Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Lord Phillips of Sudbury Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

I am most grateful to my noble friend. Can he tell the Committee where that provision is to be found in the proposed schedule?

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames]

It can be inferred from the fact that there is a proposal that the prosecuting authority has to go to a judge at the preliminary hearing to persuade the judge that the case is suitable for a DPA. If a prison sentence ought to be imposed on the person “P”, that agreement would not be forthcoming. That, I suggest, would be the effect of the proposal, although it may be necessary to make it clear by amendment; I appreciate that.

My second point is that the offences covered in Part 2 are economic and financial, and only financial and economic offences may be added to the list by delegated legislation. I wonder whether the restriction, not as to the legislation but as to the offences, is entirely justified. Environmental offences, for instance, seem appropriate. There are other random examples of offences contrary to regulation that might be suitable, such as offences against fishing regulations regarding net mesh sizes and permitted catches. Those may be examples, and there are many more. There are other regulatory provisions where DPAs might be appropriate. Perhaps it may be as well to let us see how DPAs work with the offences listed in the schedule at this point and then look to amend the legislation in the future. Certainly as a member of your Lordships’ Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform, I see the difficulty of adding large numbers of offences to the list by delegated legislation, as the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, pointed out. However, I suspect that our early suspicions of DPAs will wane in practice and that they may become tools of wider use and greater utility than is now envisaged.

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[Lord Goldsmith]

I am grateful for that. It makes sense because the questions I want to raise are very much in the nature of those put in a Second Reading debate. Let me explain first why I am broadly in favour of this approach. While I agree with a number of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, I think he missed the main point. The main point of DPAs is not so much to substitute a financial penalty or something of that kind for a conviction, it is to provide a mechanism to change behaviour. The critical point is to agree conditions which act as a carrot and a stick. If you go forward and you comply with conditions that change your behaviour, you will not find yourself being prosecuted and convicted. A classic example of this which is not in the field of economic crime—I want to come back to that point—would be disposals in relation to people who have been involved in drug offences. You want to find a way there of changing their behaviour in taking and dealing drugs. In some jurisdictions in the United States, that is done by having in effect a deferred prosecution agreement under which they agree some pretty tough conditions about how they deal with their drug problem, including treatment, regular testing and so forth. If they fail, they go back to court and are dealt with very heavily; if they succeed, it is very much to their benefit, and also of course to that of the public, that the problem is removed.

The idea of a deferred prosecution agreement, in my mind, is to change behaviour by having a carrot and a stick. Therefore, the conditions that the schedule provides may be entered into include conditions, for example, for future compliance—which is critical, it seems to me—by someone who is subject to a DPA of their business, because that is the way this is drafted at the moment. That is desirable. Indeed, I became of the view that something like this was necessary during the course of my time in office when I recognised that we did not have the ability under English law to say to somebody, “OK, you say you are contrite and that you are prepared to do all these things. That is very good and we will give you credit for it, but I am sorry—you are still going to be convicted. You will have a conviction, which means that when you come to take employment or apply for whatever it may be, you will have that against you”. I thought it was a tool that we ought to have to be able to avoid that. It plainly does not apply in every case—let me make that very clear—and many offences require very significant and severe penalties to be imposed. I am not a softie when it comes to any of that at all. However, I came to the view that we ought to have something of that sort.

We did not have it, although my noble friend Lord Beecham is right that we ended up, I think, with the Criminal Justice Act 2003. I may have got the Act wrong, as we did pass one or two Criminal Justice Acts in our time—noble Lords will forgive me if I cannot distinguish them all from each other with absolute precision. We provided for a conditional caution, which is different from a fixed penalty, as it was a caution with conditions attached; for example, to go on an anger management course, a drug or more likely drink treatment course. A prosecution did not take place at that time, but if the person did not comply with the conditions, they could be prosecuted and sentenced for the original offence. That idea is already in our system, although, as my noble friend has said, quoting my words, at the other end of the scale of offending. In principle, it is a good idea. We commissioned a review on fraud with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the belief that we did not deal adequately with economic crime in this country on a number of grounds. It came up with some recommendations, including something along these lines.

