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Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

My Lords, I joined in the debate on these two terms at the previous stage, and on re-reading Hansard I wonder now even more than I did at the time how assessing whether something is appropriate could be evidence-based. If I were still a councillor having to decide whether a condition is appropriate, I do not think I could avoid it being a subjective judgment. My noble friend has referred to this. I also asked at the last stage whether the assessment had to be reasonable. If it is ““appropriate”” rather than ““necessary””, I assume that it would have to be, but the Minister very elegantly sidestepped that question. I do not blame her because I had not given her notice of it. My final point refers to the statutory guidance, again just mentioned by my noble friend. We are not talking about a particular application, but licensing in general is a quasi-judicial activity. Perhaps this is not strictly quasi-judicial, but it comes quite close to it. I am concerned about the need to rely on guidance as distinct from primary legislation in the way this is approached.