Alcohol Consumption

Debate between Lord Phillips of Sudbury and Baroness Stowell of Beeston

Tuesday 27th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury (LD)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, when I am up, everybody has to sit down; that is the usual convention. As we have not heard from the Cross Benches on this Question, we will go to the Cross Benches, and we should have time for my noble friend, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, after that.

Justice and Security Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Phillips of Sudbury and Baroness Stowell of Beeston

Wednesday 21st November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, for the avoidance of doubt, I should say that the Opposition support Amendment 56. My noble friend Lady Kennedy beat me to the Public Bill Office in putting her name to it. As she and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, have said, it is important that the press and the media generally should have notification of applications of this kind. It complements a later amendment that will require the regular reporting of the number of applications that have been made, so to some degree the two things flow together.

The manuscript amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, has arrived very late in the day and, given the other excitements we have been enjoying, I confess that I personally have not given it sufficient attention. I will be interested to hear the views of the Minister if she is replying to that particular amendment in due course. I would also be interested to learn the views of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, on it, if he is able to give them. On the face of it, the amendment seems fairly persuasive, but it has been brought forward so late that I am finding it difficult to come to a decision, although other noble Lords may find it easier to do so. But certainly so far as Amendment 56 is concerned, and indeed the original amendment in this group, the Opposition are fully supportive.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords for their remarks. I will speak generally and respond to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, has not said anything about his amendments in this group but what I will say applies to those as well.

The Bill does not seek to change the rules in relation to civil proceedings, save where this is necessary to have a closed material procedure; we are not otherwise changing the ordinary rules in civil procedures relating to disclosure of evidence. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, in speaking to his manuscript amendment, talked about adding a lasso. We believe that the Bill already provides a lasso. We agree with the thrust of the points he makes but do not think it is necessary to accept his amendment, because the Bill provides for the essence of this point in Clause 9, where it says that, subject to securing closed material procedures, the ordinary rules of disclosure must otherwise apply. The way that his amendment is worded may also be a potential source of confusion in that it is unclear what is meant by the word “necessary” in the amendment in a particular case. More specifically, we are already providing for the concerns that he has raised.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

I apologise again to my noble friend and to the House for the lateness of this amendment. I think her argument was that Clause 9 makes my amendment redundant, but am I right in thinking that Clause 9 relates to rules of disclosure whereas Clause 10(2) relates to rules across a much wider plain, governing standards of proof, evidence, whether or not there is a hearing, legal representation and so on?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I will address that point by saying that we are not seeking to change any of the ordinary rules for civil proceedings in this Bill. The normal rules for civil proceedings apply in the same way here except for where it is necessary to change them in order for us to meet the requirements of a closed material proceeding.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

The noble Baroness says that the normal rules of civil procedure apply but Clause 10(2) gives extraordinarily wide powers to make new and different rules. That is my point and that is my concern.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

It is probably easier if I turn to the other points that have been made in this debate. In the course of doing so, maybe I will receive some assistance that will allow me to answer the noble Lord’s question in greater detail. As if by magic, I have been handed a note. Clause 10(2) gives powers to make rules but these are in consequence of CMPs.

I move on to the question of media reporting and the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy. The amendment that I have moved, which hopefully the House will accept, means that the parties to CMPs will be notified when an application has been made. In essence, the point was that this is not sufficient in terms of notifying the media. It is obviously a matter for the parties to the claim to decide whether to inform the media. This amendment will ensure that the judge notifies the parties, such that this will be disclosed in the normal proceedings of disclosure that courts make. The noble Lord is looking at me quizzically. He will know more about this than I do, but when the judge notifies the parties that there has been an application, unless it is necessary for him not to do so in the interests of national security, that will be in the public record that exists in the court, which presumably the media are monitoring at all times. This is not about withholding information from the media.

Furthermore, if the media had the right to intervene in this process, it would be necessary for them to have access to all the material so that they could judge or come to a view as to whether it should be a matter for a closed hearing or not. That would be contrary to the whole point of a closed material procedure.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

I am grateful for that suggestion. I do not want to keep apologising, but I do think, if the Minister agrees, that that is the way to deal with this.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I cannot commit to anything at this stage, but what I can do is to consider the amendment outside the Chamber and certainly to have a further discussion with the noble Lord.

Education Bill

Debate between Lord Phillips of Sudbury and Baroness Stowell of Beeston

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

No, it would be slander. He very reasonably said, “Look at the end of the JCHR report where it exonerates the Government”. Indeed it does, but how it does is beyond my tiny brain to understand. I suspect that the committee was confused.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

As a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, I feel that I ought to respond to that point. I am very sympathetic to the points that have been made, particularly by my noble friend Lord Black of Brentwood. It is my experience in the time that I have been on the committee that its conclusions are made very carefully, after a lot of very careful deliberation. I do not have any experience of the committee concluding in that way without being absolutely confident in its views. It is worth reinforcing that point.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, and I would have been more cautious in my remarks had I known she was here. I think they are blinded by the numbers of allegations thrown around. Those tables are unscientific to an extraordinary extent. Let us remember that all we are interested in is pre-charge newspaper publicity. If the noble Baroness reads her long report, she will find no satisfactory evidence of that. If it is there, let us please have it. On that basis, I shut up.