Lord Garnier
Main Page: Lord Garnier (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Garnier's debates with the Attorney General
(9 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Attorney-General
The hon. Lady is right to refer to the fact that there are different kinds of fraud, which are dealt with in different ways in our system. The Serious Fraud Office, which falls within the ambit of the Law Officers’ superintendence, deals with the most exceptionally complex cases of fraud. To answer her question directly, in this financial year the Serious Fraud Office has recovered financial orders of £10.7 million. It is right to point out also that the way in which the Serious Fraud Office is funded is unusual. It relies on some core funding and also on what is called blockbuster funding for unanticipated, large and complex cases. I think that that is the right way to do it.
Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)
Will my right hon. and learned Friend confirm that the invitation from some to subsume the Serious Fraud Office into the National Crime Agency is not one that he will accede to?
The Attorney-General
There is huge value always in looking at the way in which Government agencies do their business and in finding efficiencies and changes if it is beneficial to do so, but I think the Roskill model on which the Serious Fraud Office is based—that is, the combination of lawyers, investigators, prosecutors, accountants and the like, all in multidisciplinary teams—is a sensible model, and it is delivering effective results.