---

Serious Crime Bill [HL]

I apologise for causing distress to the noble Baroness but also for my confusion. I never was a very good law student and no doubt those who taught me saw on many occasions the same look of confusion coming over my face. The noble Baroness is very good with her examples and gives us an example of a fairly extreme sort with our old friends D and P—P being the paedophile who might be intending to do a whole range of things varying from common assault. I accept that that could move onto something much more serious, from summary to either way or something triable on indictment. Might there not be examples—the noble Baroness is much better at providing examples than me—where all the potential crimes that were likely to be committed would be summary offences? In which case, would it not be easier to leave offences under both clauses to be dealt with under Clause 50(1) instead of Clause 50(2), rather than having the complexity—well it is not particularly complex—that might lead to unfairnesses in some cases that would be triable on indictment where all that was ever intended to be encouraged or assisted was a summary offence or a range of summary offences?