Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Wednesday 20th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I shall certainly do so, but I have two comments. First, I thank the Minister for confirming the point about the spirit, which I am glad to have confirmed from the Dispatch Box. On another more general point, each Bill seems to be thicker than the last. A few years ago, it would have been adequate to say, “The Secretary of State shall publish a document”. Now we have to say, “The Secretary of State shall publish a document in the manner in which she deems to be appropriate”. The officials will understand why we probe some of these words more often than just from time to time.

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton]

I was a civil servant in the Met Office and used to visit other agencies. The variability in the publication of annual reports is quite extraordinary. A Minister visited the National Physical Laboratory and asked, “Why do you publish all these annual reports?”. I am glad to say that the Met Office continues to publish annual reports and they are still very valuable and people refer to them. Therefore, I was very surprised by the Minister’s insouciant response to this whole issue of the publication of reports. As the noble Baroness said, the relevant information is very unsatisfactory. Are the Government looking into this more broadly?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, in days of old there was only one way of publishing a report, which was in hard copy. Today we can publish on the internet. We can also issue a CD and issue hard copy on a limited circulation. The provisions in the Bill take account of the various ways of releasing the information without being too prescriptive.