Serious Crime Bill [HL]

Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, on the face of it, this is a beguiling amendment, not least because of the way the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, moved it by giving an example of helping a primary school understand a bit more about the way our complicated world works. There is no one in this House who defers more than me to the need for this country and this Parliament to help our citizens have a better idea of what it is to be a citizen in our barbarically complicated society.

I concur with my noble friend Lady Hamwee, and I think there is perhaps another problem with the wording of the amendment in that it simply talks about,

“reinvestment in the communities and neighbourhoods affected”,

which seems as wide as the Atlantic Ocean and gives no reinvestment guidance about what, why or wherefore.

I have a deeper problem with the amendment. We heard the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, give the example of $20 billion to $40 billion that should be recovered from frauds in developing countries and is not. We heard other examples from my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach of the abject failure of our current laws to achieve their purpose. I am not in favour of doing anything to diminish the resources available to the prosecutorial authorities for seeking to make more as regards compliance with the manifold laws we already have. It is a sort of scandal that we go on passing law after law with the most perfect of purposes, but then fail utterly to give those charged with implementing those laws the wherewithal to do that.

My noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach talked with some satisfaction of six advisers. I have to tell him that when you are up against the big, bad guys, a team of six will look rather small, and he is talking about six to cover the whole landscape. Therefore my reservation about the amendment is simply that if its effect is to reduce at all the current grotesquely inadequate resources that go toward compliance, I am afraid that I am not for it.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, will speak, albeit briefly, with some words of caution about this amendment. I do not think anybody could resist the seductive arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, on the need to fund programmes. However, at present the asset recovery incentivisation scheme allows agencies to get back 50% of what they recover from the Home Office. That scheme is flexible in its application, and allows the money to be spent to drive up asset recovery and, where appropriate—those words are important—to fund local crime-fighting priorities for the benefit of the community. I know that the intention of the noble Lord was entirely benevolent and helpful; his example of Latin-teaching in Hillingdon as a sort of cheerleader for the Secretary of State for Education demonstrated that. However, the words “where appropriate” are extremely important.

If one looks at the wording of the noble Lord’s amendment, it is prescriptive. It provides for a three-way split of the proceeds for reinvestment in the communities and neighbourhoods affected by the relevant criminal action. There are no ifs, no buts, and no discretion. Sometimes that would work, and sometimes not. My noble friend Lady Hamwee referred to a situation relating to drugs where it would not. However, that is also true, in spades, of something like insider dealing. That is and should be a crime, but there is no classic victim in the personal sense. The victim, if anything, is the Stock Exchange or the City of London. Under this amendment, we might find that the noble Lord is funding the livery companies or Mansion House. I am sure that he does not intend that, but there is a danger with the way in which the amendment is phrased.

Therefore I have great sympathy with what he seeks to do. However, given that a review is being conducted at the moment, the appropriate thing is to wait to see what that review throws up. I also look forward to hearing what the Minister says about that review. Then would be the time to look at this to see how we can get more money used in crime-fighting rather than by means of something as prescriptive as is the wording of this amendment, which has no discretion at all.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, I have noticed, in debates on Home Office legislation, that my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey seems to attract adjectives. In the previous Bill we looked at he was described by the Minister as being “mischievous”, and today the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, described him as “beguiling” and the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, described him as “seductive”. I dread to think where we will go as the debate continues.

The issues the noble Lord raises are interesting and go to the heart of transparency on this issue, which is about how we want to engage the public and for them to understand what happens to money brought in by the Government. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, made an interesting point on hypothecation, which comes down to trust. The public want to know not just where their taxes go but what happens to money that is brought into the Government.

I was struck by my noble friend Lord Harris’s examples from the education sector. I was not aware of those examples; I do not know whether the Minister was aware before taking the Bill forward. If neither he nor I were aware, were his officials aware? Who does know what happens? This amendment does us a great service, serving to remind us that we have a duty to make this clear to the public. If we are trying to engage them in support of legislation that involves confiscation, fines, et cetera, there is an obligation on Governments and on Parliament to ensure that the public are aware of where that money goes. I hope that the Minister will take some of those comments on board and that it is something that we can return to, in terms of a wider public understanding of what happens to the money and how it is used for the public benefit. That comes to the heart of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, and by the amendment of my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey.