Space Industry Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-10-18
Topic: Civil Rights
John Gummer (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I feel strongly about these two clauses, because I recognise them. I have been a Minister for whom civil servants have produced such clauses. They always have an answer: you tell the House that it is not going to happen very often, it will never be used badly and nobody in their right mind could think that it would be any trouble. I have always resisted all those, I have to say. I am a Conservative and I believe in the rights of property. I do not believe that anybody should be taking those away. I am also a believer in the human rights legislation, and I do not like the way that the Conservative Party has made comments about it. It has a very clear defence of the rights of property and I am not prepared to go along with such words, if they mean what the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, and I think that they mean. Maybe neither of us is clever enough to understand the hidden protection within them There seems to be no protection whatever in Clause 38; the Secretary of State appears to be able to use it, "if satisfied that it is expedient to do so" Expedient is an extremely dangerous word. Expedient means anything that you want to do; that is why you want to do it—it is expedient. I have to say, I would not trust myself with expedience, leave alone trusting anybody else, and leave alone trusting this Secretary of State to be other than expedient. I do not get this clause, and I certainly do not get why it does not have the full panoply of proper means of protection of the people concerned I would like my noble friend to point to other areas where the same kinds of rights are given to the Secretary of State, where similar powers are given without any restriction, because I think that this is a very dangerous area. Nobody could be more enthusiastic about space than I—as long as nobody asks me to go in one of these things. It is a hugely important thing and I am entirely on the side of the Government in seeking to do what they want to do. It would be better if we did not have Brexit—then we would get more of it and a great deal more benefit from it, but that is true of almost everything. The fact of the matter still remains that, whatever happens, if we do or if we do not, this will affect people in this country and their rights to property. I do think that this clause, in its present form, should be presented by any Government, least of all by a Conservative Government who are supposed to believe in the rights of property I say very clearly to my noble friend that my problem with Clause 40 is that the only defence given for this provision is that it will not happen very often and will happen for short periods of time. Indeed, my noble friend said that it is okay because it will happen only for short periods of time. If that is the case, why does the Bill not say that? If it is going to be temporary, why does the Bill not say that? If that is not stated in the Bill, people will say, "The Bill does not say that it is temporary and therefore this time we are going to do it for three months", or say, "Three months is what we meant by temporary". I am afraid that is the other argument that civil servants try to use. I am trying to excuse my noble friend on the basis of the advice he has received rather than his determination. This measure seems to me contrary to the political position that he holds. After all, he would consider me rather a "pinko", so I say to him that—