Baroness May of Maidenhead
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Serious Crime Bill [Lords]
Baroness May of Maidenhead Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
In November, this House passed a Modern Slavery Bill to tackle the appalling crime of modern slavery, to pursue and prosecute those who trade in human beings for profit, and to protect and support victims. Modern slavery is just one of the many manifestations of serious and organised crime, and while organised criminals operate globally, the effects of their crimes reach deep into our communities, shattering lives and affecting us all in different ways: the pensioner who loses his life savings to a sophisticated scam; the family who have their home burgled by someone addicted to drugs; the internet user who has their credit card details stolen; the person who buys goods such as alcohol or medicines and discovers they are dangerous fakes; and people who find their insurance premiums inflated because of fraud. Organised crime can also relate to the disgusting and devastating sexual exploitation of children.
There are over 5,500 organised criminal groups operating in the UK, with 36,000 people engaged in organised criminal activity. Organised crime is thought to cost this country at least £24 billion a year, and the cost to the UK from organised fraud is thought to be around £9 billion. It is a threat with many impacts, which must be fought on many levels. Yet, in 2010, when the Government came to power, it was clear that the response to serious and organised crime—both in policy and operational terms—was woefully lacking. So alongside our programme of radical police reform, we overhauled the response to serious and organised crime.
The strategic policing requirement now makes it clear to chief constables and police and crime commissioners that they need to work across force boundaries to address national threats, including those from organised crime and cybercrime. We have strengthened regional organised crime units so that there is an effective and cohesive response at a regional level; we have legislated to break down barriers to information-sharing between law enforcement agencies, and to toughen up penalties for those trading in illegal firearms; and in 2013 we launched a new crime-fighting body, the National Crime Agency, with the powers and mandate to task and co-ordinate law enforcement organisations and assets. In its first year of operation, the NCA led and co-ordinated numerous operations, leading to the arrests of 2,048 people in the UK and 1,181 overseas, and 415 convictions. It seized nearly 213 tonnes of drugs and over 700 firearms, and safeguarded or protected over 1,300 children. On the same day as the NCA was launched, we published our serious and organised crime strategy. It details the action we expect from across Government, agencies and partners in order to drive our collective and relentless response to organised criminality.
Building capacity and capability at a national, regional and force level is vital, but we must also ensure that the NCA, police forces and other law enforcement agencies have the powers they need to bring offenders to justice, to deprive criminals of the proceeds of crime, and to prevent them from engaging in further criminality.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
I am grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way so early in her speech. As she knows, I support the creation of the National Crime Agency and the Select Committee has recently taken evidence from Keith Bristow on his first year in office. Given the failings of the Serious Organised Crime Agency—or, to put it another way, the failure of SOCA to meet the expectations and ambitions of Parliament and Ministers—does she feel the NCA is on the right track and enough has been seized, given the figures given to the Committee and the figures she has given today and the fact that she puts the amount of serious and organised crime at £24 billion?
Mrs May
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the support he has shown for the National Crime Agency. I think that the agency is on the right track. There is always more that can be done, but the NCA is obviously building up its operations and capabilities. One crucial difference between the NCA and SOCA is the way in which the NCA operates with police forces around the country. There is also a clear intelligence hub at the heart of the NCA, which means that operations are being focused on the most harmful threats. In every case, a decision is taken on whether it should be a collective operation, an individual force operation or an NCA operation, and on what assets should be brought to bear in those operations.
I shall talk about those aspects of the Bill that will strengthen our ability to get hold of criminals’ assets, as that forms an important part of the work that is being done. Criminals want to make a profit out of their activities, and the more we can do to disrupt them and to access that money, the better. Of course, there is always more that can be done. Parts 1 to 4 of the Bill deal with ensuring that we are able to give the NCA and other agencies the powers that they need to bring offenders to justice, to deprive them of the proceeds of crime and to prevent them from engaging in further criminality. Under this Government, asset recovery has been stronger than ever before. We have recovered around £746 million of criminal assets. We have returned some £93 million to victims, and denied the use of £2.5 billion-worth of assets that have been frozen by the courts. However, we can and must do even better.
Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
I fully endorse the provisions of the Bill that will make it easier to attach assets resulting from criminal behaviour. The Home Secretary referred earlier to pensioner scams, of which there have been many in my constituency recently, as well as in other parts of north Wales and in Cheshire. Sometimes we have the Cheshire police, the Greater Manchester police and the North Wales police all investigating the same crime. Surely we need better co-ordination if we are not to waste effort in such an unproductive way.
Mrs May
The way in which the National Crime Agency operates involves a decision on how best to deal with any particular organised crime group that comes to its attention. The agency works with individual police forces as well as with the regional organised crime units to ensure that assets are being used as effectively as possible against the organised crime groups. I am not saying that a situation such as the one the right hon. Gentleman describes could never happen, or that different forces are never involved in investigating the same crime. However, before the NCA came into being, we set up an organised crime co-ordination centre to consider precisely that issue. We do not want anyone to slip through the net, but we also do not want police officers operating against an organised crime group to be put in danger because of the operations of another force. There might be more work to be done in this regard, but there is now a much greater ability to co-ordinate, particularly through the regional organised crime units.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
On the point about co-ordination, we must also remember the incentive scheme that encourages the many bodies involved to investigate and to confiscate the proceeds of crime. Has the Home Office reviewed that scheme yet to see whether it needs to be revised, as was suggested to the Public Accounts Committee last year? Given that the Home Office receives 50% of those assets, despite having no operational role in the process, does the Home Secretary envisage a change being made to that percentage?
Mrs May
My hon. Friend raises an important point. We are continually looking at that issue. Indeed, the Criminal Finances Board, under the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), has looked into it.
I want to talk about those parts of the Bill that will enable us better to access criminal assets, because that is an important part of what we do. As I said, organised criminals are primarily motivated by profit, and we need to be able to do all we can to strip them of their ill-gotten gains and send the message that crime does not pay. In part, this is about more effective enforcement, and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, who has responsibility for dealing with modern slavery and organised crime, is currently overseeing the implementation of our plan to improve the recovery of criminal assets. We must also ensure that organised criminals are not able to exploit loopholes in our legislation to frustrate asset recovery and avoid the reach of the law, which brings me to the proposals in the Bill.
Part 1 of the Bill makes a number of significant changes to the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. First, we are lowering the threshold for granting a restraint order—the means by which a defendant’s assets are frozen. It will now be easier to secure a restraint order immediately before effecting an arrest as the test for both will be aligned, thus removing the window of opportunity for a defendant to dissipate his or her assets. Secondly, we are halving the maximum amount of time that may be allowed by the court for payment once a confiscation order is made. That will mean that the victims of crime will receive recompense more quickly, and it will also further deprive criminals of the opportunity to live off or conceal their assets.
Yvette Cooper
Can the Home Secretary tell the House why, under the current legislation, the use of restraint orders to freeze assets has dropped by a third since 2010?
Mrs May
The whole point of what we have been doing, in aiming to improve our ability through the Bill to get at assets and the other work being done by the Minister with responsibility for dealing with modern slavery and organised crime, which I have described, is to ensure that every part of the legislation we have is being operated fully and properly. [Interruption.] Well, the number of orders for over a particular sum of money has in fact been about the same for the past couple of years. The shadow Home Secretary is raising a point about the legislation that the Labour party put in place—the 2002 Act. What I am saying to her is that we have looked at how these things operate to see whether we might operate them better, and I am describing to the House precisely how we are improving that.
Yvette Cooper
The point is to make sure that legislation is enforced; we all support improvements to legislation but we also want to know that it is being enforced. Can the Home Secretary explain why the number of restraint orders used to freeze assets dropped from 1,878 in 2010-11 to 1,368 in the most recent figures? Frankly, her commitment to tackling the problem of the proceeds of crime looks rather weak if all she is prepared to do is change laws but never actually enforce them.
