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Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, I can very brief. I intervened earlier and I apologise, but I was hoping the speed up the processes of the House by persuading the Minister to speak immediately after the movers of the amendment. Perhaps I may set out the views of these Benches. First, we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for all he did at the Committee stage in bringing these issues to the attention of the House and ensuring that they were addressed. We know that much thought has been given to this matter over the ensuing months, and on this occasion, dare I say it, may I say how grateful we are to the Government that they have addressed these issues? It is to their credit that they have prepared their own amendments, albeit five pages of them, in response to those of the noble Lord. We are also grateful to the Minister and his department for keeping all noble Lords who are interested in these matters up to date with the evolution of the Government’s thinking as it developed. I can put it very briefly if I say that we are relatively happy with the Government’s amendments. The list covers most, if not all, of the categories of persons who could be said to have intended to come to the United Kingdom for any significant length of time, and we therefore offer our support. The effect will be to prevent the United Kingdom being treated as a safe haven for those alleged to have committed crimes of this sort, and we hope that the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and those who support him will also feel able to support the Government’s approach. Obviously I do not know what the noble Lord intends to do, but we will hear from him and, I hope, from the Minister in due course.