Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 Amendment Regulations 2012

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Winston]

My Lords, first, I declare an interest as animal licence-holder for more than 40 years; I think I am almost the longest holder of a licence in London. I work at Imperial College where animal research is conducted. I am a member of a research council which from time to time may need to support the use of animal research for specific validation in engineering, and I am also chairman of a spin-out biotech company, although I do not take any income from that company. Clearly all companies are aiming eventually to make a profit, although I doubt that this one will, but it is still exploring various patents that involve techniques that will be tested on animals.

I am grateful for the clarity of the Minister’s assessment of the directive, which was very helpful. I want to add a personal note of thanks to the Home Office, which has been exemplary in the way it has helped me from time to time with licence applications. In recent years, we have seen a much greater recognition of the need to collaborate and care for the way that we ensure that the law is properly enforced, and I feel very confident in the officials with whom I have dealt.

With that preamble, I express some concerns about this directive and about how we might go ahead. In particular, I am concerned about the three Rs. The three Rs have been around for a very long time. When they were first considered, nobody appreciated where the limitations of the reductions or replacements might be. For example, when the three Rs were first proposed, nobody considered that cell culture is a very limited model for many needs in medicine. Cells in culture do not always perform or behave in the same way as cells do inside an intact organ or, even more importantly, an intact total person or being. A rodent that is alive and well, in which the cells are functioning without changes altering how the genes express or how the cells are growing normally in that organ, is fundamental to medicine. To some extent replacement, reduction and refinement are a bit of problem in cell culture.

When one looks at organ culture, human organs unquestionably do not react completely normally. The classic example is the isolated liver. It was hoped that it might replace the liver of people in liver failure, but those livers do not react in the same way. They cannot because they are not subject to all the homeostatic control mechanisms that go on inside an intact organ.

When computer modelling was first envisaged, it was also thought to be a very good way of replacing animals in research. It has become apparent in the past three or four years that computer models fall way short of what is needed. They cannot predict how animals in the intact state would behave. Many of the invertebrate species, in which we can work, are not always ideal models either.

We have to accept that there is going to be a need to continue, particularly in rodents. In my view, there are some reasons for considering that not only should that work continue but it may need some degree of amplification. The reason why I say that is as follows. First, I am very concerned about the issue of the backbone of British science, which, as every research council will tell you, is the PhD student. That is the person who does the mainstream experimental work that we hope will lead to our understanding of medicine and our improvements of treatment, and of course contributes to the British economy with novel and innovative ideas. There is no question, from my experience and that of many other people, that PhD students are increasingly reluctant to go into important areas of medicine and biology where animal research is being used, not because they disapprove of that research but because they are concerned increasingly about the delay, when they have a finite time—now rigidly defined because of fees and so on—of three years to complete their PhD. For a PhD student to delay starting experimental work is a massive problem.

Many PhD students do not see this work as anything other than laudable. It is worth bearing in mind, since we sometimes forget, that most scientists are actually very altruistic people; they go into an area of work because they believe that they are going to do some good. They certainly do not want to harm animals, or indeed people. However, there is concern. I have one person in my own lab who refused an area of research because she felt that it was seen publicly as being disreputable; it was felt to be not very acceptable to the public as it involved mice. That individual ended up doing work, which was actually very good science, in a different area of biology that did not involve animals, but it took a long time. That was a typical switch that we often see in young scientists, and I am a bit concerned about that.

Further, as noble Lords will appreciate well, there is the issue of the fear among experimentalists about their risk of being attacked. Unfortunately, not enough of the community are prepared to put their head above the parapet, and we need to do more to encourage my colleagues to stand up and be accountable.

