European Union Referendum Bill

Earl of Erroll Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elton (Con)]

It seems that to a lot of noble Lords constitutional language is a foreign language that is not easily understood. I shall put what the Commons have said into English. It is, “You have asked us to think again. We have thought again several times. We are not going to change our minds, so please don’t waste any more time”.

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

Section 3 of the Parliament Act 1911 states:

“Any certificate of the Speaker of the House of Commons given under this Act shall be conclusive for all purposes, and shall not be questioned in any court of law”.

That being so, the only amendment we can go back with is one that does not involve any financial element. Otherwise the House of Commons will repeat that statement and the exercise is pointless. I have had amendments turned down on financial privilege over far less money than we are talking about here.

Property Boundaries (Resolution of Disputes) Bill [HL]

Earl of Erroll Excerpts

Friday 11th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords, I want to say a couple of brief things in the gap. A dispute such as this happened to my family and it would be useful if a proposal such as this covered it, although I am not sure whether it does.

What happened was that there was a privately owned lane with a verge along it. The title deeds to it were probably lost in the mists of time. No one could find them and it did not really matter. However, the people who owned land along the lane sold off building plots. The trouble is that the chap at the end of the lane, where it joined the highway, then put in a claim for adverse possession over the verge, which the Land Registry accepted, even though there was no fence along the verge edge. The registry said that the applicant had mown it or whatever, and agreed to the application. The challenge is that the water meters for the entire lane are at the end of it. That is all right because an existing right can be proved, and the water for all the other properties down the lane runs under it. However, the owners of those properties have no right to dig up another person’s land—or apparently they do. We understand that there is probably a right to maintain the water pipe; therefore, although adverse possession over the land was granted, there is probably also a pre-existing right to use of the lane.

That may be fine, but no one is sure where the telephone lines, sewage or other things run. What is under there? And what happens when one wants to put in something new, such as broadband, when there is a need to run a fibre-optic cable under the lane? Can you do this? The answer is probably no because the owner has adverse possession, and I am not sure how fair that is. The challenge is that because the Land Registry has accepted the application and registered it, the situation cannot be disentangled. Should one be able to?

I merely describe the situation; these disputes get complicated and there needs to be a simple way in which to sort them out. Perhaps issues such as this could be incorporated within the scope of a Bill such as this. It may be too difficult; I do not know. However, unravelling such issues should be possible because it is easy to make mistakes, particularly when no one knows the precise position. This issue arose partly because there was no duty to inform the people who lived up the lane about the fact that adverse possession was being registered because there was no apparent interest in it. I leave noble Lords with that other difficult problem.

Defamation Bill

Earl of Erroll Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2013 Grand Committee

I say to my noble friend the Minister that this clause was always likely to be the most difficult. He recognised that because he did not offer a draft clause for the Joint Committee to consider; it was one of those “consultation” things. We could all benefit from some clarity from him today, not because the Government are not being helpful and constructive—they are—but because this is going to be difficult to get right. There will be amendments on Report and there may be amendments at Third Reading, but it would help enormously if, starting with today’s amendments, the Government could give us as much clarity as they feel they can on these specific amendments and as a guide to how those principles that I have enunciated should be made to work in the real world.

[The Earl of Erroll]

My Lords, as I was about to say when Christmas interrupted, I should like to talk about the amendments. We have Clause 5 stand part coming up later, so, rather than having a general ramble around the subject, I thought that it might be worth trying to stick to the amendments, because they are interesting.

I look at the clause from the point of view of trying to make it practical and making the system work. This set of amendments is very useful. Replacing “website” with “electronic platform” in subsection (1), as Amendment 23A proposes, will be helpful, because the remarks with which we are concerned will not always be carried exclusively on a website. What is a website? Is a Twitter feed coming to your mobile telephone a website or not? There may or may not be a website driving part of it. There are things that will not be caught by the provision.

