Criminal Finances Bill

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Tuesday 28th March 2017 Lords Chamber

The Government said at Second Reading that they would carefully monitor and review the use of unexplained wealth orders once they are introduced. Is it not the Government’s intention to do that in respect of all the new and enhanced offences and powers in the Bill, not least in relation to the resources available? Is it not the Government’s intention to do it in a way that ensures Parliament is directly involved? That is the purpose of this amendment, which requires a one-off report from the Secretary of State to Parliament on the implementation of the Act covering the issues of additional resources provided and required, based on experience of seeking to implement the provisions of the Act—rather than, as now, on conjecture—the training of staff and the extent to which the enforcement authorities have used the powers provided in the Bill. I beg to move the amendment and await the Government’s response.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, is talking about post-legislative scrutiny arrangements. I quite favour post-legislative scrutiny but think that the amendment has some serious weaknesses. Essentially, it is a list of requests, in the sense that proposed new subsection (2)(a), (b) and (c) asks for additional resources and training. When you tie that in with the list of enforcement authorities overleaf in proposed new subsection (3)(a) to (e), there are some extremely serious and bulky authorities there that could come up with a pretty large list of what they might want. While I entirely support what is said in proposed new subsection (2)(d)—

“to what extent enforcement authorities have used the powers provided”,

which is an extremely good point to inquire about—nowhere does the report require any assessment of what has been achieved. It seems to me that the critical aspect of the Bill is what is achieved. I worry that what we have here is a shopping list for more resources but without any need to justify the money that has been spent or to what extent it has proved effective in various ways; for example, by inhibiting crime or by seizing drugs or other forms of assets.

Finally, 18 months would be a very short time in which to make this sort of assessment. By the time this begins to build as an organisation, it will be longer than that. We are in danger of taking a snapshot in which we get only half the picture—that is the asking half and not the delivery half—and of looking at it before it is fully fledged and developed. I hope that my noble friend will resist this amendment, in this form at least.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts for speaking to the amendment. As with all powers introduced in legislation, it is crucial that the necessary resources are available to law enforcement and prosecution agencies so that they are used effectively. As he mentioned, ARIS is essential to this work. Under this scheme, half of all assets recovered go back to the law enforcement and prosecution agencies involved. Put simply, the more they recover, the more they get back. I am pleased to say that £764 million has been raised since 2006, and over £257 million in the last three years has been invested in law enforcement agencies under this scheme. The new powers will ensure that there are even more efficient ways of recovering assets and that they will be cheaper. Indeed, senior law enforcement officers gave evidence to the Commons Public Bill Committee that the powers will help agencies achieve more with the resources that they have. We have not downplayed the estimates in the impact assessment. These are provided subject to all the standard guidance based on input from law enforcement, the banks and others.

In addition, the Home Office share of ARIS is invested in front-line capabilities, including the regional organised crime units, which have received over £100 million in direct funding from the Home Office since 2013-14. Further to this, £5 million has been set aside from ARIS every year until the end of this Parliament to fund key national asset recovery capabilities, and we are fulfilling a manifesto commitment to return a greater percentage of recovered assets back to policing by investing all the Home Office share of the scheme’s money—above a certain baseline—in the multiagency regional asset recovery teams.

All the agencies listed in this amendment already report on their resources and results through departmental annual accounts and reports. As my noble friend said, this is about what they have achieved. They are subject to examination by the National Audit Office and Public Accounts Committee. The Criminal Finances Board, which is co-chaired by the Security Minister and the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, closely monitors resourcing, performance and support mechanisms such as training, to ensure that agencies are achieving results with the powers that Parliament imparts to them.

Finally, the Government have protected the NCA’s budget. In addition, new capital investment of over £200 million will be available over the period 2016 to 2020, to transform the NCA into a world-leading law enforcement agency, with new digital and investigative capabilities to tackle cybercrime, child exploitation and the distribution of criminal finances. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked how many UWOs would be used and why so few were predicted. I said before—and the noble Lord said—that it was a conservative estimate, but we will encourage their use from day one. We are already actively engaging with law enforcement and prosecutors to encourage the use of all the new powers being introduced by the Bill. I hope with those words that the noble Lord is satisfied with my response. I know that we will keep an eye on this in the future but, for now, I hope that he will feel happy to withdraw his amendment.