The second issue, apart from the PhD students, is the real issue that it is an important aspect of our economy. I have no doubt that we have to be stringent and careful about how we use animals, and we have to be utterly humane. That is an essential component of any work; certainly, as a doctor, I feel that that is important, just as it would be in treating a patient. As I think my noble friend on this side will say, we in Britain feel that our regulations are probably more stringent than most of Europe, and we are probably far further down the road of being sure that we are running a proper shop in our universities and other laboratories. However, 11% of our GDP comes from manufacturing. Although we are losing some of our great pharmaceutical companies, big pharma and biotech is an important area where we still lead the world, and those companies need animal work. It is fair to say that there is hardly a single drug that any of this in this Room have taken that does not depend on some animal research. The exception would be aspirin and, I think, digitalis, but I cannot think of any others; all the rest will at some stage have had animal research to prove their efficacy, their safety and that their long-term effects were not a problem.

That is one reason why this has to continue, and another is vaccinology. People may say that with modern genetics, reverse vaccinology, where you tailor a vaccine descending on the genome of what you are trying to combat, is the answer, but the modern techniques of making vaccines all use intact animals at some stage, so that also needs to be factored in.

I do not want to go on for too long because it would be wrong to do so, but I just want to draw attention to a couple of other points. First, one of the great areas of medicine which is really advancing and offers hope for better treatment is genetics. There, the greatest single model probably is the modified mouse. That has been a massive advance in the past few years—of course, since the three Rs. Increasingly, we are needing to look at mice whose genes are not working in the way that they would normally work because of cancer or other issues. They are absolutely essential to animal research. While we have to make certain that these animals do not suffer undue pain and are humanely treated, it would be unthinkable to allow more patients to die because we are not prepared to look for new drugs that might combat a condition which will kill one-third of the human population of the United Kingdom eventually.

On transplantable organs, I note the directive and its issue on transplantation but we also have to bear it in mind that every 15 minutes around the world someone is put on a transplant list. Most people on a transplant list will not get an organ. For every one person put on a list, there are probably five others who do not even get there. One of the great hopes is still xenotransplantation. The idea that we might not be able to engineer pigs for their organs when they are killed absolutely humanely, and much more humanely than, for example, in farming, is something we need to bear in mind.

We need to be clear in Europe as regards this technology, in which we lead in this country and may want to continue to produce. I have to admit that my company is involved in that technology, so I have a vested interest. I am not speaking because of that vested interest: I believe passionately that it is worth doing.

Let me conclude by arguing that one of the things that we need to do is to get a sense of reality about the three Rs. We need to recognise, for example, that every research university is doing animal research and that we need to have more people putting their heads above the parapet. It would be really helpful if the Government could encourage more public engagement. We note that they had many responses from the public but I suspect that even those came from people with a very narrow view of animal research—either very pro or very opposed to it.

From various polls, including a fairly recent MORI poll, it is clear that most people still do not really understand, first, how stringent and well conducted our regulations are and, secondly, the value of the research that is going on. We should be trying to focus more of our attention on that.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, has told us, these draft regulations are intended to tighten the regulations on the use of animals in scientific research in the less well regulated European Union countries, particularly to improve animal welfare. I declare an interest as I serve on my university’s ethics committee, which oversees any Home Office licences required for such research, which, I might add, is undertaken for all the ethical reasons described by the noble Lord, Lord Winston.

Let me begin by welcoming the tightening of animal welfare legislation that the EU directive requires. I also welcome the instances of more stringent protection of animals in these regulations than is required by the EU directive, particularly the retention of the UK special protection for cats, dogs and horses; I find it surprising that that is not required in the directive.

Before turning to my concerns, perhaps I may pick up on a point mentioned by the Minister when he talked about three Rs—replace, reduce and refine. Perhaps when he comes to respond, he will amplify slightly on the question of replacement and to tell us what it is that he thinks that animals, such as the rodents described by the noble Lord, Lord Winston, should be replaced with. The Committee will not be surprised to know that I am particularly concerned about the use of human embryos.

However, during the proceedings on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, who spoke several times during those proceedings, made abundantly clear what became known almost in shorthand as the Hunt test. If alternatives existed to the use of human embryos, they should always be used. There is potential here for conflict: if they were to be used for replacement for animals, how does that accord with the so-called Hunt test that was used during those proceedings.

My concerns in this legislation to improve animal welfare centre on the importance of ensuring that other areas of legislation therefore do not suffer. There are a number of major concerns about this on which I will ask the Minister for reassurance. I return to some of the questions raised during the passage of the HFE Act, and in subsequent Questions I asked of the noble Earl, Lord Howe, on 20 July 2011. In a Written Answer he confirmed that some 3.1 million human embryos had been created since the passage of the 1990 legislation, and that 1.4 million of those had been discarded. To put it another way, for every baby born by IVF, 30 human embryos are destroyed. In a further reply that day, the noble Earl said that 150 animal/human hybrids had been created over the three years up to July 2011; that is obviously the question that I will centre on in my remarks today. I will also partly focus on replacement, which I referred to. I hope that as he comes to reply today, the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, will be able to tell us what the numbers of animal/human hybrids created in the United Kingdom have been since that was authorised; and also the total number of human embryos that have been destroyed or experimented upon since the passage of the 1990 legislation.

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[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

Just before the Minister completes his remarks and sits down, I thank him for the offer of a meeting to discuss issues such as tetraploid complementarity and the other complex questions that he alluded to. Before that meeting takes place, would it be possible for his officials to prepare a note answering some of the specific questions that I put to him? For example, I raised the number of animal/human hybrid embryos that have been created; there were over 150 when I last tabled a Parliamentary Question about them. That kind of information would be very helpful in advance of the meeting that we are to have.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

If I understand the noble Lord correctly, he indeed asked a question about actual numbers. I do not have them to hand but I am sure that they are available, and if we do not have them we will see if the Department of Health does. We will do our best to inform the discussion that we are going to have with a certain amount of preparatory work on the questions that he has raised.

Police (Complaints and Conduct) Bill

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 11th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, the report published on 12 September by the Hillsborough Independent Panel, chaired by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool, meticulously examined every aspect of the disaster at the Hillsborough Stadium on 15 April 1989, in which 90 men, women and children lost their lives.

The right reverend Prelate, from whom we will hear shortly, and those who worked with him deserve our gratitude and wholehearted appreciation. Their report exposed a number of significant failures and associated shortcomings in the investigation that followed the disaster. The welcome Bill before us today emerged from their findings. I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, for the way in which he introduced the debate on what, as he said, is an exceptional Bill.

The Independent Panel’s report concluded that police and emergency services had made “strenuous attempts” to deflect the blame for the disaster on to fans. One hundred and sixty-four police statements had been altered, 116 of them to remove or change negative comments about the policing of the match. The report also said that 41 of the 96 who had died had had the “potential to survive”—grounds, certainly, for ordering new inquests.

Lives that were lost can never be brought back but it has given significant comfort to those personally affected by Hillsborough that Parliament has at last recognised that a terrible tragedy was compounded by injustice and falsification, as the noble Lord said. Flawed and delayed investigations do significant damage to delicate and crucial finely balanced police-public relationships, and this Bill is a recognition of that. The Bill—and the new inquests—will allow the Independent Police Complaints Commission to bring some solace to the families and their supporters, whose signal resolution and dignity have been exemplary.

Twenty-three years ago, one of my saddest duties as a Liverpool Member of Parliament was visiting families of those bereaved at Hillsborough. Several of my constituents had died, including a child. Another, Andrew Devine, then aged 22, was left in a persistent vegetative state. Andrew was caught in the crush, deprived of oxygen, and following the resultant brain damage his parents were told that he would die within months. Ever since, his extraordinary parents, Hilary and Stanley, have lovingly cared for Andrew, who emerged from his coma in 1994.