That leads me on to the problem of definitions, because everyone is using the words to mean different things. What exactly is a website operator? Some of the stuff that we are looking at here applies to what I would regard as an ISP, an internet services provider, or a CSP, a communication service provider. To them, the “mere conduit” defence, which is in EU law, can apply, because they are not moderating stuff; they are just channelling the information as it flies through the wires. However, they at certain points become something else, because they might also be providing other services. For example, they may be hosting websites but they may not be operating them. What is their liability? Do they need to take down stuff? Are they regarded as a website operator? The websites are operating on their hardware and they would probably be capable of taking down defamatory material. Is the website operator the person who is managing the website? Is it the person providing content into the website? Where do the designers and the people who are to do bits of it come in? I ask those questions because we need at some point to clarify who will be responsible for doing what when it comes to taking things down or—here I go straight to Amendments 25A and 25B—being expected suddenly to put up a response to a notice of complaint alongside whatever is on the website.

My daughter is a graphic designer who has designed a couple of websites for organisations. They do not permit feedback on their website, and although I cannot see where that might happen, something might come up. However, if the organisation wanted to modify that website and allow that, there is no way in which they could do it without going back to her and her programmer to provide the facility to do so. These things are not quite as easy as just putting a bit of type into next day’s newspaper. Particularly if it is a large organisation, some of these things will require a whole raft of change management, interfacing with a programmer and things like that. The practicality of this whole thing is the issue.

I can see exactly what they are getting at. It is a good idea in certain cases. One might try to make it mandatory, particularly for sites which are permitting and expecting feedback from the public. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, made a good point: we must not kill live feedback from the public about things that are going on. That is where the internet can be hugely powerful, to inform one about what you want to do. I use eBay a lot when I want to trade with someone and do business with them, and we rely on that feedback.

There is a good point but we must be practical about it. Something we have to remember is that when we talk about websites, we are not talking about three, four, five, a dozen, 20 or 50 large operators. There are half a billion websites globally, and the number is growing. There are about 100 million UK websites and growing—my figures are probably well out of date by now. It is on that sort of scale, yet most of our comments are being applied to a few large operators. Okay, they have huge profits, et cetera, but these laws will apply also to the small guys: the ones who will have to take stuff down immediately because they do not dare risk falling foul of some law, particularly if a large company pushes them into it. You can stifle the small business and the innovator very easily by having such laws. A small or medium-sized organisation or a person with a little bit of money has no recourse to the law because they cannot afford to go to the law. You have no protection, and must realise that in life—whether it is criminal or civil law, you cannot afford it.

Amendment 24 on associates: yes. Subcontractors and lots of other people are involved, and they probably need to be drawn into it. The amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, are both very sensible, particularly the business about a moderator. Nowadays, these things are so large that you cannot track everything, so I like his amendments to be made. On his Amendment 25ZA, people will need the assistance of the operator to find things out.

Amendment 25 of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, suggests that you must be reasonable, otherwise, where do you stop trying to check things? Surely you can only ask someone to act reasonably in trying to find something out. We have this issue coming up in the modifications to copyright law coming up tomorrow in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill. Part of the reason for some of the British Library issues there is that it cannot “reasonably” find out, for instance, who is the copyright holder for some works. In some cases, you cannot reasonably find out who did something on the internet. It is not practical to do so.

Amendment 29 on the defence being defeated by malice makes a good point. If something is deliberately malicious, or in bad faith, it is quite right that that should be excluded from defences.

All I really want to say is that we must worry about practicality. The difference between the internet and normal printed media is scale and its global reach. If we are not careful, we may end up doing things which apply only to websites where the computers are subject to UK law. The easy way around it is to locate everything outside the UK. That will kill UK business, and we are seeing that in certain other things. People are just relocating overseas because it is easier than dealing with compliance with UK law. It may seem reasonable and all for the greater good of humanity, but the trouble is that in this global environment it is easy to move overseas, and you cannot block people from doing that.

I like most of these amendments. The only thing is that Amendment 25A and 25B are not practical in their current form. They would have to be restricted to websites which had a particular intention and were designed in that way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

I simply wrap up my point by saying that I am anxious about having this paragraph in the amendment, because I think that it could give the wrong idea to those who have to interpret it in future. I would be wholly against a way of lodging a complaint that involved a formal legal process, even of a stripped-down kind, if I can call it that, because it would, I suggest, make remedy more or less impossible for the vast majority of people.

