I am a strong believer in putting forward a robust and credible during the public consultation for the impact assessment.
It is born from my experience at law school working on criminal law defence cases. It taught me a lot.
For me, not handing over robust, credible, and independent data and evidence is like going before a criminal court, on a serious charge, and refusing to tell your defence team the evidence you want to use to show that you are innocent.
It makes things even more difficult when you have previous convictions, are not trusted, and you decide the jury about your previous convictions. And, even then, you refuse to provide any evidence to prove your innocence.
Instead, you rely on procedural rules or calls to principle to throw out the charges.
Your only hope is that the prosecution makes a procedural error, mislay the paperwork, or the witness for the prosecution does not turn up. There is the off chance you meet the sympathetic jury you find at Snaresbrook Crown Court. These are all high-risk strategies.
Yet, the easiest way to establish your case is to present the evidence and the facts. If you are innocent, why would you not put forward your case?