I will turn, with that degree of general Second Reading-type support, to the some of my questions. The first is the one raised by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, about whether it is right that this should be limited to companies or business organisations. There is a lot to be said for having this tool available in relation to individuals as well, and I have already given a couple of examples where that could be useful. I recognise that, as it stands, the proposal gives rise to the concern that this is just for business to buy its way out of prosecution. Actually, if this was a broader power, which was only applied appropriately, that concern would start to disappear. There are circumstances in which I believe individuals and the public would benefit from such a power. If one is limiting it to corporations and businesses, it is quite difficult to fully justify that. If this were restricted to offences such as those under Section 7 of the Bribery Act—where I think this will be used quite a lot—that do not involve what we would call a “guilty mind” on behalf of a corporation, in that it is an offence that it is guilty of despite a lack of intention to commit the offence, it might be justifiable. However, the offences that are included potentially include offences where the corporation or partnership would only be guilty if there was a guilty mind. I am not convinced and would like to hear more from the Minister as to why it is thought to be right.

Along with the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, I am not convinced that it is right to limit the availability of this power to economic crime. He mentioned a number of areas. I cannot comment on the fishing side, as I am just a town boy and have never understood that side of things, but he is right about environmental issues, which are terribly serious, where sometimes you want to impose some form of regime that means that the business will operate in a much better way in the future, although you may have some penalty attached at that time as well. Health and safety is another area. I do not want to minimise health and safety offences, which are very important, but that is another area where businesses, and the public, might benefit from this sort of review. I invite the noble Lord to say a little more about why it is limited in this way. Is it because it is thought this might get it through this House and Parliament or are there other, more principled, reasons? It gives rise as it stands to the objections that my noble friend has raised.

I will raise some more specific points on paragraph 5. It is noted that a DPA, in the statement of facts, may include “admissions made” by the person who is subject to the order. This is unlike the conditional caution regime, which requires admission for it to operate. I assume that this is a deliberate decision by the Government so that DPAs can be imposed on people who are not admitting the offence at all. I do not object to that, as it may be quite a good way of dealing with certain situations where the prosecution are not sure that they can prove the case but someone is prepared to pay a penalty, pay compensation and change their behaviour for the future. However, I ask the noble Lord whether that is the intention behind this. Paragraph 5(3)—

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

Does the noble and learned Lord not think that if he pursues that line, it will enable the party that has entered into the DPA to get away even more with what they have done? I think I am right in saying that in the United States, with a plea bargain, they at least have to admit that there has been some wrongdoing. If they do not even have to admit that, the public relations impact of one of these DPAs will be even less that it will be anyhow.

[Lord Goldsmith]

The noble Lord may be right about that. I am asking the Minister a question about the thinking. One has to recognise that there are cases where the prosecution cannot actually prove the case, or it would be enormously expensive to do so, with uncertain prospects. I can see that there may be circumstances where getting a regime that for example secures compliance for the future may be worth while. However, that is only my speculation as to why “may” is there rather than “must”, which I would have expected based on the conditional cautions.

Paragraph 5(3)(e) talks about the implementation of a “compliance programme” and I would like the noble Lord to say something about what sort of compliance programmes the Government have in mind, and whether they would include, for example, the putting in place of monitors, and whether that is something that can be sufficiently dealt with by the words here or whether it needs some specific language. As regards paragraph 6 of the code on DPAs, is it intended, as my noble friend Lord Beecham asked, for the code to be placed before Parliament—as is the code for the crown prosecutors, if my recollection serves me right? I can see that Parliament would have an interest in that.

Paragraphs 7 and 8 would require the prosecutor to apply at different stages for declarations in certain terms that entering into a DPA is likely to be,

“ in the interests of justice”—

and that the proposed terms of the DPA—

“are fair and reasonable and proportionate”.

Is it necessary to ask a court to do that? Plainly, the court must be asked to approve the solution. However, I am not sure whether one should also ask the court to make declarations as to these matters. I would like to hear from the Minister as to the thinking behind that. As I understand it, under paragraph 8, the final hearing must be in public, whereas the preliminary application would be in private. I would be grateful for confirmation as to that.