[The Earl of Erroll]

I shall make a couple of comments about Amendment 27, particularly after the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury. Given the expense of trying to track someone down on the internet and finding out who is who, it will be impossible to identify absolutely reliably everyone who logs on. Unless we put a chip inside everybody and log that, it will not work. There are too many ways of concealing who you are. The banks have enough trouble with their “know your client” procedures, so what kind of trouble will an internet service provider have? It is not realistic to be able to nail down identity over the internet at the moment in the way that some people think that you can.

The point about expensive resolution led me to think about what the noble Lord, Lord Allan of Hallam, said about alternative dispute resolution. The website operator needs somehow to know whether to take something down. If a claimant is not willing to reveal who they are, there may be a public interest reason for it to stay up and there may be support from other places for its staying there. Nominet is operating a successful service for alternative dispute resolution on domain name conflicts. Otelo—the Office of the Telecommunications Ombudsman—also works terribly well in resolving disputes in an inexpensive way. In fact, the industry in each case bears the costs and it is not expensive. I wonder whether it would be worth exploring that.

Amendment 27 is interesting because it could provide some of the information that would be the framework on which a judgment could be made. For instance, a website operator could apply and say, “We would like to know”, through the alternative dispute service. Personally, I think that going through the courts every time would be far too expensive for all the small organisations and ordinary people trying to defend themselves against something malicious that was online.

I was amused by the concept of whether or not regulations could be used maliciously. That is an interesting concept and it probably has wings, as well as legs. There is an old saying that regulations are for your enemies, and it is amazing how maliciously you can use them.

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, because of my general opposition to this clause, it is obvious that I would also oppose these very well meaning and well articulated suggestions of a mode of complaining by someone who feels that they have been defamed on a website. The debate has thrown up the fact that the industry is in the process of developing a response to this new problem, and I respectfully suggest to your Lordships that that is where the development should come from, not by means of legislation—we are bound to get it wrong and to be out of date. Rather, it calls for a response to a developing situation. If a code of practice is developed that provides an appropriate response, that will deter people from suing, certainly for anything other than the most serious defamations.

As for the amendment put forward by my noble friend Lord Lester, I entirely understand it and the fact that he wears his cloak from the JCHR. If there is to be such a procedure, however, it is asking quite a lot of an individual to make some form of assessment as to, first, whether it is defamatory and, secondly, whether it is unlawful. That would involve them reviewing possible defences: whether or not it was justified, which is an absolute defence; whether or not there was qualified privilege; whether there was responsible publication. That is a considerable series of hurdles for someone to overcome before deciding on and setting out the nature of their complaint.

On the alternative dispute resolution, of course I understand what animates that. It is very easy to sit around in a committee of any sort and suggest that something can be done quickly, cheaply and easily. The reality, of course, is that there are short cuts even within the current framework. People can get preliminary rulings on meaning and whether something is capable of being defamatory within the existing mechanism. I fear that what is suggested may sound like a good idea but may in fact simply be superorgative. It may add to what is already there and not provide the sort of cheap alternative mechanism that plainly is desirable. I respectfully suggest that the amendment should not be pursued.

Defamation Bill

Earl of Erroll Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I thank my noble friend. He emphasised the word “friend” and I acknowledge this fully. I can assure the Committee that I did not intend to appear as if I did not fully understand the nature of the question put by the noble and learned Lord. If that has been communicated, I make an unreserved apology and assure the Committee that we fully acknowledge the fact that a letter should have been written to the noble and learned Lord, based on the discussions at Second Reading. I am sure that my noble friend Lord McNally has taken particular note of the comments and expressions that have been made. As a reasonably new Member of your Lordships’ House, I always welcome direction, particularly on the way that the House operates. I reiterate that I intended no discourtesy to the noble and learned Lord and thank my noble friend for his direction, which I acknowledge and will take on board. I hope that the noble and learned Lord also feels that I have acknowledged any shortcoming in my initial response.

[The Earl of Erroll]

This is not on the subject we have been talking about but goes back to the amendment in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick. Subsection (3) says,

“the basis of the opinion”.

