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Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Bill [Lords]

It is a pleasure, as always, to follow the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mark Fisher), who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of our museums and galleries. Indeed, he published an encyclopaedia on the subject a couple of years ago, which I warmly commend to all hon. Members—I am not on commission. The hon. Gentleman has, however, over-egged the pudding tonight. He has spoken proudly and rightly about his membership of the National Museum Directors Conference, but I received a statement from the conference this morning which clearly indicates that it believes that the Government have got the balance right. It is, of course, entirely proper for the hon. Gentleman to express his concerns, which any civilised Member of this House, and even some of the uncivilised ones, share. He has made it plain that a work of art that is a misgotten gain should not be totally immune. We should obviously place an obligation on those who stage exhibitions to try to establish the provenance of the works that they are displaying. The hon. Gentleman was with me and the all-party group at the wonderful Rodin exhibition just before Christmas, which was one of a series of marvellous exhibitions—Holbein, Velasquez, Rodin and Hockney—that brought grace and elegance to our capital. At the moment, hon. Members who want to escape the confines of this place can go to the Tate and see the Hogarth and to the National Gallery to see the Renoir landscapes. All those exhibitions are to some degree—I do not want to exaggerate, having accused the hon. Gentleman of slight exaggeration—at risk, if those who lend were to feel vulnerable. The hon. Gentleman has mentioned the problem of sale. On the face of it, that is a real problem, but in fact it is not, because the immunity is over and done with when the exhibition is over. If somebody then tries to sell something to which they are not entitled, the law can come into play, as it rightly should. However, I believe that proper care and discretion will be exercised, because I do not believe that scholars and directors of the eminence of Sir Nicholas Serota or Charles Saumarez Smith at the National Gallery and others would be anything other than very diligent. If such diligence is exercised, we do not face a real worry. As the National Museum Directors Conference has recognised in its paper, we must recognise that this country is merely coming into line with many other countries in putting such legislation on the statute book. I welcome what the Government have done. In particular, I welcome the thorough debate in the other place, where the Bill was noticeably and properly improved in that regard and in others. Although it is entirely proper for the hon. Gentleman to introduce amendments in Committee, I think that the Government have got the balance about right; I therefore welcome the Bill. I do not want to make a long speech, but I want to refer to one or two other aspects of the Bill and to the nature of the debate. All hon. Members are concerned about the plight of the vulnerable, of those people who have incurred debts with which they cannot cope and, in particular, of those people who are pursued for debts for which they are not responsible—the hon. Member for Knowsley, South (Mr. O'Hara) has told us a very moving story about that. In response to my earlier intervention, the Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird), said that she was minded to concede that I had a very good point, or words to that effect, in saying that we should wait until all bailiffs are properly accredited before implementing that part of the Bill. I think that the House is more or less united on that point, and I urge the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, who will reply to the debate, to ensure it when this monumental and major Bill—it is both—comes fully into force. We should not give powers to people who have not been adequately and properly trained and accredited, bearing in mind the extreme sensitivity of the issues involved. I hope that the Government come up with an assurance on that point. My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald), who spoke from the Opposition Front Bench, has made it plain that he would accept such a categorical assurance. I hope that we shall have it, perhaps buttressed by amendments in Committee. Like other hon. Members who have spoken, I believe that bailiffs should be recognisable. Earlier in the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. Benyon) muttered from a sedentary position that they always used to wear bowler hats—they were occasionally mistaken for the man from the Pru, which led to some amusing incidents. Bowler hats are now reserved for the judging ring in constituencies such as that of my hon. Friend, so they are not appropriate, but a uniform is. Whoever is calling on a house to discharge such a duty should be instantly recognisable. We expect our postmen to wear uniforms; we expect people who call from various statutory agencies to be readily identifiable by their clothes; we certainly expect our policemen, community support officers and others to be instantly recognisable; and I believe that bailiffs should wear a uniform. The very first thing that they do when they knock on the door should be to produce photo identity; then, and only then, should they be allowed admission. I hope that a suitable amendment will be tabled in Committee to toughen the Bill in that respect. My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire made an admirable and succinct speech from the Front Bench—he spoke for 20 minutes, and I congratulate him on that. He said that he was a little troubled about—he did not put it in quite these terms, but I will—the promiscuous use of the word ““judge””. To most of us, that word means something very special, and we should not scatter it around like confetti. Some words become devalued by overuse—we devalued the word ““university”” when we were in government—and we are in danger of doing so in this case. I hope that the Minister, who was exemplary in giving way so frequently and seemed to listen to the points that were made, will think about using another word such as ““adjudicator””, because ““judge”” should not be so widely used. Let me end with a general point. Here is a Bill of 297 pages, six parts, 144 clauses and 23 schedules. The debate in this House is unlikely to go until 10 o’clock; I am trying to set a reasonable example by speaking fairly briefly myself. Nevertheless, this is a Bill of monumental importance—a landmark Bill of the sort that needs the most detailed parliamentary scrutiny, discussion and debate. I do not want to anticipate the debates of the next two days, but all I would say to the House is this: we impoverish our parliamentary system and weaken the system of scrutiny if we inadvertently create a Parliament that does not have within it a House that can do what the other place did in relation to this Bill. Without guillotine or timetable, it was able to discuss it in detail and to improve it. Many of the people who took part in those debates were experienced, informed and expert. There are not many Members in this Chamber this evening. Whatever we think of the Bill, when it leaves us it will go into Committee next week and come out a fortnight later. We will agree to that because, for reasons of which I personally approve, the official Opposition have said that they will not vote against it. The timetable motion will go through, and then, on 27 March, consideration in this House will come to an end. As we heard earlier, Report and Third Reading will, as is so frequently the custom nowadays, be taken on one and the same day. That would be a terrible scandal had the Bill not been properly considered at the other end of the Corridor. That illustrates the wisdom of a Government introducing a Bill of this nature—complex and somewhat controversial, but not in a party political sense—in the House of Lords. That was the right thing to do. It also demonstrates the value of having what one might call an unencumbered Chamber which has no ultimate power over this one but which has both the expertise and the time to give such a Bill the treatment that it so richly deserves.