The deaths of 96 people and the long-term trauma were compounded by the infamous aftermath, which combined vilification and procrastination. Agony was piled upon agony with the insulting and wholly fallacious attempts to smear and blame the victims. They had, it was suggested, brought the calamity of Hillsborough on themselves. Thanks to the Independent Panel’s report, 23 years later that calumny has finally been laid to rest.

For me, however, the most shocking aspect of the tragedy has always been that it could have been averted and that it had been predicted. In the month before the match, a Liverpool fan who had witnessed an earlier game at Hillsborough told me that staging the semi-final at Hillsborough would be unsafe. Following that conversation, I wrote to the then Sports Minister, Colin—now the noble Lord—Moynihan, to express my concern. This correspondence is referred to in a parliamentary reply which appears in Hansard. In 1989, the Minister said:

“The hon. Member wrote to me on 22 March about the arrangements at the FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough on 15 April. No other representation was received. The arrangements for the match will be among the matters to be considered by Lord Justice Taylor’s inquiry”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/4/89; col. 414.]

So ground safety and ticket allocation at Hillsborough had been an issue before the game. Many of us were reassured that Lord Justice Taylor’s inquiry would examine why sufficient weight was not attached to those concerns, as well as examining the events of the day.

Although much-needed changes would subsequently be made to ground safety, Liverpool fans found themselves branded by Kelvin MacKenzie as liars—for which he has now unreservedly apologised. Acting, he said, on information given to him by the police, his newspaper alleged that drunkenness was to blame. At the time, I questioned Ministers in Parliament about the fans’ behaviour, asking the then Minister at the Home Office, Douglas Hogg,

“at what level the publication of statements on 18 April by South Yorkshire police concerning the conduct of Liverpool fans at the Hillsborough semi-cup final was authorised; if he will publish a copy of that statement and the name of the officer who made it; and if he will make a statement”.

He replied:

“Statements made by officers of the South Yorkshire police are a matter for the chief constable. It would not be helpful for me to publish statements or counter-statements which have been made about the circumstances leading to the tragedy, or to name those who made them. It is for Lord Justice Taylor’s inquiry to establish the facts”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/4/89; col. 404.]

The names of the officers who gave the authorisation were not subsequently made known and the falsehoods were allowed to stand. Taylor did not establish the facts; nor did he discover the truth. It was left to the grieving families to demand answers and to insist that justice should be done.

As the years went by I made repeated requests for the legal cases to be reopened. In the House of Commons in June 1992, the Solicitor-General at the time, Sir Derek Spencer, responded that he would,

“take a decision on an outstanding formal application for consent under section 13 of the Coroners Act 1988 as soon as possible”.

“As soon as possible” is a phrase which has been used again and again since 1989.

In 1992 I asked the Minister if he had any understanding of,

“the sense of grief felt by many people, including my constituent Philip Hammond whose boy was tragically killed at Hillsborough, and their sense that no line can be drawn on the issue until every legal remedy has been exhausted?”.

I urged him to,

“assure the House that that announcement will not be long in coming and that he will try to understand the feelings of the relatives involved, who do not feel that the inquest process has been exhaustive”.

Twenty years ago, the then Solicitor-General replied that he was,

“conscious of the continuing grief and anxiety of the many individuals affected by that tragedy. For that reason, the decision must be carefully considered—and it will be. We shall make a decision as soon as possible”.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/6/92; col. 644-45.]

Three years had then elapsed since the tragedy—and a further 20 now. If we had acted in 1992, telling the coroner to reopen the cases, it would not now be possible to cite “the passage of time” as the reason why details of what occurred will not and cannot be accurately recalled. It is not just the passage of time that is shocking: it is our lamentable failure to provide justice— as the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, said in his remarks earlier—in a country which prides itself on the rule of law.

In 1998, in your Lordships’ House, I once again challenged the failure to re-examine the Hillsborough deaths and asked:

“What account the Home Secretary and Lord Justice Stuart-Smith”,

had taken,

“in deciding against a fresh inquiry into the Hillsborough tragedy, of missing video tapes, changed statements by police officers, conflicting medical evidence and complaints of lack of impartiality in the original coroner’s process and in the granting of immunity from prosecution to police officers upon taking early retirement”.

