National Crime Agency (Directed Tasking) Order 2023

Lord Sharkey Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Gascoigne (Con)]

My Lords, the impact of serious and organised crime on the United Kingdom is significant and growing. It poses a threat to our national security and prosperity. In partnership with law enforcement and industry, the Government are taking significant steps to tackle the increasingly complex threat posed by economic crime, fraud, bribery and corruption. These crimes severely harm the economy and cause significant suffering. We must do more to keep pace with the evolving threat. A whole-system response is critically important.

To this end, the Government announced, as part of the Serious and Organised Crime Strategy 2023, our intention to amend Section 5(5) of the Crime and Courts Act 2013. This amendment would allow the director-general of the National Crime Agency to direct the director of the Serious Fraud Office on matters relating to the investigation of suspected incidents of serious or complex fraud, bribery and corruption.

With the addition of the Serious Fraud Office to the list of agencies that can be subject to directed tasking, this measure will strengthen the ability of the National Crime Agency to co-ordinate a national effort against serious and organised crime. This will support strong ongoing collaboration between the National Crime Agency and the Serious Fraud Office, enabling the director-general of the National Crime Agency to direct the director of the Serious Fraud Office where the National Crime Agency requires the assistance, skills and expertise of the Serious Fraud Office, but where satisfactory arrangements cannot be made under the existing voluntary tasking arrangement.

It will also place the National Crime Agency’s relationship with the Serious Fraud Office on the same footing as that which the agency has with police forces in England and Wales and the British Transport Police.

The Government’s aim is to reduce serious and organised crime in the UK. We will do this by disrupting and dismantling organised crime groups operating in and against the UK. The social and economic cost of serious and organised crime to the UK is eyewatering, running to at least £47 billion a year. But, vast as that figure is, it does not begin to tell the whole story—a story of lives destroyed and of unimaginable suffering caused by heinous criminality such as sexual exploitation, drug abuse and human trafficking.

Beyond the enormous financial and human costs, serious and organised crime threatens the legitimacy of the state. It damages our national security and prosperity. That is why the Home Secretary recently published a new serious and organised crime strategy. Our mission is to reduce the impact of serious and organised crime on the country in all its forms. This includes reducing fraud.

The threat from fraud has increased in volume over recent years. The Government are implementing the fraud strategy, including launching a national fraud squad, blocking frauds at source and empowering the public to respond. This includes committing £100 million as part of a wider £400 million to tackle economic crime and improve the law enforcement response to fraud. We have also set ourselves the target to reduce fraud by 10% from December 2019 levels by the end of this Parliament.

The National Crime Agency is crucial to our response. The agency leads and co-ordinates the UK law enforcement response to serious and organised crime. We have strengthened the agency’s ability to combat organised criminals, increasing its budget by 21% to £860 million in 2023/24.

The Serious Fraud Office is a critical partner in the fraud system. In the last five years alone, it has recovered over £150 million in proceeds of crime, put 26 executives behind bars and forced big business to pay more than £1 billion in fines.

To summarise, this order gives effect to an element of the Government’s approach to tackling economic crime, an issue that causes significant direct and indirect harm to the country. Subject to proper safeguards, it brings the investigative capability of the Serious Fraud Office’s work within scope for direction by the director-general of the National Crime Agency, akin to what already exists in relation to police forces in England and Wales, as I said.

The addition of the directed tasking power is intended to enhance collaboration between the National Crime Agency and the Serious Fraud Office and assist in the sharing of tools and expertise to fight serious or complex fraud, bribery and corruption. I beg to move.

[Lord Sharkey (LD)]

My Lords, we are happy to support this SI. We welcome any increase in the effort to combat economic crime, in particular serious or complex fraud, bribery and corruption. The SI seems straightforward; it simply adds the SFO to the list of organisations that may be directly tasked by the NCA to investigate serious or complex economic crime that falls within the SFO’s remit.

However, one element of the SI would benefit from further explanation. Paragraph 4.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum says:

“The territorial application of this instrument … is England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland”.


It defines the territorial application as being

“where the instrument produces a practical effect”.

The police services of Northern Ireland and Scotland are not listed in Section 5(5) of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 as organisations that the NCA may direct, unlike the police services of England and Wales. The NCA seems to have a kind of jurisdiction in Northern Ireland. The Explanatory Memorandum says that special provisions apply to Northern Ireland and that the memorandum of understanding between the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the NCA

“will be reviewed and amended as necessary, to reflect the extension of the directed tasking powers in this Order”.

Can the Minister tell us when this review is likely to take place and when any amendments are likely to be published?

What happens in Scotland is less clear. The SFO does not have jurisdiction there, and Police Scotland does not feature in Section 5(5) of the Crime and Courts Act 2013. Scotland does not feature in this SI, except in the assertion of territorial application that I mentioned a moment ago. What difference does this SI make in Scotland? What practical effect does it bring about? In the absence of explicit power to direct, how does the NCA operate in Scotland? What is the formal relationship between the NCA and the procurator fiscal service? I would be grateful if the Minister could address those questions when he replies.

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[Lord Gascoigne (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for those two points. I will certainly write to both noble Lords on the devolved nations and any other outstanding issues. I completely appreciate the points made.

Forgive me if I have not been clear. Given that this has not been used in other circumstances, my understanding is that this has always been the intent for some time. It is not in response to anything in particular but an important part of a broader strategy to tackle crime. I am assured, having spoken to officials in those bodies, that there is a very good working relationship at senior level. My understanding is that this is just a backstop, just in case, should that relationship not work. If I am not correct on that I will write to both noble Lords, but I will also reiterate the point if it is correct.

To conclude, this measure represents a positive step forward, in our view. It is part of a larger effort and a wider package of measures to strengthen our collective ability to identify and investigate the most harmful and complex criminal cases, and prosecute those responsible.

[Lord Sharkey (LD)]

I am no wiser, really, about Scotland. I do not know, from listening to the Minister or reading the material, how this SI has any effect in Scotland, if at all, and I do not know how the NCA will operate. I have asked the questions anyway—I will not repeat them in detail here—but I would like an assurance from the Minister that he will write to us to answer those questions and that he will do so before this instrument reaches the other place.

[Lord Gascoigne (Con)]

I am very sorry not to have answered that sufficiently. I assure the noble Lord that I will write, and I will do so as fast as I possibly can. Forgive me for not answering it in the first place.