Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Search, Seizure and Detention of Property: Code of Practice) (Northern Ireland) Order 2024

Debate between Lord Browne of Belmont and Lord Morrow

Monday 2nd December 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Browne of Belmont (DUP)]

My Lords, I support this draft instrument. It goes a long way in allowing the police and law enforcement agencies to seize and recover illicit proceeds of criminal activity. Unfortunately, in Northern Ireland the threat from terrorism remains at “substantial”. Paramilitary organisations remain active and many former paramilitaries are heavily involved in criminal activity. They are highly organised and sophisticated in their activities. As we have heard, they are well versed in utilising modern technologies to their advantage.

In particular, cryptocurrency has increasingly become involved in almost every criminal activity that matters to anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing. Marketplaces on the dark web use cryptocurrency to facilitate the sale of drugs and unlicensed firearms, which provides a substantial monetary advantage to these criminals and paramilitaries. The Financial Conduct Authority’s marketing rules have brought crypto assets into the spotlight. Criminals can launder this money using clean intermediary pseudo-anonymous e-wallets and virtual private networks. Through a series of steps, they can withdraw cleansed funds, so it is important that the legal authorities have all the necessary powers to keep ahead of the criminals.

The measures contained in this order will go some way to combating illegal activity. Of course, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Empey, these illegal activities can operate across borders and worldwide. I therefore ask the Minister: has there been any consultation and is there any co-operation with the Garda Síochána in the Republic of Ireland? Again, are our law enforcement and police properly resourced to carry out this new order?

I believe that this revised code of practice relating to the search, seizure and detention of property meets the right to private and family life under the European Convention on Human Rights. I am sure that law enforcement will go about this in a proper manner, so I am pleased to support this order.

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, first, I apologise for my earlier indiscretion; I thought my phone was on silent but it was not.

I am looking at the extension of powers in relation to restraint orders. I hope that it is as good as what it says here; in fact, I would like it to be even better because, in the past, we have often been the victims. In saying this, I am not casting aspersions on anyone sitting here today, but we have been the victims of political restraints. We often find that, if it is not politically expedient for things to happen, they do not happen. I hope that, as a result of what we are hearing here today and this draft statutory instrument, that will not be the case.

In paragraph 13 of the code of practice, which is headed “Extension of powers in relation to restraint orders”, we are told—I have no problem with this—that this measure will align Northern Ireland more with the United Kingdom. As the noble Lord, Lord Empey, rightly said, we have too much unalignment at times. If this is implemented—it is a sincere piece of work—we can look to better days. In the past, in Northern Ireland, bordering the Republic of Ireland, there has always been this element of smuggling from one territory to another; some people have gotten very wealthy on it. I just hope and trust that, when this SI comes into force, there will be co-operation between the security forces on both sides of the border to bring this scandalous activity to an end.

In the past, in terms of government, there has been too much of us turning our heads and looking the other way; it is a feature that happens here. I trust that that is going to cease and that we will no longer have to tolerate an activity that, to put it mildly and succinctly, is illegal criminality—as well as everything that goes along with it—happening on our borders. I hope that this instrument will go some distance, if not the full distance; I would like it to go the full distance but, if it does not, I welcome the fact that, as is mentioned here, there will be a genuine effort to stamp these criminals out and take them out of activity, no matter whom that hurts. In the past, it has perhaps not been politically expedient to do that, so I ask the Minister to assure us that that will not be given any account as a result of this instrument here.

Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Browne of Belmont and Lord Morrow

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 17th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Belmont]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 15 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe. As I noted in my speech in Committee, in all our debates on the Bill we must not forget children. The Family Impact Test assessment affirms the Bill on the basis that it seeks to “reduce conflict”. However, while I fully understand the Government’s desire to reduce conflict in the divorce process, it is telling that the majority of couples who divorce are in low-conflict relationships.

The figure mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, is that 60% of couples that split are in low-conflict relationships. This research comes from Professor Spencer James of Brigham Young University. He states that these low-conflict couples are

“largely indistinguishable before they split from couples that remain together”.

These findings challenge the assumption that the majority of couples that split up are in constant conflict with one another, yet that assumption seems to underpin this legislation. James’s research comes from the UK’s largest household panel survey, Understanding Society. He found that only 9% of married couples in the United Kingdom who split could be described as high-conflict couples. He states:

“Both unhappiness and conflict are far less prevalent among couples who are about to split than one might reasonably expect.”


All of this is important when we return to research on the impact on children of family breakdown. Parents are more likely fall into poverty following separation. Therefore, they need much greater levels of state support. Some 60% of lone parents receive housing benefit, compared to just 10% of couple parents. Even when income and education are taken into account, studies find negative effects on children from divorce. One study, from Lee and McLanahan, looking at 2,952 mothers and children, revealed that instability especially affects children’s socioemotional development.

Yet the impact of divorce on children seems to depend on what came before. Children tend to do better if their parents exit a high-conflict relationship and worse if they exit a low-conflict one. As James notes in the research I mentioned earlier:

“This potentially counterintuitive finding in fact makes great sense. The break-up of a low conflict relationship comes largely out of the blue for the children. They are then left to conclude either that relationships are profoundly unpredictable or that they are somehow responsible. It’s easy to see how either of these conclusions can then undermine and sabotage their own future prospects of a loving committed relationship”.