Paragraph 11 deals with discontinuance of the DPA. I am probably missing it but I looked for a clear statement that if there is a finding of non-compliance by the court, that is likely to result in criminal proceedings being instituted. Finally, I, too, would welcome hearing what the proposals are in relation to addition to this schedule and the procedure that will be adopted.

I apologise for that quite long list. This is an important provision. It is a bit difficult to see how we are going to deal with it in a second Committee stage. I am looking forward with great interest to seeing whether the Minister is actually moving the whole of the schedule now so it goes into the Bill and we then apply to amend it, but I accept his assurances that if that is what happens, we will be able to apply to amend it hereafter.

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[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I admit that I have not read these provisions in whole more than once, but when I first read them I, too, thought that this smacked of plea bargaining. My reaction was—and perhaps I should be forced to face up to this—rather more xenophobic than I would really care to admit. Discussing the provisions at this early—perhaps too early—stage has led me to cross out an awful lot of what I might have mused aloud about. We almost need a seminar on this rather than a Second Reading.

My instinctive reaction was, as the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, has expressed, against being able to negotiate and pay one’s way out of trouble and conversely being tempted to acknowledge guilt for the wrong reasons. The foreword to the Government’s response to the consultation says that this will be,

“a more just and effective system”.

I am not sure what “just” means in this context. If it means anything, I think it means something about encouraging a change in behaviour, as the noble and learned Lord has said. Is it effective—as distinct from efficient? I can see that it is efficient but I wonder about effective. If it is effective, it will be effective in deterrence, reparation and so on, and that is my analysis of “just”. But perhaps none of this will matter when we get down to the detail.

The fact sheet that the Ministry of Justice has issued to accompany this says:

“A criminal prosecution will continue to be the most appropriate course of action where an organisation’s alleged wrongdoing is such that prosecution is the only real option”.

I am not sure where I see that in the provisions, except by implication.

I think my noble friend said that the code would be available to Parliament. I understand that such a code may not normally be appropriate for legislation of any type, or maybe not even for public consultation, but paragraph 6(1) says that the code will give guidance on,

“the general principles to be applied in determining whether a DPA is likely to be appropriate in a given case”.

That seems to be such a significant part of the code that it really ought to be in legislation.

Finally, on the requirements to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, has referred, I will be interested to know, during the recommitment of these clauses, when it will be thought appropriate that a donation is made to charity and how one reaches that conclusion. There is a lot for us to disaggregate, analyse and understand in this schedule.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, I did not expect to be able to be here this afternoon. In many ways, I wish I was not, because I am afraid that I take a rather different view from anyone who has spoken so far—except the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. I sympathise with my noble friend the Minister because this is a really difficult area to address in terms of a change in the law, because plainly the present situation is utterly hopeless.

Following the staggering series of events of the past five years, with the collapse of the financial centres of the world, in particular the City, which has required £80 billion of taxpayers’ money to shore up a system that has, let us be frank, been deeply corrupted—a great deal of the failure of the markets was not through lack of prudential wisdom but through market manipulation and criminality of various kinds—not one single person has been prosecuted and put behind bars. I accept what my noble friend the Minister said in opening, that we need to do something, but what we need to do is not to compromise the basic principle of equality before the law—because that is what we are doing—it is to beef up, hugely, the prosecuting authorities in this country. We have played boys’ games with these matters until now.

I had a meeting with the previous head of the Serious Fraud Office and I think I am right in saying that there are a puny number of highly qualified lawyers there to deal with what are the most difficult forms of prosecution on earth. He told me that his entire team would be outmatched by the lawyers and accountants hired by a bank to face a would-be prosecution that the SFO was considering.