That was a point alluded to earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith.

The then Minister, the late Lord Williams of Mostyn, replied:

“Lord Justice Stuart-Smith considered all the material evidence submitted to his scrutiny about the Hillsborough disaster. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary”—

Jack Straw—

“accepted his conclusion that there were no grounds for a fresh inquiry”.

The Minister told the House that,

“there was no new video evidence”,

and that,

“the only missing video tapes were two tapes stolen on the day of the disaster, which remain missing. They were not police tapes and the judge was satisfied that they would not have shown anything significant”.

He added that the Director of Public Prosecutions had considered whether police officers should be prosecuted,

“but concluded that no officer should face prosecution”,

and that because one officer had retired on ill health, it would,

“have been unfair to pursue what was, in essence, a joint charge against one officer only”.

Imagine if any of us here were involved in a bank robbery, a fraud, manslaughter or a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Would the police decide that because one of us had retired they would take no action against the other? That is simply implausible. It also raises a worrying question about the ability of the IPCC to question retired officers. Ministers, of course, have got it wrong before. In 1998, the Minister was clear that,

“allegations of irregularity and malpractice are not substantiated”,

and that it had been found that there were,

“no grounds to suggest that the original inquests were flawed or that complaints of bias against the Coroner were justified”.—[Official Report, 23/3/98; cols. WA 232-33.]

As the Prime Minister made clear in his Statement on 12 September, we now know otherwise and that allegations of irregularity and malpractice were indeed substantiated. Mr Cameron told Parliament that the Liverpool fans had “suffered a double injustice”, both in the,

“failure of the state to protect their loved ones and the indefensible wait to get to the truth”.

In offering a full apology, he also admonished those who had denigrated the deceased and suggested,

“that they were somehow at fault for their own deaths”.—[Official Report, Commons, 12/9/12; cols. 285-86.]

In October, the IPCC published its Decision in Response to the Report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel, which makes it clear that despite the fact that it does,

“not have investigative powers over all of the parties referred to in the report”,

its desire is,

“to go forward in the spirit of the Panel’s work, to seek to ensure that there is a coordinated approach”—

a point which the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, referred to—

“that can encompass all the issues, agencies and individuals involved, and which liaises closely with the families”.

We can all welcome that.

It would, however, be helpful if, arising out of the exchange of letters on 10 December and 4 December between the right honourable Damian Green MP and the All-Party Group on the Hillsborough Disaster and the chair of the IPCC, Dame Anne Owers—concerning the decision not to specify effective sanctions in this Bill—the Minister will clarify precisely what action will be taken if serving officers refuse to attend an interview with the IPCC if required to do so. Will he also list the documents which the IPCC says were not given to the right reverend Prelate’s panel and say who is now looking at them, why they were not given to the panel in the first place and whether they are going to be made public?

Last week, the Home Affairs Select Committee said that there should be safeguards for police officers interviewed by the IPCC. This would surely point to the use of interviewing under caution. Perhaps the Minister will say whether that procedure will indeed be invoked. The Home Secretary, the right honourable Theresa May, gave a commitment in the House of Commons that the IPCC would be given the powers and resources it needs to carry out its investigation “thoroughly, transparently and exhaustively”. Perhaps the Minister will tell us more about resources and how that work is to be expedited.

When the Prime Minister made his Statement in September the Attorney-General, the right honourable Dominic Grieve MP, said he would make a decision in the forthcoming two months about whether to apply to the High Court for the original verdict of accidental death to be quashed. Yesterday the Attorney-General said:

“My application has now been lodged with the court. It is my intention to appear to argue the case at the hearing that will take place in the High Court. I believe that the case for the High Court to quash the original inquests is a good one”.

