Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Davidson, on her maiden speech; it was spectacular, and I look forward to many further speeches. I also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, on bringing forward the Bill and securing today’s Second Reading. It is a privilege to respond briefly on behalf of the Opposition.

The Opposition believe that any change in the law in this emotive area is an issue of individual conscience. In our view, it is a matter for Parliament to decide, rather than any Government. However, it is still the responsibility of the Government to ensure that any legislation is fit for purpose, and for the Opposition to assist the Government towards that end.

It reflects the importance of the subject matter that so many Members of the House have attended today and contributed to what has been an extraordinary debate. When a similar Bill was put forward by my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer, in 2014, there were 133 speakers, and today there were about 138. If nothing else, that is a testament to the enduring profundity of the issue with which we are dealing.

The Bill would, if enacted, legalise assisted suicide for mentally competent, terminally ill adults. It follows my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer’s Bill of the same name and introduces provisions to allow a person who is terminally ill to request and be given assistance to end their own life via the use of self-administered prescribed drugs. Wherever one stands on the desirability of legislative change, there can be no doubt that this would be a significant step. Most noble Lords have recognised the significance of this step, while some have argued that the Bill has modest provisions. I would say that it is possible to have modest provisions that are none the less very significant.

Yesterday I read Gordon Brown’s piece in the Times newspaper, where he argued against the Bill. He wrote about the development of the hospice movement and the work of Dame Cicely Saunders—referred to by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, and my noble friend Lady Goudie. He feared a slippery slope, and wrote of his wife and him volunteering at a local hospice and the achievability of a good death.

This reminded me of a recent conversation I had with my local Church of England minister, Gordon Jeanes, who has recently retired. Forty years ago, he was a male nurse working in hospices. He explained to me that 40 years ago, the arguments around assisted death revolved around pain alleviation leading up to a death, whereas today the arguments revolve around a person’s dignity and self-determination. I think that change in emphasis has been seen in today’s debate, and it is fair to say that he would share the traditional view, as expressed by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury today.

Today’s debate has been characterised by a series of questions and, in a sense, challenges to the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. To summarise those, I would say that they concern the adequacy of any safeguards the Bill may contain; whether the slippery slope argument is an excuse for doing nothing; the difficulty of predicting life expectancy in the face of a diagnosis of serious illness; and the difficulty of assessing mental capacity. I was particularly interested in the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, who spoke about his amendment to the previous Bill, on reducing the availability of doctors to repeatedly sign these sorts of certificates. He said that he may bring that amendment forward at a later stage.

In conclusion, I believe there is a consensus across the House that the Bill should proceed to Committee, and I look forward to the Minister’s acknowledgement of that fact.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard part one
Wednesday 20th October 2021 Lords Chamber

More broadly in society, and this has been hinted at, there is a crisis of authority. We have to ask a much deeper question about why people might want to punch a policeman and why people in the emergency services are treated with disrespect. To be honest, just adding on prison sentences or making that kind of point will not achieve what the Government want, even though I am sympathetic to their aims.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I will open by discussing first some of noble Lords’ contributions on their amendments.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, spoke to his Amendment 10. The amendment is about preparing sentencing guidelines for assaulting an emergency worker, or along those lines. My experience as a sitting magistrate is that those guidelines are not available at the moment so we use the old guidelines for assaulting a police officer as the guidance. However, I reassure him that whenever I sentence people I invariably make it explicit that part of the sentence, or maybe part of the uplift, is due to the role played by the person who was assaulted. So although it may not have been expressly set out in legislation about emergency workers, if it concerns a teacher or something like that, I will say that it is a very serious matter and I have taken that into account in the sentence. Nevertheless, I understand the points that the noble Lord made.

The amendment by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, who spoke on behalf of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester, seeks to expand the definition of “emergency worker” to include all prison staff, and he gave some very moving examples of chaplains, educators, instructors and healthcare workers. I think he has seen some of the same briefing that I have, which says essentially that many of those people are saying that they have never seen it so bad in terms of assaults on those people working in prisons.