Is that the same as the subject matter on which you may form an opinion? In English, the basis of my opinion would be formed by my knowledge or experience or other knowledge that I had, whereas I am commenting on something external: the subject matter. In ordinary English, the subject matter on which I am making an opinion is very different from the basis on which I form this opinion about the subject matter. I am not sure whether the Minister’s reply covered the noble and learned Lord’s point or whether it should be reconsidered.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I hear what the noble Earl says. We shall return to this point in writing. If the noble and learned Lord wishes to return to this point, it can be debated more extensively at a later stage of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord and am pleased to have given him the opportunity to make the speech that he wished he had made in supporting his amendment. Now that I have the noble Lord’s support, I can summarise my argument in relation to my amendment by saying that I am reinforced in the view that it would appear the common law is still developing. The Government’s wording in the draft Bill, and even the wording proposed in the noble Lord’s amendment—I sympathise with his attempt to try to make two subsections one subsection—broadly restricts the defence specifically in relation to the reporting of a dispute to which the claimant has to be a party. I did not understand that to be the common law of England and I now have support for that view. If there was a justification and a necessity for this provision, I suspect that it arose from the way in which the clause was framed previously. For the reasons expounded by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, it is no longer necessary.

I hope that the Government will go away and think about that but if they insist on retaining this subsection in the Bill, I propose that we should delete the qualification of the dispute because it does not refer to the common law and is a restriction. I do not think that the Government intend to restrict this defence.

[The Earl of Erroll]

I intervene with great temerity given this incredibly legal provision. However, as an outsider, I cannot understand why the courts should not be allowed to determine whether or not someone has behaved responsibly. If a large organisation is involved, it should have to verify the information or take some reasonable steps before repeating an appalling slander, libel or whatever it may be. I cannot see why we should restrict the courts’ ability to look at all the circumstances by retaining the relevant measure. Therefore, I support Amendment 18 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lester.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, when both the noble Lord, Lord Browne, and the noble Lord, Lord Lester, tell me that we are getting this matter wrong, I have to think very hard. However, I shall respond to it and then provide some further thoughts.

Amendment 19 is a government amendment and is grouped with Amendments 18 and 20, as we have heard. Amendment 19 makes drafting changes to bring the provisions on reportage, which were previously in subsections (3) and (4) of the clause, into one subsection in order to improve the overall clarity of the clause. It makes changes to refer to the test of “reasonable belief”, to which I spoke in the previous group of amendments.

“Reportage” has been described by the courts as,

“a convenient word to describe the neutral reporting of attributed allegations rather than their adoption by the newspaper”.

Clause 4 is intended to catch the core elements of reportage as articulated by the courts. These are that where the defendant publishes an accurate and impartial account of a dispute between two or more parties, the defendant does not need to have verified the information reported before publication. This would not, however, absolve the defendant from the need to satisfy the court that, in all the other circumstances of the case, it was reasonable to believe that the publication was in the public interest.

Amendment 18 would remove the provisions relating to reportage. Conversely, Amendment 20 would extend their application. We do not consider that removal of the reportage provision altogether would be desirable, as is proposed by my noble friend Lord Lester in his amendment. As I indicated in speaking to Amendment 14 in the previous group of amendments, for the operation of Clause 4 generally, in assessing the reasonableness of the defendant’s belief that publication was in the public interest, the court will be looking at the conduct of the publisher. Often that will include examination of the steps the publisher took to verify the information. We would not want the clause’s silence on the matter to suggest that there may in future be a need to verify in reportage cases whereas now there is not.

However, nor do the Government think it right to extend reportage more widely, as is proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Browne, in Amendment 20. We consider that it should, as now, be limited to circumstances where the claimant is a party to the dispute. The reason that we adopted this approach is because if the claimant is a party, for the account to be “accurate and impartial”, his side of the story would be likely to have been reflected in the published article. On the other hand, where the claimant is not a party, that would not necessarily be the case. We believe, on balance, that where the claimant is a third party, the defendant should have to satisfy the court that in all the circumstances of the case it was reasonable to believe that publication was in the public interest. This should properly include consideration of steps taken to verify, should the court decide that is relevant. That point was made latterly by my noble friend. On this basis I hope that the noble Lord will be prepared to withdraw his amendment.