Mrs May
The number has been dropping year on year but it is understood—the prosecution agencies believe that this is the most likely explanation—that that is due in part to the Court of Appeal judgment in the 2011 case of Windsor v. the Crown Prosecution Service. The Court ruled that suspicion that the defendant had benefited from criminal conduct was not sufficient grounds under existing legislation to grant a restraint order. That is a legal interpretation of the previous legislation—the 2002 Act—and how it was being operated by the courts. We are reducing the test from a “reasonable cause to believe” that the defendant has benefited from criminal conduct to a “reasonable suspicion”. We believe that will enable restraint orders to be applied at an earlier stage of the investigation. We have identified that a piece of legislation, as it has been operated by the courts, has had an impact that has led to a drop in the number of restraint orders, so we are addressing that in the legislation we are putting forward. I said that I would give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson), so I will now do so.
Gareth Johnson
I am grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way, and I welcome these measures to seize assets resulting from ill-gotten gains. As she has pointed out, the whole principle behind the measures is to ensure that crime does not pay. Will she assure the House that offenders are not able to avoid having their assets seized simply by absconding from the judicial process, by skipping bail for example? Will she assure us that that issue will be tackled?
Mrs May
Perhaps it would be helpful to the House if I went through the other measures in the Bill that will strengthen our ability to deal with how, under existing legislation, offenders can sometimes make efforts to hide their assets or to ensure that their assets are not available. There are a number of areas in which we need to ensure that those assets can be accessed so that somebody cannot do what my hon. Friend has said and avoid having their assets seized.
Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)
As someone who has prosecuted these matters in the Crown court and dealt with the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 on many occasions, I believe that reducing the test to one of suspicion will have a considerable and positive impact on the Crown’s ability to secure more funds. Lowering the standard to that extent will clearly allow the judges greater recourse to restraint orders.
Mrs May
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for sharing his experience with the House. As I said earlier, it is clear that there is concern from the courts about the operation of the existing legislation, which is why it is important for us to clarify the situation so that it is easier to issue restraint orders at an earlier stage. It will now be easier to secure a restraint order immediately before effecting an arrest, as the test for both will be aligned.
The third point about accessing assets is that the courts must have the necessary powers to ensure that a confiscation order is paid. The Bill will allow the courts to impose any restrictions or prohibitions they consider necessary as part of a supplementary “compliance order”. In particular, courts will be required to consider whether to impose an overseas travel ban on the defendant. That partly answers the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford raised earlier.
Fourthly, we are extending the powers currently available to the National Crime Agency and other law enforcement agencies to investigate the amount and whereabouts of assets—for example to enter and search premises under warrant—so that they can also be used to trace assets once a confiscation order has been made.
Fifthly, we are increasing the time in prison facing those criminals who default on the payment of higher value confiscation orders, so as to deter offenders from choosing to serve time in custody rather than paying up. At the upper end of the scale, namely confiscation orders for more than £10 million, someone who defaults on payment will now face 14 years in prison compared with the current five years. That will act as a very real incentive to payment. We will review the impact of that change on offender behaviour and, if, as we expect, it leads to a greater proportion of higher-value orders being settled on time, we will consider using the order-making powers in the Bill to strengthen the default sentences for other lower-value confiscation orders.
Finally in relation to part 1, we are bringing forward the consideration of third-party claims from the enforcement stage to the confiscation hearing. Although there are undoubtedly third parties who have a legitimate interest in assets that may be used to satisfy a confiscation order, it is often the case that spouses and other third-party associates of the defendant will submit late claims with the deliberate intention of frustrating and delaying the confiscation process. The Bill will enable the court to make a binding determination of third-party claims at the point at which the confiscation order is made, allowing the enforcement of the order to proceed more efficiently.
Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
Just before my right hon. Friend moves on, I understand why there are provisions in the Bill for confiscating assets without a conviction being needed—she has made a very powerful case for that—but, given that the provisions are quite powerful, will she also outline what she is doing to protect the civil liberties of those involved?
Mrs May
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for declaring that the provisions in the Bill are quite powerful. The whole point is to try to increase our ability to deal with these issues. Obviously, judgments have to be made about any of the issues with which we are dealing, but until now it has been possible for people to use third-party assets and timing loopholes to ensure that their assets cannot be accessed. They can put the finances that they have made as a result of their organised crime out of the reach of the authorities.
It is important that we tighten that and increase our ability to confiscate the assets of crime. Decisions will be made by courts as part of these processes and they will be properly considered in relation to the individuals concerned, but I am also concerned about the civil liberties of all those who are the victims of organised crime. I think that it is our job to try to ensure that we reduce organised crime as much as possible, and dealing with the assets and profits of organised crime is one way of sending a clear message to criminals and ensuring that they desist or that it becomes less attractive for them to undertake such activities.
Yvette Cooper
The Home Secretary said something interesting about default sentences a few minutes ago. She said that if, as the Government expect, the provision raises money, they will extend it to sentences for those who owe less than £10 million. She will be aware that her party has today produced a rather dodgy dossier claiming to cost a Labour proposal that assumes that changing default sentences does not raise any extra money at all. Does she therefore think that her own dodgy dossier is nonsense?
Mrs May
The right hon. Lady will have to try harder. We have indeed issued a document today that shows that the Labour party has committed to £20.7 billion of extra spending in one year alone, 2015-16. That means extra borrowing and extra debt for the future. It is no good her trying to rubbish the figures in that document. They are very clear, they have been tested and they have gone through the proper processes. The only dodgy figures come when Labour Front Benchers make all sorts of claims without funding their spending commitments.
In part 2 of the Bill we are strengthening the provisions of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 to ensure that we have robust legislation in place to tackle cybercrime. In particular, the part creates a new offence so that the most serious cyber-attacks are appropriately punished—for example, those on essential systems controlling power supplies, communications or fuel supplies. Such cyber-attacks are already an offence under section 3 of the 1990 Act and attract a maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment. We do not believe that that adequately reflects the harm that can be caused and the new offence therefore provides for a maximum sentence of life imprisonment when a cyber-attack leads to loss of life, serious illness or injury, or serious damage to national security. When the attack results in serious economic or environmental damage or social disruption, a maximum sentence of 14 years’ imprisonment would apply.
Targeting and convicting those involved in the wider organised crime group, such as corrupt and complicit professionals, can prove difficult under current legislation. Part 3 seeks to address that. It creates a new offence of participating in the activities of an organised crime group. Such activities may include services such as transporting persons or goods and providing storage facilities or, indeed, professional legal or accountancy services. Those who do that might know or at least reasonably suspect that their services are contributing to the activities of an organised crime group but choose to turn a blind eye and prefer to pretend that the business is entirely legitimate, asking no questions while taking their share of the rewards in the criminal enterprise. We must use all possible means to disrupt and dismantle organised criminal groups. The threat of prosecution and a sentence of up to five years will discourage complicit professionals and others who help such groups to function.
Offenders must be brought to justice, but wherever possible we must prevent people from being drawn into serious and organised crime and deter them from re-engaging in criminality. Civil preventive orders have proved effective in preventing, restricting or disrupting a person’s involvement in serious crime. To support such interventions, part 3 strengthens the framework governing serious crime prevention orders and gang injunctions. Extending serious crime prevention orders to Scotland will bring the benefits of a unified regime across the whole UK. Updating the criteria for the granting of gang injunctions, which currently can be used to address only gang-related violence, will support early interventions to tackle gangs involved in the drugs market. That will allow gang injunctions to be used more widely to break down gang culture and help gang members to exit those destructive groups.