As is often the case in Committee on Bills in this House, the debate went wider. I listened carefully to what the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, said about being cautious about having a hierarchy of people who work in public service in one way or another. Nevertheless, I also took into account what my noble friend Lord Bach said: there is a role for sending a message about the Government responding in some way, although that does not necessarily mean increasing sentences themselves; there are other ways of responding that may be more effective.

I turn to Amendment 9, which I have put my name to, and I thank the noble Earl for tabling it. As well as sitting as a magistrate in London, I am also co-chair of the Justice Unions Parliamentary Group here in Parliament and I have had a lot of lobbying on this matter, as I know other noble Lords have too.

The noble Earl explained the practice of “potting” in prisons. It can be done by prisoners who are mentally ill or, as he explained, by other prisoners as part of a tactic to punish officers who are targeted by particular groups of prisoners. He explained the circumstances where it may have a relatively minimal effect on the offender if they are towards the end of their sentence.

There is a widespread perception among prison officers that they have been neglected by the Government and that the CPS and the existing discipline structures within the prisons, and indeed visiting judges, do not take the practice of potting sufficiently seriously. In fact, on various TV programmes about working in prisons, we can all see, as I have, prison officers being potted. In fact, I have a magisterial colleague whose niece is a serving prison officer and, only a few months ago, she was potted herself. Of course, this is a completely disgusting and disturbing thing to happen. I hope that it will not reduce her commitment to the job of being a prison officer, but I have to say that I do not know; it might be one of the reasons that some officers choose to resign from the service.

There are many issues facing the Prison Service, which we have debated many times: high turnover of staff, pay and conditions, inexperienced managers, a change in the retirement age—the list goes on. I suspect that the noble Earl is right to anticipate that, in his answer, the Minister will say that the practice of potting could be charged in any number of ways and may well argue that it is covered by existing legislation. But the point that the noble Earl was making is that it simply is not taken seriously enough. The addition of a separate, specifically defined piece of legislation outlining this practice, making it more difficult for the authorities to minimise, would show that the Government value prison officers. This is an opportunity, I would say, for the Government to demonstrate that they value prison officers.

I do not know what the noble Earl plans to do at further stages of this Bill. This is such an egregiously disgusting practice and it is a tactic used in prisons; this is a specific way of responding to that tactic, which is within the Government’s hands in this Bill.

Child Trust Funds

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Monday 11th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, we have consulted widely across industry with the major providers. I have to say to my noble friend that it is the case, I am afraid, that there was a lacuna here. I think the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, who is not in his place now, candidly accepted that when child trust funds were put in place, no thought was given to people who would not be able to give instructions to banks at the time they turned 18. The Mental Capacity Act in 2005 only made that position more difficult. So we are now dealing with a problem that has been exacerbated by subsequent legislation. The way to deal with it is a small payments scheme: that is what we are going to consult on.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, a few weeks ago, I spoke to Teddy Nyahasha, who is chief executive of OneFamily, a financial services firm that has administered 1.6 million child trust funds. The central point Mr Nyahasha made to me was that small donations or payments of up to £5,000 are made through something called the fair access protocol. He was seeking some recognition of that. If there was some recognition, there would be wider access for other charities and providers to expand the fair access protocol. Can the Minister say what he is doing about this?

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, my officials met Mr Nyahasha on 17 August, and we are well aware of this proposal. The problem is that it is not a matter of the Government recognising the scheme; the scheme, I am afraid, is inconsistent with the Mental Capacity Act, and it is fundamental to the rule of law that the Government act in accordance with legislation passed by this Parliament. Therefore, we cannot just bless schemes that are inconsistent with the legislation. If we want to solve this, we have to change the legislation. That is what the consultation is aimed at.

Criminal Justice (Electronic Commerce) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2021

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, we in the Labour Party accept that this instrument is necessary to address the current lopsided arrangements following the end of the transition period of the UK leaving the EU. The Explanatory Memorandum states:

“Its purpose is to address failures in retained EU law to operate effectively and other deficiencies arising from the withdrawal of the UK from the EU by amending the domestic legislation which implements a reciprocal arrangement known as the ‘Country of Origin principle’”.