I am not sure which noble Lords made the accusations that the amendment will cause confusion, is unnecessary because the common law is already developing or overly restrictive, but I shall look at those criticisms. I hope that my noble friend will withdraw his amendment and that he and the noble Lord will allow the government amendment to stand. I will look very carefully at this amendment, and the points that have been made. I give an assurance that I will take another look between now and Report.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Triesman]

My Lords, I will try to do this as briefly as possible. I support my noble friend Lady Hayter’s amendments and also—I hope it does him no harm—the amendment and comment of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury. I was responsible for intellectual property at the relatively short lived Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills. One of the things that I found completely astounding, almost every day, was that when we tried to deal with widespread theft of other people's intellectual property, and the propensity of some people to use the internet for serious criminal purposes involving children or whatever, one argument always and consistently was put to us. “We are only a conduit. We are no different from the Post Office. It went through in a sealed envelope in the mail. Who would know? Why on earth should we take any responsibility?”.

What I observed, as noble Lords may expect, from this sequence of events was that it was perfectly okay for people who are creating music, film, literature or many other products that are vital to the creative output of the United Kingdom—and very successful in the interests of the economy of the United Kingdom. But their interests were as nothing when compared with this apparent complete barrier to dealing with anything that happened to be done through a web platform or internet company. They had no responsibility in any circumstances. I have never bought that argument, which is why I agree so strongly with the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, on the matter. It may be very complex and it may be that the technology keeps advancing, but the reality is that, unless there are some restraints on what people can do with this form of technology, the argument inevitably goes to the point where it is possible to protect individuals, even with inequality of arms, from some forms of publication but they are completely and inevitably lost when it comes to electronic publication. That is a very dangerous and damaging concept for our society.

I know the importance of the businesses and the value of the work conducted by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and others, but I respectfully say that the idea that Twitter or anybody else is not making money out of it is completely bizarre. It is not, of course, making money in the sense that people who post anything on Twitter are paying for it; at least in general they are not. However, advertising revenues are created around these new media platforms, including, pre-eminently, Facebook. The ability of companies to be able to track people’s interests and identify how to approach them with commercial products—I have seen this in sports websites that are associated with Facebook, for example—is an amazing way of generating vast amounts of money. It is no surprise that the companies have become worth so much money in their quoted positions as well.

[The Earl of Erroll]

The noble Lord, Lord Triesman, had Second Reading to say all this. I have some points on the amendments.

[Lord Triesman]

My Lords, I do not accept that supporting the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, is a Second Reading proposition. It may be very difficult, in a number of contexts, to achieve what the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, is suggesting, but it is well worth doing it. A comparison can be made with somebody at a football match. I heard over very many years that when people made loud, offensive, grotesque, racist comments in a football crowd you could do nothing because of the great mass of faces. Then CCTV came along and we were able to do something about it—and it was quite right that we did, though apparently not yet fully successfully. There will be technical means—there probably already are. That is why the amendment should be supported.

Rehabilitation of Offenders (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Earl of Erroll Excerpts

Friday 21st January 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Erroll]

My Lords, I want to say a few words on the Bill because it is a good time to raise an issue that has been a problem for some time.

I remember that one of the problems with revising the legislation was raised by a working party on the issue about 10 years ago. The working party became bogged down in trying to decide when a sentence started and ended, because sometimes proper records were not kept on when offenders moved to the first prison. Was the period calculated from when the offenders first went into the police station cells? When were they released? The working party lost sight of the objective—that was the trouble.

I hope that we do not lose sight of the objective, which is to allow people to get back into society in such a way that they can support their families. If you cannot support your family, you are a bit stuck. Providing such support is at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs—for those who have heard of him—which is the need for food and shelter. If you cannot get a job, what are you going to do? You have to support your family and you probably turn back to crime. It is rather obvious. The major objective of the Bill is to allow people properly to earn some income again.

However, you have to protect people from employing others who may be dangerous in certain ways. How do we get around the fact that a financial services employer is allowed to reject someone on whatever grounds, because they can look at the criminal record, whereas a small company may have to employ someone with a known history of fraud who can bankrupt it? That is difficult, because what matters is the type of crime that was committed and the type of job that the person will do. If someone is prone to violence, you do not want them to deal with people. If someone is prone to fraud, you do not want them to handle your money. If someone is prone to violence, you might well let them handle your money as long as they are not working close to someone whom they might damage. The problem is that we throw everything out of the window together.

