Uncollected Financial Penalties

Debate between Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede and Lord Hogan-Howe

Tuesday 13th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that supplementary question. Of the £4.4 billion that she referred to, £2.7 billion is from confiscation orders. Of the £2.7 billion, £1.2 billion is purely interest—interest is paid at 8% on the confiscation order amount. There are legislative changes in the Crime and Policing Bill, which is currently in the other place, but I think it is worth pointing out to my noble friend that, in existing legislation, there are only very limited circumstances where a Crown Court can judicially cancel an order, and it contains no powers to administratively cancel a confiscation order. That means that the confiscation order amount accrues over the years, including the interest. With respect to financial penalties, by which I mean fines, the picture is very different. Over a five-year period, 80% of all fines are collected, and that figure has remained flat over the last few years. While I accept that the overall number is increasing, that gives an unfair picture of the current situation, and the Government are addressing the reasons why that is an unfair reflection of the position.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, it has always been a challenge to collect fines, because they are often imposed on people who cannot pay them. One of the areas in which progress can be made is criminal assets. This is usually around organised crime, which is motivated by profit. What I think the enforcement agencies have not invested in—and I invite the Minister to inquire—is having forensic accountants, who are people who can trace assets in often complex financial arrangements. At one stage, the NCA had one, as did Police Scotland. Can the Minister find out, or tell us, how many forensic accountants there are? People may not know, but the police can keep half of the cash they seize and 15% of other assets that are confiscated—not for themselves—

Criminal Justice System: Capacity

Debate between Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede and Lord Hogan-Howe

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend Lady Mallalieu for her question. I very much remember the noble Lord regularly asking for a royal commission. The reality is that we feel that we have a big job of work to do on reviewing sentencing and then managing the whole prison population and estate, so that it stops increasing. That is where our focus is right now. I will take back the question of a royal commission to my right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor, but, to be frank, I have not heard it spoken about in the time I have been in government.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I support a smaller prison population, not just because there are not enough places for the people who have been sentenced but because there are too many people in prison. However, one of the consequences of releasing people early, at a quicker pace than one might have planned for, is that it will put more pressure on the police service. This Government made a manifesto pledge to increase the size of the police by around 4,000 officers, but we have not heard an awful lot about that since the Government took office.

Secondly, as has been mentioned by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and by the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, in passing, one of the measures for mitigating the recidivism of those who are released is tagging—normal tagging to determine where the person is and sobriety tagging, where alcohol is an aggravating factor, and now there is also drug tagging. Finally, the response to those tags when they are breached should go straight to the police, not to a private company to be emailed to the police to be dealt with some time later. Is the Minister able to respond to those points about resourcing?

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I have just consulted with my noble friend Lord Timpson and I can reassure the noble Lord that we do have enough tags for the process which we are embarking on. I should also mention that both my noble friend Lord Timpson and I were fitted with a sobriety tag for a while to see whether it worked, and I can assure the noble Lord that it does work.

The noble Lord’s opening point was about more pressure on the police. That is right; there will be some more pressure on the police and also on the Probation Service and some social services such as housing. The philosophy underlying the Government’s SDS40 approach rather than the previous approach is planning down the whole pipeline, including people who will regrettably reoffend and how to deal with them. By managing this with a more planned approach, we hope and expect that we will reduce the chances of reoffending.