Speech. Is that a rumour? I do not know, but in some cases I think that it is a firm assumption. I know that nothing can be said about that, but in short, this is simply not the time to alter the costs and fees regime relating to cases in this area. If defamation legislation is coming forward in the Queen’s Speech, then will be the time to think about that. If not, there will be time to think about these other things that are ongoing.
I believe that there would be one other way that might seem to offer the Government a route for dealing with this difficulty of timing, which I accept is not something that could have been anticipated, but it is a severe difficulty. That would be to take advantage of Clause 152, which permits different parts of the Bill for different purposes—that is an unusual way of putting it—to be commenced at different points. It would be open to the Government to delay commencement on those issues. I accept that that is a way of avoiding making commitments now that might have to be reversed if there were a Defamation Bill. However, that is simply not satisfactory from the point of view of litigants—both claimants and defendants—in privacy and in defamation where the stakes are too high and the uncertainty is too great. At this stage, an exemption parallel to the exemption in Clauses 44 and 45 would be the appropriate way forward.
Lord Bach
My Lords, we have heard two powerful speeches on this matter. I say from the Front Bench that we support the amendment in the name of my noble friend. Legal aid has never been available for redress in this field, so no-win no-fee has become an essential bulwark for the impecunious citizen of moderate means against for the main part much more powerful media corporations. Such actions, as the House knows, recently led to the exposure of systematic wrongdoing at News International that saw innocent people’s lives just taken apart. We have heard reference already to the Dowlers and the McCanns, and to Mr Jeffries, too. But even politicians, such as the right honourable Simon Hughes, has been a victim, and have relied on no-win no-fee to get justice.
The Jackson reforms on road traffic accident personal injury cases, which we welcome very much on this side, comprising 75 per cent of all claims, are recognised as having a potentially devastating effect on this area of law. The Liberal Democrats in the other place agreed with us when they tabled amendments exempting privacy and defamation actions. I very much hope that they will be consistent if the matter is taken to a vote tonight. That is what they proposed in the other place, so will they really vote against it tonight? The Joint Committee is looking at the draft Defamation Bill. Everyone owes a huge debt to the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, who I am delighted to see in his place. He is unusually silent on this matter tonight but perhaps I can understand why.
Lord Thomas of Gresford
As a member of the committee that has just reported, I should remind the noble Lord that it advised against a privacy law.
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve
Before the Minister finishes winding, will he explain to the House why he does not think that these exemptions—the noble Lord, Lord Lester, may be entirely right—are the right way to go? Does he not think that two successive changes in the regime are the very worst thing for litigants in this area? In so far as we are leaving the Bill as it is, one change will happen now and another will happen down the road if there is legislation on defamation.
Lord McNally
We are talking about a Bill that does not come into effect until 2013. Given that defamation legislation is in process, I do not think the fact that there is a slight lacuna is a major problem in terms of the issues that the Bill will deal with. If it takes a little longer, that is a problem, and I will return to that.
That Bill and associated measures seek to reduce the costs of litigation and discourage unnecessary litigation in the area of defamation. We seek to do so, very broadly, by introducing a range of substantive and procedural changes and also by focusing on alternative dispute resolution, which is quicker, at lower cost, and offers more meaningful redress.
Any exceptions for defamation or privacy cases from the changes in Part 2 are unnecessary because our CFA reforms should not prevent strong cases being brought. I share the concern that individuals who are not wealthy or powerful sometimes need to bring defamation or privacy cases. Nothing in our proposals should prevent that where a case is a good one.
The noble Lord, Lord Bach, sometimes makes me gasp when he starts lecturing our Benches on consistency. The noble Lord, Lord Prescott, asked why this was happening now. Perhaps I may quote an expert on these matters:
“CFAs will remain available for defamation cases; thereby, lawyers will still be able to use them in deserving cases”.—[Official Report, 25/3/10; col. 1157.]
Those were the words of the noble Lord, Lord Bach, as Justice Minister, when he rushed attempts to reduce success fees before this House just before the election. We have already heard what happened in the grand coalition that was the Labour Government when the proposal went down the other end. Nevertheless, the noble Lord, Lord Bach, told this House:
“There is a substantial body of opinion that 100 per cent recoverable success fees should not continue in defamation cases”.—[Official Report, 25/3/10; col. 1156.]
He was backed up by a consultation which said,
“immediate steps are needed in respect of defamation proceedings”.
Freedom of Information Act 2000
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord McNally
My Lords, yes, I have. It was an extremely useful debate and a number of former public servants expressed their point of view on how the Freedom of Information Act works in their experience. As I said at the time, I do not share all their fears. I am extremely proud that we, as a party, supported the Freedom of Information Act. It has made our system of government much healthier. Frankly, when politicians, the press and the police have all shown that they have something to hide, this is not the time to start pulling down the shutters of secrecy again.
Lord Kinnock
Can the Minister tell us of any measure of the dimensions of the Health and Social Care Bill, with such direct effect on the organisation of a life-and-death service, that has been protected by any Government’s evasion of the responsibility to publish risk registers? This is not a matter of political persuasion but of the fundamental well-being of the people of this country.
Lord McNally
As the noble Lord knows, the risk registers are protected by the Freedom of Information Act. Every piece of legislation passed by the previous Government enjoyed the same privileges. The Opposition changed their opinion only when they went into opposition.
Since there is no time to respond to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, on her concerns about academic freedoms, I draw the attention of the House to the response of my noble friend Lord Henley. I have also passed that response to Sir Alan Beith for his consideration.
Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve
I thank the noble Lord but that is not what I was going to ask.
Justice: Pre-trial Publicity
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve Excerpts(13 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord McNally
I thank the noble Lord for his comments. I am the Minister responsible for liaison with the Law Commission. One of the things I said to Mr Justice Munby, the retiring head of the Law Commission, is that during my stewardship I would hope that we could remedy some of the faults that he indicated and that, certainly on this point, we would approach any Law Commission report with a due sense of urgency.
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve
Does the Minister agree that one of the problems is that the media have confused their right of freedom of expression, which in the European convention contains many legitimate restrictions, with the rights of self-expression which we may accord to individuals without damage to others?
Lord McNally
I agree, but also the law is very clear. I tend to agree with the Attorney-General that the media have been pushing the envelope of the law to an extreme. That is why he is taking action.
Legislation
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve Excerpts(13 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve
Would the Minister consider recommending to his colleagues that departments of government receive a budget for drafting future legislation at a stage before it is known whether it will form part of the Queen’s Speech, so that the good ideas may be more adequately translated into prose?
Lord McNally
Again, I will take that sound suggestion back. From my limited experience, if I had my time over again, I would become a parliamentary draftsman, because it seems to be a well protected trade.