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Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 (Violent Offender Orders) (Notification Requirements) Regulations 2009

My Lords, we debated at length violent offender orders when the matter came before Parliament in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, and we made it quite clear that we oppose the whole concept of civil orders made under civil procedures for evidence and giving power to the magistrates to impose conditions covering a wide variety of circumstances which could impinge very considerably on the life of the individual who is made subject to that order. It must be borne in mind that that person will, by definition, have served his period of imprisonment and will have served also the period that may be necessary for supervision after that period of imprisonment has expired. When we made these objections, they were fully supported by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, by the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, on behalf of the Conservative Party, and by noble Lords around the House. Nothing that I say in relation to this order should be taken as in any way diminishing our opposition to orders of this sort. It is not surprising that these orders have not been brought into force yet. However, before they are brought into force, the legislation is being altered because the legislation did not, for some reason that perhaps the Minister can explain, stipulate how frequently a person must report if he does not have a home address, as defined in Section 108, which is his sole or main residence in the United Kingdom and he has to give, ""the address or location of a place in the United Kingdom where he can regularly be found, or if there is more than one such place, such one of them as the offender selects"." The Act and the particular matter that we are concerned about today in Section 110(5) says that the applicable period for a notification and for registering is, ""in any case where subsection (6) applies, such period as may be prescribed by regulations made by the Secretary of State"." We did not know when the Bill was passed how often you would have to report. Suddenly, just before the orders are brought into effect, we are told in one sentence in paragraph 11 of this order that someone has to report every week. What has happened? Why could the Government not make up their mind when the Bill went through as to what the appropriate period was for the homeless person or the person without any particularly fixed abode to have to report to the police? Why now, before the order is brought into effect, is it stipulated to be one week? The rest of this order is dealing with very ordinary administrative matters that I do not propose to comment on, but changing the legislation so as to reduce the period to one week is something for which I would request an explanation from the Minister.