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Banking Bill

My Lords, I feel for the Minister having to reply since he is not legally qualified, as he said, but I have difficulty with what he is now saying because the European Court of Human Rights has made it clear that the test as he has outlined it under Strasbourg Convention law is a test of objective necessity, of whether there is a pressing social need or a fair balance struck in terms of proportionality. That is taken care of in the Bill as it stands by the reference to necessity. When one gets to ““or desirable”” not only does that breach legal certainty, but it flies in the face of the Strasbourg case law where the court has made it clear in cases such as the Sunday Times thalidomide case that the test is not one of reasonableness but of pressing social need and necessity. I wonder whether this could be thought of again because, quite apart from the other proposed amendments, it seems to me that the words ““or desirable”” are not compatible with what the convention requires. They create legal uncertainty and the example given by the Minister ought to be able to be taken care of by the test of necessity. For my part, I am very troubled by that part of the Minister’s answer. I do not, of course, expect him to be able to come back right away with an answer to that. I should like the Minister to think about another point. The Joint Committee on Human Rights has repeatedly said that the safeguards need to be written in legislation and not left to be read in on the basis on what is in the Human Rights Act. Again, because of legal certainty, there must be adequate safeguards against abuse in the Bill and not elsewhere. It does not seem to me that what is now proposed by the Government would meet that test either. I hope I have not thrown too large a spoke in the wheel by that intervention.