This amendment would require the Government simply to look further into the impact of no or low-conflict divorce on children. It is a significant failing that the Family Impact Test assessment has not engaged with this. I think there will be a good deal of benefit in gaining greater understanding of why these couples divorce and therefore in investing more effort in helping them. If these married couples are saying they are relatively happy one year before divorce, what pushes them to make that decision? Understanding that would enable targeted support and help.

The research I have talked about should give us hope. If 60% of couples of are low-conflict and many of them are happy one year before they divorce, perhaps those marriages could be saved. Divorce is generally not in the best interests of the children of those families, so keeping them together would be a great benefit to them. I support Amendment 15.

[Lord Morrow]

My Lords, I wish to speak in support of Amendment 17, which was tabled by the noble Lord, Lord McColl. I am aware that he does not intend to test the opinion of the House on it, but nevertheless I think there are some things that merit being said.

The noble Lord noted in Committee that there are no less than 27 references to reconciliation in the Government’s comments setting out their response to their consultation on divorce law reform. They include the statement that,

“the law can – and should – have a role in providing couples with an opportunity to reflect on that momentous decision and to pull back from the brink if they decide that reconciliation is achievable”.

If we look beyond that document there are plenty of other examples, including in the Family Impact Test assessment of this Bill, which states:

“The current law works against reconciliation by incentivising … a spouse to make allegations about the other spouse’s conduct which can create conflict. The alternative option which requires the couple to live apart for a substantial period of time can disincentivise efforts at reconciliation because the separation period can be affected if the couple try living together again. The current law also offers little opportunity for reflection and conciliation, as the initial decree of divorce can come only a matter of weeks after the divorce proceedings have started.”


In promoting a no-fault system, the Family Impact Test states:

“We want to create conditions for couples and parents to reconcile if they can”.


In this context, it seems to me that commissioning research on how reconciliation is best facilitated under the new regime proposed by the Bill compared to the fault-based system that we have now is vital. The Minister might be preparing to tell me that reconciliation rarely happens during the divorce process, as he did in Committee when he said that there was little evidence that divorces that do not proceed do so because the couple have reconciled. If the Government really think that, it seems completely contradictory to all their statements about reconciliation.

I hope the Minister will not try to square this circle by simply saying that the Government’s position is that while it is not worth prioritising reconciliation, of course they support reconciliation when it is possible. Multiple statements of commitment to the promotion of reconciliation in the Government’s response to the consultation, press releases and family test are such that it does not make sense for the Government then to say that, by the time the divorce process starts, it is too late for reconciliation.

I note that when the Minister suggested this argument in Committee, he cited in defence the Newcastle University study of the Family Law Act 1996 pilots. He told the House about the information meetings that were part of the Family Law Act 1996 and said:

“The purpose of that meeting included providing the parties with information about marriage counselling. Academic research into various models of information meetings found that they came too late to save marriages and tended to incline parties who were unsure towards divorce.”—[Official Report, 3/3/20; col. 564.]


He also implied elsewhere in Committee that the information meetings were not effective.

District Electoral Areas Commissioner (Northern Ireland) Order 2012

Debate between Lord Browne of Belmont and Lord Morrow

Tuesday 20th November 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Browne of Belmont]

My Lords, I welcome the order. It is important that the commissioner is in place as soon as possible, to move forward quickly and to have the mechanism to allow the establishment of the 11 new councils and, particularly, to group the new wards in the appropriate councils. The 11 new councils will be more efficient and cost-effective, and prove better value for the rate-payers of Northern Ireland. However, like the noble Lord, Lord Empey, I am concerned about the timeframe. Is the Minister satisfied that the timeframe that will be afforded to the commissioner will be sufficient to allow local elections to proceed in 2014? Finally, is any appeal process available to those who object to the commissioner’s findings?

[Lord Morrow]

My Lords, I will make a few remarks on the reform of local government. As one who has been in local government from 1973 to the present day, what strikes me is that when local government was first reformed under the recommendations of the Macrory report—I heard what the noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney, said: that this happened under his watch—it was a straight-across change. There were no shadow councils put in place then. It was one way today and a different way tomorrow; that was just the way it happened. There was no learning process, there was no settling in and there was no getting to know the ropes. You just landed on your feet; at least, that is the way that I had to do it. I suspect that no one else did any differently.

We had an election in 2011. I think it has been implied that there was no election then. Well, I stood in an election in 2011 so there was one, and there is another now proposed for 2014. Generally, I support the principles of what has been outlined here today. We have 26 district councils. I am not going to comment on whether they have been good, bad or indifferent. There have been deficiencies, all right. However, I agree with noble Lords when they say that it was the only form of government, of elected representation, there for some 40 years. It is right that we should pay tribute to those who unfortunately had to pay the ultimate sacrifice, for whatever reason. Indeed, some are being asked to do that to this very day.

If we are going to reform local government, and it has taken some time to bring it to this stage, we would do better to get it right than to do it quickly. I do not think that we in Northern Ireland could ever be accused of doing anything too quickly. We take an inordinate amount of time going through this process, but it is an important process for a number of reasons. I support the concept of 11 councils. Quite frankly, Northern Ireland is much too small to have 26 district councils, 108 MLAs, 18 MPs and three MEPs. We are oversubscribed in relation to public representatives, and it is right that change should come quickly.

Having made those observations, I generally and basically agree with what is outlined here today.