Protection of Freedoms Bill

Lord Bishop of Chichester Excerpts

Wednesday 15th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Chichester]

My Lords, the problem with the phrase is entirely in the word “all”. The Minister mentioned the man on the Clapham omnibus. “In all the circumstances” sounds very different from “in the particular circumstances”. We are striving to tailor the application of the principles to particular cases. “In all the circumstances” sounds as if it weakens the case.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, with all due respect, as one always says to right reverend Prelates, I think that “in all the circumstances” sounds better than “in the particular circumstances”. However, I am prepared to take advice from parliamentary draftsmen and other lawyers on whether they think the two expressions have a different meaning or whether “reasonable” on its own would be different. I have a sneaking feeling that we have set a fox running here that we are getting overly worked up about. I see the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, laughing at this; if she were interpreting this in a court of law, she would find that “in all the circumstances” was relatively easy to understand and was quite a good qualifier of “reasonable”. I certainly do not think that it detracts from the word “reasonable”. I hope that the House will accept the amendment, but if others want to come back to it at Third Reading, I am more than happy to continue that debate. I hope that that deals with the probing amendment, as I understand it was, from my noble friend Lady Hamwee.

I turn to the amendment from my noble friend Lord Addington. Again, I was grateful that he welcomed what we were doing. I think that he wanted some assurance that the guidance will be kept updated in due course. I can give that assurance; there is no point in having guidance that stays cast in stone for many years, like the 10 commandments—although actually, they serve us quite well. Colleagues in the Department for Education and other departments will want to ensure that it is kept updated in the appropriate manner at the appropriate time.

I turn to the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Walmsley, to which my noble friend Lady Sharp spoke, relating to FE colleges and the question of why they could not be treated the same as schools. I do not want to repeat everything I said in my opening remarks, but I can give some sort of assurance that we will look again—this is important in terms of further discussions—at the idea of enabling FE colleges to obtain an enhanced CRB certificate. We would not necessarily put everyone who works in an FE college into regulated activity, which we consider disproportionate, but we could consider giving them the power to look at where it might be possible to do that. Again, that could be part of the discussions that I hope to have over the coming weeks. I think it is still a matter of weeks before we get to the Third Reading of the Bill.

With the assurance that discussions will continue and we want to get this right, I hope the House will be prepared to accept the amendments that I have tabled here. I hope that we can have further and profitable discussions. I beg to move.