The instrument amends primary legislation, and the changes made to each Act have substantially the same effect. In respect of domestic information society service providers, they remove liability under UK law for offences committed in EEA states, as well as the ability to prosecute those offences in the UK. In respect of EEA-based information society service providers, they remove the restriction on bringing prosecutions in the UK for offences committed in the UK.

The European Statutory Instruments Committee has expressed concern that

“the effect of this instrument could be to dilute regulation of the international effect of publication of certain kinds of material (particularly online material with global reach) as it is not clear whether equivalent offences exist across the EEA. We therefore requested further information from the Department on this question. The Department’s response … states that it has not carried out a thorough review and is therefore not in a position to explain the extent of any dilution of international regulation. Given the serious nature of the offences covered by the instrument, and the ambiguity surrounding parallel offences in other EEA countries, the Committee believes that this issue is of sufficient political importance to justify the scrutiny and debate afforded by affirmative resolution.”

I have read the response to the points raised by the committee in certain paragraphs of the Government’s Explanatory Memorandum and listened to Minister Chalk’s response to my honourable friend Alex Cunningham when he raised these points in yesterday’s debate in the House of Commons, so I will not ask the Minister to repeat the points made yesterday.

However, given the sensitivity of the various acts to which this instrument applies and the wider context of the substantial legislation we are expecting, in the form of the online harms Bill, for example, can the Minister say something about how he sees international legislative co-operation developing to combat international crime and exploitation? I note that the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, essentially asked the same question about future reciprocal agreements, and I also note that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, asked about harmonisation of policies. It is a much wider question than the narrow but important remit of this SI, but I think that all Members participating in this debate would be interested in the answer to it.

Libel and Defamation Cases: Cost to Public Funds

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that the law is well balanced. We think that the Defamation Act 2013 is working well. I thought I heard the noble Lord say that Section 9 applies where a claimant is domiciled outside the UK, but I think that it is actually where the defendant is so domiciled. With that small correction, I agree with the noble Lord.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, in October 2019, the MoJ published its post-legislative memorandum regarding the operation of the Defamation Act 2013 since it came into force. It concluded:

“There has not been any body of opinion calling for a review … of the Act. That may be because … it is still too early to feel their full impact—


that is, of its provisions—

“given the length of civil litigation.”

Following the concerns raised in November last year in an article in the Guardian, we have now heard further concerns from my noble friends Lord Rooker and Lord Browne, who mentioned how women who allege abuse may face libel threats from wealthy former partners. In the Minister’s view, does this not all add up to a re-review of the operation of the 2013 Act?

Hillsborough: Collapse of Trials

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, following the collapse of the trials relating to the Hillsborough disaster, on 10 June in response to the UQ in the Commons the Lord Chancellor said that he would very carefully consider

“the points made by the … Bishop of Liverpool …. in his 2017 report”

and the conclusion of the trials, and publish an

“overarching response … having further consulted … the families.”—[Official Report, Commons, 10/6/21; cols. 1128-29.]

In addition to this, the Government have undertaken to respond to the Justice Committee’s report on the coroners service by the end of July this year, specifically to its recommendation that bereaved families should be legally aided at inquests where public authorities are legally represented. Does the Minister accept that, in these two responses, the overriding concern should be that bereaved families and victims feel that their interests come first, and that no public authority or individual working for that public authority is above the law?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Wolfson of Tredegar) (Con)]

My Lords, on a personal note, I was still living in Liverpool at the time of the Hillsborough disaster. I remember listening to Radio Merseyside that fateful Saturday evening as the news of the deaths came in and the figure mounted higher and higher. I have nothing but admiration for the families and their supporters who sought justice for the 96 over so many years and in the face of so many obstacles. In response directly to the noble Lord’s question: yes, the overriding concern must be that bereaved victims and families feel their interests come first. We want to place them at the centre of our response to the inquiry under the former Bishop of Liverpool. Certainly, I agree that no public authority or individual working for that public authority is above the law.

Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, there is a lamentable state of prosecutions for rape in England and Wales. Equally, there is a shared desire between all parties to see better, fairer outcomes and support for victims as they travel through the criminal justice system. The Minister in the other place spoke yesterday about a new structural and cultural change to increase the number of rape prosecutions that we see in our court system. I have a couple of questions for the Minister. First, will the rape review, which we expect to be published relatively soon, commit to indicators of progress, similar to those that we see in the violence against women and girls Act in Wales? Secondly, will the review commit to a support plan for rape survivors, as recommended in the Labour Party’s recently published green paper? If the Minister can give positive responses to those questions, it will go some way towards sharing a way forward to improve this lamentable position.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Wolfson of Tredegar) (Con)]

My Lords, as the Minister in the other place made clear yesterday, the underlying statistics in this area are indeed regrettable. He made it clear that he is taking personal leadership on this matter because rape is a cross-agency issue. We have the police and the CPS, both of which are rightly independent of government, and we have the Courts Service and the judiciary. Everybody must come together to improve the current performance.

The rape review will be published shortly after the Recess. I am afraid I cannot provide advance notice of its details today but I very much hope that, when they read it, the noble Lord and the whole House will welcome it because we intend it to be a transformational document that will lead to transformational change. Supporting victims of rape is an absolute priority for this Government; we have invested significant sums in that.

Let me give the House just one example of a change that can be made and which has real consequences. We have put in £27 million to create more than 700 new posts for independent sexual violence advisers. They stand with victims throughout the process. We have seen what is terribly called victim attrition. People opting out of the system goes down by 50% and more than 50% of people stay in if they have these advisers to help them. We will work, I hope with the noble Lord, to improve the statistics in this area.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing today’s debate. It is a privilege for me to respond and open for the Opposition. I remind the House that I sit as a magistrate in London.

I look forward to the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Fleet, who brings unparalleled experience in the arts, particularly music. I look forward to her maiden speech, and I also look forward to that of the noble Baroness, Lady Fullbrook. She has a background as a former MP and in local government, and I note that she went to the same university as my daughter, which is no doubt a good omen.

I shall speak on the justice-related Bills and refer briefly to the DCMS Bills, and my noble friend Lord Kennedy will speak on the Home Office Bills. By way of background, a decade of cuts by the Conservative Government has left our justice system weak and vulnerable—and that was even before the pandemic began. Half of all courts in England and Wales were closed between 2010 and 2019; today there are 27,000 fewer court sitting days than in 2016. The Crown Court backlog, now more than 57,000 cases, has increased from 39,000 before the pandemic. Rape prosecutions are at an all-time low. Victims are being told to wait up to four years to get their day in court, which of course leads many to drop out of the system. Convictions for rape, robbery, theft, criminal damage and arson, drug offences and fraud have fallen to a 10-year low.

The Labour Party has called for the rapid extension of Nightingale courts and war juries of seven jurors, in an attempt to reduce the backlog, but the Government have not accepted our proposals. Beyond the pandemic, we need to increase sitting days to clear the backlog, provide greater support for legal aid, embrace technology where it works and restore victims’ faith in the justice system.

On judicial review and the courts Bill, the Government propose to introduce reforms to judicial review to, as they see it, protect the judiciary from being drawn into political questions. The Government are unhappy that their own panel has not advocated the widespread changes that they wanted, so they have announced further consultations on various aspects of judicial review to get a different answer. I have a specific question for the Minister. Why have the Government announced a further consultation on the use of ouster clauses, when their own review explicitly said not to do this? The Labour Party believes that judicial review is a key part of our constitution since it gives members of the public and organisations a legal forum to challenge the Government and public bodies when they act unlawfully.

