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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

My Lords, I am afraid I have to disagree with the noble Lord. I think that this is an extremely good thing for them to be able to do. How much better it would be if we could stop offences happening because of the skill and expertise of the courts rather than having to put people in prison. I believe that we have too many people in prison and I would rather not send them there. I would rather stop things before they happen, and this is an example of where that can be done. Therefore, I am afraid that I disagree with the noble Lord. I believe that, because of courts’ experience in other areas, they are well able to exercise this judgment and I think that they would do it extremely well, as they have in relation to the sexual offences prevention orders. We have had football barring orders for a number of years and those have been extremely valuable. They have stopped people committing crimes and protected members of the public, which surely is what we are trying to do. On that basis, I urge the noble Lord to acknowledge the reasoning behind the government amendments and to withdraw his own amendment.