A couple of years ago, the papers had a wonderful report—it was not wonderful but, rather, quite the opposite—about a head teacher who was caught fishing without a rod licence and duly prosecuted. Immediately, the school governors said that they would have to consider whether he could stay on as a head teacher. Honestly, have we no common sense at all? I do not know what actually happened, because I read only the first newspaper report.

There is also the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, about drugs. People often commit crimes in order to try to pay for their drugs. They will mug people and nick things. If you deal with the drug problem, they are cured and on the straight and narrow, so there is probably no danger of them mugging people. There would be no purpose to that. We need to look at some of the circumstances behind this issue. It is essential to get such people back into work.

One issue that I really want to tackle is reprimands and cautions, which I have discovered are highly dangerous. The police will say to someone, “Just accept a caution and you will not hear anything more about it, and it will all be okay”. The same happens with children who are under 16—or who are 16 and under—who receive what is called a reprimand. You are told, “Once you are 18, it will be off your record. Don’t worry. People will not hear any more about it”. However, that is not the case. If a young person accepts a caution or a child accepts a reprimand, the police have stated that a crime has been committed and that guilt has been admitted. The person then has a criminal conviction. On the police records the matter is simple: “Crime committed; cleared up”. That looks good on the police records and there is much less paperwork, yet in reality the records do not stay under the table but remain for life for certain crimes.

If there is a CRB check and the criminal record relates to something that is not too serious, there may not be a problem, but what if it has an effect on a US visa application? Let us examine the life of an active child who is going places but gets into playground spats and has a fight with another child in the playground. These days, teachers are not allowed to interfere or touch the children so they have to ring the police, who come along, separate the children and say, “Shall we take them down to the station and give them a reprimand? Then they will take this seriously”. Off they go to the police station and the police say, “Accept the reprimand and that will be it. Do not misbehave again”. So the children accept it, but they now have ABH, affray or GBH on their record. Those are serious offences. In future, the person will not be allowed to work with children, youths or adults or become a coach or anything like that—or possibly even get an American visa, because they will no longer qualify for the visa waiver. This may come to light only when they are a rising market trader in a large city bank that wants to move them to America—and then their career is over. We should look at this because it is not as simple as it seems.

Perhaps it is worth recounting another typical story. A child is walking the family dog on a footpath. A jogger comes a bit close. The dog does not like the look of him and gives him a nip. The man runs on and then complains to the police, because a village argument is going on and he thinks that he is being clever. The police interview the child, nothing happens for about three months and then they decide to prosecute under the Dangerous Dogs Act. That is a serious, high-level criminal offence. The police tell the child that his dog will be destroyed. Why did they not use the 1871 Act—the so-called “postman Act”—which makes it a civil offence and does not result in the destruction of the dog? Normally that would have been done, but probably they wanted to get the conviction rate up. In this case, which I know about, the child was advised to say that he would plead not guilty and the police withdrew charges. I hope that the magistrates would have thrown out the case. However, most children would have accepted the advice of the solicitor to admit the charge so that their dog would survive. This sort of thing goes on behind the scenes. If the child had accepted a conviction, his life would have been the same as those of many others: a serious offence would be on his record for ever. We need to look at that side of the system, because it is not working at all.

My final point concerns the big challenge posed by the internet world, in which I live a lot, and in particular by social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and XING—all the bits and pieces that look at your life. One can look up someone and find out other things about them, such as the companies they worked for in the past, the things that they have done and the associations that they have had. It is difficult nowadays totally to rehabilitate oneself and erase all the pictures of what has gone before. I do not know whether that is a good thing or a bad thing. Perhaps we will have to be more accepting of certain behaviours and, instead of a blanket ban on anyone who has a criminal record, we will come round to saying, “They did something a bit silly, but we can handle it”. Perhaps society should be a bit more tolerant. When I think of half the people I know, I have no idea how we would teach people to be like that. It is a perpetual problem.

I would like to know, if the Minister has the figure to hand, what proportion of adults have a criminal conviction stemming from their childhood that they carry for the rest of their life. I have no feel for whether it is one in 100 or one in 20. I suspect that the figure is higher than we think. In that case, we would have to think about how society can handle it. Therefore, I welcome the Bill. I hope that it will get people thinking properly about the issue and move the discussion forward in a sensible and constructive way.