On the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which is a carryover Bill, the Government say that this legislation will increase sentences for the most serious and violent offenders and ensure the timely administration of justice. This is a large Bill which is poorly thought through. It is a mess and could lead to unintended consequences; for example, we could have harsher penalties for damaging a statue than for attacking a woman. In recent months and years, the Labour Party has worked constructively with the Government to, for example, increase maximum sentences for front-line workers and increase sentences for terrorists. We would like a similar constructive approach to this Bill, and call on the Government to drop their poorly thought-out proposals and focus their legislation on tackling violence against women and girls. Why not use this Bill, as well as the victims Bill, to enact a more comprehensive strategy to protect women and girls? Indeed, yesterday the Labour Party published a “green paper” with a number of suggested policy proposals to end violence against women and girls, which could be adopted through this and Home Office legislation.

Having said that, we believe there are good and important parts of this Bill. Some of those have come from Labour MPs: Stephanie Peacock on dangerous driving, Holly Lynch and Chris Bryant on protecting the protectors, John Spellar on reform of the DBS system and Sarah Champion on sexual abuse by people in a position of trust—all this as well as reforms taken from the Lammy Review. We believe that the Government are undermining the parts of the Bill that we support through unnecessarily draconian measures on free expression and the right to protest. There is no evidence that I have seen that these more severe measures will do anything to reduce reoffending. The Minister said that many of the protests are misinformed, and I hope that he is right; we will look forward to exploring that when we come to the legislation.

I move on to the victims Bill. It has been a long wait for this Bill, which was first announced in the 2016 gracious Speech. In fact, Keir Starmer, when he first became an MP in 2015, introduced a Private Member’s Bill, co-drafted with the Victims’ Commissioner for London, which in many ways underpins this Bill. Speaking as a magistrate who sits in both adult and youth jurisdictions in London, I rarely see a victim in court, and it is also relatively unusual to have a victim impact statement read out in court—although I acknowledge that this has improved in recent years.

There are many things that we can do to improve the legal rights and the experience of victims, both inside and outside court. I look forward to working constructively with the Government to enshrine victims’ rights in legislation and protect those who suffer persistent anti-social behaviour.

I will briefly refer to the four DCMS Bills. The charities Bill will introduce a range of Law Commission recommendations. We support this Bill; we will be focusing on the issues of governance and transparency and on ensuring that they are not watered down through the Bill.

With regard to the Dormant Assets Bill, the Minister said that he hoped to get £880 million by unlocking further assets. We support that and look forward to working with the Minister on it.

Next is the product security and telecommunications infrastructure Bill. As the Opposition, we would be concerned about reforms to the electronic communications code. There is a lot of detail in this Bill, and we will wait to see it before we consider our approach.

The Telecommunications (Security) Bill is a carryover Bill. While there were some amendments in the Commons, we agree with its general thrust.

Finally, I want to talk about the online safety Bill. The Minister used some expansive language in talking about this Bill: he spoke of setting global standards to which other countries could aspire. However, nobody knows better than the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, the great strength of feeling in this House on the slowness of the introduction of the Bill. During the passage of the Domestic Abuse Act and many other bits of legislation there has been constant frustration at the fact that we are not getting on with this Bill. We understand that there will be pre-legislative scrutiny by both Houses, and that the intention is to enact a statutory duty of care, to be enforced by Ofcom that would require companies to prevent the spread of illegal content and activity online.

The Bill is presented as a once-in-a-generation opportunity for legislation, and the Government’s thinking appears to be a continuation of the self-regulatory approach that we have seen to date. This approach has failed our children. Online crimes are proliferating, and people’s rights online remain confused and unclear. The Government’s decision to water down its legislative proposals and hold back on criminal sanctions for company executives will continue to put children and others at risk.

This will be a complex piece of legislation, and it will be one of the most important in recent years. Although Ofcom has been named as the regulator, it is far from clear that it will have the powers or resources needed to address the issues that it will face. The noble Lord gave a good example of disinformation. We see it on an almost daily basis—in fact we see disinformation being spread about, for example, vaccines and their use literally daily. That is another reason why this legislation is so important.

Keeping children safe is the most important task we have. If children were being abused and put at risk in the same way offline as they are online, people would rightly go to jail. Criminal sanction for senior executives is the most direct way to get large corporations to take their responsibilities seriously.

We routinely co-operate across parties to amend legislation in this House. Sometimes the Government say that they welcome this approach. I hope that we can continue to co-operate with all corners of the House to improve this legislation.

