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Policing and Crime Bill

I rise very much to support the amendment and—since the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, is unable to be with us—to bring to the Committee’s attention the comments of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. It said: ""‘Gang’ is not a precise or legal term. We are concerned at its potentially wide application in the future beyond the category of people currently envisaged to be covered and the broad discretion which it gives to those seeking applications and the courts as to how the term is interpreted"." The committee suggests that there should be guidance which, ""sets out the boundaries of the term, including those groupings of individuals which the term will not encompass (such as protesters)"." We have considerable experience now of how laws with texts which we have discussed here in this House—where we have decided that we know what those are for—are then used in much wider circumstances and in ways that were not envisaged. We have probably now reached the point where, if we want whatever we are trying to do to be done, rather than something else instead, we ought to have learned our lesson and ensured that our drafting is much tighter.