What is envisaged as the timetable for those new inquests? In particular, on 27 November I asked the Government,

“what consideration they have given to the petition by Anne Williams”—

supported by 100,000 people—to accelerate the new inquest into the death of her 15 year-old son Kevin at Hillsborough,

“and what consideration they have given to fast-tracking the request on compassionate grounds”.

The Advocate-General for Scotland, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, replied:

“The Attorney-General is in the process of preparing an application to the High Court to quash the original inquests and order new inquests into the deaths of the victims of the Hillsborough disaster. The evidence which supports an application in respect of Kevin Williams is essentially the same as that which supports an application into the other deaths and the Attorney-General expects to be in a position to lodge the application in December”.—[Official Report, 27/11/12; WA 38.]

Sadly, what is not the same as in other cases is that Anne Williams has terminal cancer. I hope that the Attorney-General, whom the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester—who is in his place and was himself present at the Hillsborough game—and I will see tomorrow, will ensure that Kevin’s new inquest will be given the highest priority so that it does not come too late for his grieving mother, Anne. Otherwise, one tragedy will be compounded by another. When he comes to reply, I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us the precise timetable which will be followed so that these new inquests will be held without delay, and whether the Lord Chief Justice is likely to make an announcement before Christmas.

Having taken 23 years to uncover the truth, the bereaved families and survivors have a right to expect that the investigations by the IPCC and the inquests are taken forward as expeditiously as possible. I am grateful to the Government for bringing forward the Bill, to the Prime Minister for acting so decisively and to the right reverend Prelate and his independent panel. This time, the words need to mean more than the ones previously uttered and, in seeking justice, our institutions need to examine how and why these tragic events were allowed to fester and to be covered up for so long.

Minority Ethnic and Religious Communities: Cultural and Economic Contribution

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 24th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, there is an old tradition that the Magi—the wise men from the East—were Zoroastrians. My noble friend Lord Bilimoria demonstrated today, 2,000 years later, that Zoroastrians still have great wisdom and precious gifts to share with the rest of us. However, those gifts are not universally recognised. In the recent report of the United States commission on religious liberty, Zoroastrians were listed among the many religious minorities who face persecution, discrimination and imprisonment, not least in Iran. Many noble Lords heard the exchange at Question Time today about the continued abuses of human rights in that country for a variety of reasons.

Two weeks ago I delivered the annual Tyburn lecture. In penal times, Tyburn—today’s Marble Arch—was where 105 Catholic men and women were executed for their faith. Among them were Edmund Campion, a distinguished Oxford scholar, and the poet Robert Southwell, a cousin of William Shakespeare. I reflected during the lecture that Tyburn’s disturbing and poignant story is one of immense cruelty and barbarism. It is the story of a perverted legal system, and reminds us to what intolerance, mutual persecution, the crushing of conscience and what Thomas More called the breaking of the unity of life inexorably lead. Parliamentarians even brought forward measures to remove children over the age of seven from their families if their Catholic parents did not conform.

The story of Tyburn does not call for revenge and should not be used for the stoking of old hatreds. However, it is instructive and has applications today. It reminds us that the struggle for religious freedom is intrinsic to the struggle for democracy and freedom itself. This debate is timely and should remind us that we should appreciate the privileges that we have and be aware of the sacrifices that were made to secure them and committed to speak up for the millions of people who suffered or died for their faith in previous generations so that we could enjoy the freedoms that we have today.

I am a Catholic and am proud of my British and Irish antecedents. My mother was an immigrant from the west of Ireland. Her first language was Irish, not English. She married my late father, who was a Desert Rat, in the East End of London. I hold British and Irish passports, as do my children. I have always taught them that you do not hate one country because you love another. I echo what the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, said about holding on to the preciousness of your roots while integrating and playing your part in the nation where you live.

