Proceeds of Crime

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

I shall answer one or two points on the first of the codes, then, with your permission and indulgence, Mr Speaker, I shall move the subsequent ones formally.

The points that have been made are all in the spirit of wanting the measure to work. I am grateful to the House for that. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), made the telling point that this has long been a consideration of this House and of successive Governments. He referenced in particular the 2002 Act and he will know that subsequent legislation to which I referred earlier builds on that Act and brings it up to date, because as crime changes, the proceeds of crime and our ability to recover them change too. Very much in that spirit, I welcome what he said.

I note the hon. Gentleman’s point about the way the measure is explained. Although with typical courtesy he did not draw the attention of hon. Members to the fact, I am aware that the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee felt that the explanatory memorandum that accompanied these orders was not sufficient. I agree that the policy background in the memorandum was insufficient and did not set out that the powers will operate in the way I want them to, as he said. To that end, I am delighted to be able to tell him that this very morning I asked my officials to redraw the explanatory memorandum in exactly the form that he requested, with worked examples of how these things might work in practice. These are complex matters, but none the less it seems to me that they need to be articulated in a way that makes it absolutely clear how the codes will introduce the kind of safeguards that we all favour.

To that end, I can assure the House that my officials are well aware that the explanatory memorandum must do just that. I am delighted to be able to tell the House that the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has said that were that to be done with the speed and in the fashion that I have described, it would be satisfied. The hon. Gentleman has done a service to this House and it is not his fault that I have anticipated his point by doing what I have described this morning. Indeed, it shows that we are on the same page.

My hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), who has moved—he is in his place, but his place has changed—made the interesting suggestion that the police might be incentivised, if I might put it in those terms, to go still further if they were to recover some of the costs of their inquiries. That is an interesting suggestion. It would be above my pay grade and outside my remit to agree it on the Floor of the House at this very moment, but I shall certainly take it back to the Department to discuss with the policing Minister and others.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend rightly mentioned that the explanatory memorandum could go into a little more detail, and I welcome that suggestion. Paragraph 4.9 of the explanatory memorandum suggests not only that there have been new additions but that:

“The code has been slightly restructured to make it easier to read and understand.”

Would it be possible to set out what is a clarification and what is a new provision, so that when that is considered in due course it will be clear that some points are just clarifications rather than new provisions?

[Mr Hayes]

With the eye for detail that my hon. Friend’s scrutiny increasingly shows, and for which she is building a substantial reputation, she draws attention to precisely one of the matters that I discussed with my officials in the conversation I had with them this morning, to which I referred in relation to the comments made by the shadow Minister. It is right that we should clarify that point. She is also right that we need to consider the whole of the explanatory memorandum in a similar spirit, and that is precisely what we intend to do. I am grateful to her for allowing me to illustrate that not only she has an eye for detail, but the Minister has too.

The points made by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) seemed to me to be absolutely on the button. It is important that these things are dealt with consistently and that we take them seriously. I make no comments on his remarks about the previous history in the Province, but I can assure him that we are determined that the powers shall apply across our kingdom and that they will be pursued with appropriate vehemence. There can be no greater mission than to ensure that criminals do not profit from what they do. That is precisely what we intend to achieve. I am grateful for his support and for the comments he made about that.

The hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) spoke about immigration officers’ powers. I take his point; they have been generally expanded so that they are now mainstream law enforcement officers, like the police, the NCA and others. There is appropriate training—he is right that it is very important that that takes place—and appropriate safeguards and oversight, as there always should be in such matters. This is in relation to the 2002 Act, as I said, and I will pass concerns on to the Minister for Immigration so that the people for whom he is responsible are equipped with the information and skills they need. As I said in response to the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), it is important that we behave consistently, and I am grateful for his contribution to the debate.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke about effective enforcement, and not only is it important that these codes are clear, established, transparent and comprehensible, but the powers that they effect or give appropriate safeguards to must be used. As he said, it is right that there has been a determination in this House, but we must ensure that that is seen through to the point of impact. It is all very well having intent, a legislative vehicle and safeguards, but there must also be a determination that this is seen as an important priority in the Province and across the United Kingdom.

This has been a useful debate, and I am grateful for the spirit in which the House has considered these matters. It is perhaps best to end not with Yeats—although I could, and I am tempted to—but with C. S. Lewis, who said in “The Weight of Glory” that

“the art of life consists in tackling each immediate evil as well as we can”.

The proceeds of crime are an evil that this Government are entirely determined to tackle, and these codes will help us to do so. In that spirit, I commend the motion to the House.