It is not right for us to contemplate this fundamentally unacceptable measure until and unless we have summoned the necessary political will to give the prosecuting authorities a chance of doing their job because, hitherto, we have not. I for one would be willing to see a tenfold or twentyfold increase in the necessary personnel, with the necessary increase in their remuneration. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, was correct that the disparity in remuneration between the gentlemen and ladies in the Serious Fraud Office and the private sector is crazy. I would confront those difficulties and pay for their remedy. Were there effective prosecutions in this country, the fines that resulted from prosecutions of very large institutions for very large frauds would, I suspect, pay for the increase in the prosecuting resources many times over.

We have to be honest with ourselves and with the country over this. This is plea-bargaining. This is breaking the rule of equality before the law because it places huge, powerful, sophisticated companies engaged in premeditated and long-term fraud in a different position from that of a man or woman had up before the local magistrates for shoplifting. That is another form of economic crime. We are driving a coach and horses through the ancient and proper traditions of this country by giving privilege—that is what it boils down to—to the already rich and powerful. My noble friend said in opening that they are not “getting off lightly”. Well, I have to disabuse him: they are getting off extraordinarily lightly. To start with, there is no naming and shaming. When these matters are brought before the court for approval, there will not be facts there given that will hold up for public contempt the main architects of whatever fraud we are talking about. Least of all will there be prosecution and conviction, which will then of course strike very hard at the reception of that by the individuals who are prosecuted and convicted. Perhaps I may ask my noble friend this important question. Will this legislation prevent individual directors and executives of companies entering into a DPA being prosecuted afterwards for their part in the frauds concerned? If they are not susceptible to subsequent prosecution, that is a further failure of the proposed new regime.

This is a more important departure from the status quo than some may realise. This is pure realpolitik of a sort that it is not right for us to contemplate until— I repeat—we have tried giving prosecuting authorities the resources to deal with the offences being committed. As I have said, we are a million miles from that.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, again, this has been an extremely useful exercise. I am glad that we have done it in a way which has allowed this Second Reading-style debate. My noble friend Lord Phillips said that he wished that he was not here. I sometimes share his ambitions in that regard.

My noble friend demanded 10 times the budget and 20 times the personnel for the Serious Fraud Office, with an increase in their remuneration. I say with no sense of arrogance that that is the difference between making speeches up there and making them down here. It would be very easy to say, “Oh, well, we’re going spend all this money”, but the reality is—

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My noble friend does not do my argument justice. I was saying that if the Serious Fraud Office did that, and if prosecutions were brought and convictions obtained, the fines that resulted would cover those costs. A couple of years ago in New York, KMPG was fined $450 million on a plea bargain. That would pay for a lot of people.

[Lord McNally]

Yes, I did hear the tail end of my noble friend’s argument where he said that it would all be self-financing, which is always another dangerous thing to say in government.

But, yes, I agree. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, indicated, it has been the ambition of successive Governments to nail down the problem of white collar crime. If they have not done so, it has not been for want of trying. This is obviously a toe-dipping exercise. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said that we really needed a seminar. I had the benefit of a seminar at an early stage of the process, because Sir Edward Garnier, when he was Solicitor-General, was the first to try to convince me of the usefulness of deferred prosecution agreements. They are, I freely confess, a very pragmatic approach to the problem. It is not as pure an approach as that for which the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, very powerfully argued, but it seems to me to offer real results. As has been pointed by a number of speakers, it is not entirely new to English law in that there are some parallels with environmental legislation and the 2003 legislation to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, referred.

This is a test to see what kind of results we can get from this approach, with an opportunity perhaps to extend it later. I heard what was said by the noble and learned Lords, Lord Woolf and Lord Goldsmith, and the noble Lords, Lord Beecham and Lord Marks, about individuals as well as companies. We decided not to take it that far. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, said that we should look again and I am sure that an appropriate amendment will be tabled for the second part of this Committee stage that allows me to address the Government’s concerns about taking it more widely at that point. At the moment, the Government’s view is that this is a prudent move in the direction of seeing whether deferred prosecution agreements can work effectively, and if they do, they would then, as the noble Lord, Lord Marks, said, start to find their way into our system more easily. I fully agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, that it would not just be a matter of patching up previous behaviour but of making sure that there was, as part of any agreement, monitored good behaviour for the future.