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Baroness Hayman: My Lords, my noble friend will not be surprised to know that I, like many others who have spoken, believe that clarity and simplicity have a great deal to commend themselves in the area of passive smoking and smoke-free workplaces. I think that there will be grave problems in defining what is not the bar area of a bar and on the issues relating to the serving of food in private clubs and many other areas. However, perhaps I should confine myself to welcoming substantial progress in this area.
Perhaps I may ask the Minister about a separate issue. Paragraph 101 of the White Paper deals with further education settings and the support that young people need as they go through the transition into adult life. The rest of the section is very thin when compared with the progress that is being suggested in schools. Is it not true that in further education settings young people very often make extremely unhealthy choices about their sexual health, alcohol use and on diet, and, indeed, are at risk of mental health problems? Is not there a need for co-ordinated services in further education settings as well as in schools?
Lord Warner: My Lords, I suppose there may well be. The main focus of the White Paper is to bring home the point that you need to work much earlier with children in making them aware on all these issues, so that by the time they get to further education they are well steeped in the needs and information about healthy lifestyles.
Lord Maclennan of Rogart: My Lords—
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean: My Lords—
Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I am extremely sorry. Noble Lords have had slightly over the normal 20 minutes we allow for Back-Benchers. I know that this is an important debate, but we will have other opportunities for it.
Civil Contingencies Bill
4.14 p.m.
Clause 1 [Meaning of "emergency"]:
Lord Lucas moved Amendment No. 1:
- Page 1, line 6, leave out "threatens serious damage to" and insert "seriously threatens"
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 1, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 2, 9 and 10.
I cannot remember having had this effect on a Bill before. I tabled an amendment only to have the Government make exactly the opposite amendment to a piece of wording that I rather liked. I am sorry to
have had that done on this occasion, but at least it will draw the Government into a discussion, which we did not get on Report, on the different implications of these two sets of words.My understanding of "threatens serious damage" is that it does not have to be a serious threat in any way at all. I use my previous illustration. If I hold up an orange in Trafalgar Square and say, "This is a nuclear bomb and I am about to destroy London", then I am threatening serious damage, and it comes within this clause. It clearly would not come within "seriously threatens", because it could not be taken to be a serious threat and therefore that sort of created or peripheral threat to the security of the nation, to the environment or to human health would be ruled out in terms of triggering the enormous powers in the Part 2 of the Bill.
The current wording would allow something like the Reichstag incident to be used as a trigger for the powers in the Bill. Whatever safeguards there are, we are potentially giving enormous powers to government Ministers under the Bill. Once you have passed Clause 1 you do not have any look back to how serious the incident is. The controls that come under the triple lock after that all relate to the response proportionate to the threat—not to the seriousness of the threat, but to the threat itself. So the reaction the Government will be entitled to undertake in reply to me with my orange in Trafalgar Square would be in response to a nuclear detonation wiping out the centre of London, not to me holding an orange.
I find that difficult. I believe that the lock needs to be more serious than that. We need to be in a position where there is a really serious threat. I like the words "seriously threatened" that the Government put in their amendment at an earlier stage. That incorporates the balance between threat and seriousness very nicely in an ordinary English phrase which will be well understood by individuals, generals, courts and everybody. I find it difficult to change the words to "threatens serious damage to", particularly in relation to war.
None the less, I shall listen with great interest to how the Minister proposes his amendment. As I say, I should be very grateful if he would give some examples of the sorts of incidents, particularly in relation to subsection (c), which now will be permitted to trigger the powers in Part 2 of the Bill, which would not have been permitted to do so under the present wording. I also hope that he will give us a better understanding of those two phrases and tell us the degree of latitude which the Government wish to give themselves. So I shall listen with interest, but I find the current wording very disturbing. I beg to move.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, I shall briefly support the amendment. I do so because the whole Bill has a nasty odour about it. It conveys the impression that a personal liberty is not a very important thing
and that any powers that Ministers take will always be very reasonably used and with restraint. I do not subscribe to that doctrine in any way.I look forward to hearing from the Minister what is meant by "serious damage". I understand that he has been unable to do so so far in our proceedings; if he has, I am sorry, but perhaps he would give me the reference. If serious damage is threatened, huge powers are available to a Minister of the Crown. That is altogether rather loose. There is no need for me to prolong my remarks, but I want to have a clear idea of what the Government mean by the simple phrase "serious damage". Otherwise I shall have wasted my time, and your Lordships' time will also be wasted. It is far from clear at the moment.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, I shall concentrate on the remarks of my noble friend Lord Peyton. I regret that your Lordships have been spared any intervention by me on this frightening Bill until now. Like many of your Lordships and many people in the country at large, I have been viewing its passage through your Lordships' House with growing alarm as its true scope has become apparent. The noble Lord who moved the amendment and other noble Lords are of course to be congratulated on improving it considerably—or, rather, making it less draconian and anti-democratic than the Government clearly intended it to be.
In those circumstances, I have two questions for the Minister. This may have been touched on in Committee, but not entirely satisfactorily. First, what is the relationship between the Bill and the Scottish Executive, which has been given everyday control of the environment in Scotland? Who will operate the environmental clauses of the Bill, in particular: Westminster or Edinburgh? Is the Scottish Executive happy with whatever is the answer to that question?
Secondly, what is the meaning of the wording in the Bill:
- "disruption or destruction of plant life or animal life",
which is consistently repeated throughout the Bill, although I do not need to weary your Lordships with precise references? It is consistently repeated throughout the Bill as giving rise to an emergency and the possible use of the powers of the Bill. The mind boggles as to what that could mean.
Does the Minister agree—if he disagrees, why?—that that could apply even to a large heath or moorland fire, perhaps in a site of special scientific interest or a special area of conservation? That would clearly be damaging to plant life. Could people undertaking the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme, who have been known to cause such fires in the past, be prevented in future? A number of people in Scotland are worried about that and I should be grateful if the Minister could confirm the answer.
Lord Monson: My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, I am especially puzzled by government Amendment No. 3. Why talk about something
threatening damage to the security of the United Kingdom, rather than threatening the security of the United Kingdom? Is not that a tautology?
Baroness Buscombe: My Lords, I immediately offer my support to the noble Lord, Lord Monson, in what he has just said. Some of the wording simply does not make sense.
I am extremely disappointed that we have been unable to persuade the Government to assist your Lordships in trying, as we have all been doing throughout the passage of the Bill, to raise the threshold of what can reasonably be described as an emergency. So I have enormous sympathy with the amendments proposed by my noble friend Lord Lucas. His argument is well rehearsed and the Government know full well how we on these Benches feel about that aspect of the Bill's drafting. The current drafting is too ambiguous, wide and open to misinterpretation. It is essential to get the drafting correct.
In response to the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, I must say that we have already debated a number of the issues to which he referred.
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