Whiplash Injury Regulations 2021

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Monday 26th April 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, tackling fraudulent whiplash claims to bring down motorists’ insurance premiums is a welcome step. However, these efforts must not be at the expense of access to justice for genuine claimants. On balance, we in the Labour Party support the intention of the regulations. However, we are concerned that they may lack clarity and there should be proper support for the inevitable rise of litigants in person.

We have heard something of the background to today’s regulations—the first proposal in the 2015 Autumn Statement and plans to introduce fixed tariffs for whiplash claims resulting from road traffic accidents. The Minister has explained that the regulations will increase the financial limit of claims managed though a small claim from £1,000 to £5,000 and introduce a new online portal managed by the Motor Insurers’ Bureau to process claims. The Minister also explained that they will set the maximum damages for whiplash claims, although a court may apply a discretionary 20% uplift in exceptional circumstances. Moreover, children and vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, cyclists and horse-riders are excluded from the new regulations.

The plans have been welcomed by the Association of British Insurers, as it is right that there should be an effort to reduce the cost of whiplash claims to insurers, which is currently about £2 billion. I must say that the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, given his time on his local police authority, was apposite and went to the heart of the problem that the regulations seek to address.

Like all other noble Lords who have spoken in the debate, I have been contacted by several interested bodies. They have sent in a number of questions, some of which I will run through. I am sure the Minister will be aware of their concerns, but I raise them nevertheless. For example, how will mixed claims, whereby whiplash has been sustained along with other injuries, be dealt with? Secondly, under exactly what circumstances may a judge apply the discretionary 20% uplift?

The noble and learned Lords, Lord Etherton and Lord Thomas, made a point about the new portal. First, we trust that the data can be securely transferred to the new portal, but will there be a proper analysis of the data within it so that a review of the new system can be undertaken from an informed point of view? A further question is how the Government propose to address inconsistency in the application of the regulations.

My final point has been made by pretty much all noble Lords speaking in today’s debate. The Association of British Insurers has raised the concern that there may be an incentive for some people to claim for minor injuries and put them at a higher importance than whiplash injuries. That could limit the effects of the reform and lessen the benefits to honest premium-paying customers through the increase in minor injury claims.

In his introduction, the Minister that said he was open to the possibility of a review. When does he think it would be appropriate to review the new regulations?

Domestic Abuse Bill

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Wednesday 21st April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Finlay of Llandaff and Lady McIntosh of Pickering, and to others whose knowledge far exceeds my own, for all their efforts to bring this amendment forward. I have to join my cross-party colleagues in expressing disappointment at the Government’s eventual response to this amendment, despite the undoubted work and good will of the Minister.

The Minister in the Commons, Victoria Atkins, seemed to consider that a letter from the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, to the President of the Family Division and the chief officer of Cafcass requesting that they “raise awareness” would resolve the issue. It will not. The problem here is that the Government are talking about one thing, the formal requests from the family courts—not that they are all up to speed in using registered child contact centres—while the main problem lies elsewhere, in less formally constituted organisations sent by local authorities and other cash-strapped bodies. The Government seem to think that the existing guidelines will filter through by osmosis to everyone who is commissioning a child contact. There is a lack of awareness on the part of courts and local authorities and, if an unfortunate incident occurs because centre staff have not been trained properly and a child suffers or is put in jeopardy, the likely outcome is that the matter will be hushed up. We will not hear about it in the public domain, which is why it is difficult to provide evidence on the extent of the problem.

The revised amendment we are discussing today is far less prescriptive than its predecessor previously discussed by your Lordships. As noble Lords have said, it simply applies the same criteria to child contact centre staff as to anyone working with children— for example, a DBS check. The requirement for a register is gone. No protocol and no policies are being stipulated: that will be down to the Government themselves. A child minder or a nursery assistant will have the same requirement imposed on them. These are national standards for anyone working with children, so who could argue that this bare minimum should not be applied to child contact centre staff, volunteers or agency workers? The national standards and regulations would be for the Government to determine.