During my time in another place, where I was Irish affairs spokesman for many years—the day after I was elected to the House of Commons, Airey Neave was blown up in its precincts—I heard interminable Statements about tragedies both in Britain and in Ireland. Today there are 6.6 million Catholics in this country—10% of our population—and 600,000 people in England were born in Ireland. Ireland has been the largest source of immigrants to this country for more than 200 years. It is estimated that as many as 6 million people in the United Kingdom have at least one Irish grandparent. Surely it is worth reflecting, exactly a year after Her Majesty the Queen visited the Republic of Ireland, that we have made extraordinary progress despite 800 years of history and mutual hatred.

On the economic issues raised by my noble friend Lord Bilimoria and the noble Lord, Lord Bew, it is worth mentioning, especially in these troubled times, that last year €13.6 billion-worth of UK goods were sold to Ireland, and that British trade with Ireland is still greater than its business with the huge emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China combined.

Today is a day for celebrating our nation’s diversity—the whole world in one country. It is an important moment to insist that along with respect for difference and minorities must come a commitment by us all to do all we can, using all our energy, to promote the unity, democracy, freedom and justice that we treasure in this nation. They are precious gifts worthy of the Zoroastrian Magi.

Marriages and Civil Partnerships (Approved Premises) (Amendment) Regulations 2011

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

I agree. I am seeking, using the Church of England opinion as a short way of doing so, to refer to the actual provisions in the Act to show that they are quite clear and have no application to anything that could give rise to a possible legal challenge.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord. I want to revert to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, just made. The phrase “for the avoidance of doubt” has been thrown around a lot during the course of the proceedings today. It seems there is a lot of common ground in your Lordships’ House on trying to find a sensible way forward. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, suggested earlier that, if vexatious litigation were to be brought forward in the future, then an amendment to the Equality Act should be brought to your Lordships’ House and enacted. Would the noble and learned Lord commit himself to supporting such an approach if vexatious litigation were to emerge as a result of the decision today, unlikely—I agree with him—though that is?

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

I should say that I am not a learned Lord. Whether I am a noble Lord is another matter.

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My noble friend Lady O’Cathain thought that by inserting the last paragraph into my letter, I was expressing that I had some doubts. I assure her that I have no doubts but, in the extraordinarily unlikely event that there was some legal challenge that we had to face, I will repeat what I had to say in that last paragraph. I made it clear that, while we do not believe that this will happen, if a successful legal challenge were ever brought, I would like to provide reassurance—I provide it now, from this Dispatch Box—that the Government would immediately review the relevant legislation. We are absolutely clear that the voluntary nature of this measure must be maintained.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves the very important statement that he made, both in his letter and again to the House today, I notice that it says that if a successful legal challenge were brought, the Government would carry out a review. Will he bear in mind what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn said earlier, and the point I raised with the noble Lord, Lord Lester, about vexatious litigation? It might not be successful litigation, but it would nevertheless be litigation, and it could involve people in considerable expenditure, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, said earlier. In those circumstances, will the Minister given an undertaking to the House that the issue will be generally kept under review without having to wait for litigation? Will there be, if necessary—although most of us accept that it is highly improbable—an amendment to the Equality Act? That is, if those circumstances were to occur, would legislation be brought forward along the lines suggested by the noble and learned Lord?

[Lord Henley]

I hope that this debate has brought a considerable degree of clarity to this issue. I think that it is now generally clear—most people understand the legal aspect—that there is no doubt about this matter. However, as the noble Lord has raised this point, which was also raised by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, we will obviously keep all matters under review, and if we saw a problem, we could act. I do not think that that is likely. Particularly after what we have heard in this debate, it would be a very vexatious litigant who tried to bring such an action, and I do not think they would have much chance in the courts.

I hope that I have spoken briefly and with some clarity about what the Government’s intentions are. I repeat again, this measure is entirely permissive; it is not designed to go any further. On that I am at one with the Opposition Front Bench, with the noble Lord, Lord Alli, and with a large number of the legal luminaries who have spoken. I hope that my noble friend will feel able, therefore, to withdraw her amendment.