For goodness’ sake, let us at least weed out the bad people, so that we do not expose our children to them at arguably the most vulnerable time of their lives. For that reason, if the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, decides to test the opinion of the House, I and my party will support her.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, as is often the case, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, put the point simply and persuasively: that there should be common standards for all those who provide services under child contact centres.

We have heard about the welcome exchange of views between the signatories to this amendment and the Minister. In the email we received from him, he seemed to acknowledge that the DBS regulations should be assessed, and potentially amended, to see whether they apply to individuals setting up contact centres—so, he has acknowledged that deficiency in the existing arrangements. Further to that, in the concluding paragraph of the Minister’s email he undertakes to ensure that appropriate arrangements are in place for anyone who seeks to set up as a provider, and to explore further whether that is indeed the case.

The starting point is that there are uneven levels of regulation across the network of child contact centre providers. I accept what the Minister has said regarding private law in our courts and that the existing memorandum of understanding is going to be updated and revised, but that very fact may be an acknowledgement that improvements are needed. I have to say, speaking as a family magistrate, that all the child contact centres I have ever referred children to have been accredited by the NACCC. The Minister also set out the existing public law statutory architecture, which is more complex, but as so many speakers have said in this debate, we are talking about private providers—providers who may come and go and may come from particular communities which do not trust existing services. Those are the difficult cases that we are seeking to include in this extension of regulation.

As the Minister will be aware, we are talking about some very difficult cases—cases which are difficult to put in the public domain—and a few cases, not the many cases which he claimed. The Bill is an opportunity to close this loophole. We on the Labour Benches will support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, if she chooses to press it to a vote.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. I am mindful of the views which have been expressed across the House. I start with a point on behalf of the Government and of myself. So far as the Government are concerned, like the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, they are committed to the welfare of children—that is not a phrase with which any of us would disagree. For myself, if I may accept the point put by my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering, I do have a human side. Notwithstanding that I am a lawyer and a Government Minister, something of a human side still pokes through occasionally.

There is nothing between us on the aim; what is between us is the means. I therefore remind the House of two points. First, of course anything said by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, in this area has to be heard with care and listened to diligently, but it is the case already that the vast majority of people in child contact centres will have to have certain checks through NACCC accreditation and because of the local authority obligations. That is the first general point.

The second general point in response to one of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, is that the fact that the memorandum of understanding is being updated and revised is no indication whatever that there is a problem with it. For example, one of the revisions which is being made is to substitute the name of the previous President of the Family Division, Sir James Munby, with the name of the new president, Sir Andrew McFarlane. Updating and revision of an MoU does not indicate that there is a problem. A lot of very good documents are continually updated and revised.

One is therefore back to the essential point, which is: what is the evidence which underpins the proposed amendment? It is all very well to talk of a loophole, but the real question is whether there is an underlying problem. It is the evidence base with which we have concerns. I say with genuine respect to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, that anecdotal evidence is not a sufficient basis in this area on which we should be legislating. Of course, staff must be trained and we must look to see whether there are legislative gaps, but we have to proceed on proper evidence.

So far as my email is concerned, I do not pull back from that at all; I stand by every single word of it. In particular, with regard to DBS checks, I am happy to repeat from the Dispatch Box precisely what I said in the email: “I am ready to explore whether there is a case for ensuring that there are appropriate arrangements in place for anyone who seeks to set themselves up as a provider of child contact centres to be subject to criminal record checks. The issue is that the regulations with regard to DBS are about eligibility for DBS checks, not whether they are mandatory.”

I suspect that where we end up is on the question of whether there is a proper basis to legislate in this space, given my assurances that we would be looking at the DBS point and that there is no cogent evidence that the current system is not working. The protocol is in place and has been endorsed at the highest level by the judiciary and Cafcass. There are statutory and regulatory requirements in the public law cases. Indeed, the only first-hand evidence which we have heard this afternoon from the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, has been that the matter is working well. As he confirmed, he sends his cases to an accredited centre only.

That is the position. Even at this late stage, I respectfully invite the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, to withdraw the amendment.