Part 4 deals with an aspect of the illegal drugs market wherein organised crime groups substantially increase their profits from the supply of illegal drugs, particularly cocaine, by adulterating the raw product with cutting agents. Typically, drug gangs use lawfully available substances, such as benzocaine, which mimic some attributes of the illegal drugs, but there are currently no bespoke powers available to law enforcement agencies to seize, detain and destroy such cutting agents. Part 4 addresses this gap. The process will be subject to appropriate judicial oversight to ensure that the interests of any legitimate owners of suspected cutting agents are properly protected.
Part 5 takes us into different territory. Here, we seek to strengthen the protection of children and vulnerable women. Crimes against children, especially very young children, are particularly heinous, and all the more so when they are perpetrated by the very people—their parents or carers—who are supposed to protect, nurture and love them. There has been a bespoke offence of child cruelty since 1868. It is now enshrined in section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, but the language of the offence is, in places, clearly antiquated. The Bill therefore updates section 1, in particular to make it explicit that the offence covers cruelty that causes psychological, as well as physical, suffering or harm.
Mr Burrowes
I commend this part of Bill, which I know has cross-party support, including from the Solicitor-General, the late Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East, who played an active part in its promotion, me and others. I welcome the updating of the Victorian language of the previous legislation and the extension to non-physical harm, but is this not an appropriate opportunity to go further and update the language on wilfulness? As I understand it, even after clause 65 is passed, the word “wilful” will remain in the legislation. Should we not take this opportunity to remove the word “wilful” and to make it clear that it should equate to recklessness? That already applies in case law and it should also apply in statute.
Mrs May
I believe that the proposals we have put forward are appropriate, but my hon. Friend makes a serious point, which I assume reflects some of his legal experience. I am willing to take that point away and have a further look at it, but I think the proposals in the Bill as we have set them out are sufficient to ensure that we are able to update the offence on the statute book and make sure it covers all types of harm to young people.
Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)
May I suggest that, because this is a complex area and there are questions about recklessness and wilfulness as well as neglect, the Home Secretary will want to consider whether guidelines should be issued after the Bill is enacted, to make sure that prosecutors and all professionals are clear about the Government’s and Parliament’s intentions?
Mrs May
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her suggestion. Crown Prosecution Service guidelines are already in existence. The CPS will want to make sure that the guidelines are appropriate to the changes we make, so that people are aware of the changes in what, as she says, can be a tricky area when it comes to definitions and determinations in such cases.
A particular form of cruelty inflicted on some young girls is genital mutilation. There is absolutely no cultural, religious or any other justification for female genital mutilation. It has no place in this country, or indeed anywhere else in the world, and the Government are committed to eradicating the practice. The Bill as originally introduced included an extension of our ability to take jurisdiction over FGM offences committed abroad. At the girl summit last July, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I undertook to bring forward a number of further legislative changes to tackle FGM in this country, and these were added to the Bill in the House of Lords.
First, to encourage victims to come forward, the Bill now provides for lifelong anonymity from the point at which an allegation is made. Secondly, to target those parents who allow this dreadful practice to be inflicted on their daughters, we have now provided for a new offence of failure to protect a girl from the risk of FGM. Thirdly, to stop FGM being inflicted on a girl in the first place, we have now provided for FGM protection orders, which are modelled on and build on the success of forced marriage protection orders.
Mrs May
May I make a little more progress?
In July, we announced a range of other measures, including the creation of a new cross-Government FGM unit to work with criminal justice agencies, children’s services, health care professionals and affected communities. I hope that, together, these measures, including the changes to criminal and civil law, will help to tackle this appalling practice.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend give way on that point?
Fiona Mactaggart
In preventing FGM, will the Home Secretary consider the provision of refuge places for girls who are at risk? These girls are frightened of reporting this or talking to a doctor, and their families are putting them under pressure. They need refuge, and in my experience Britain currently has inadequate refuge places for any woman who is at risk of violence.
Mrs May
The hon. Lady makes a point not just about FGM but more generally about refuges. Before Christmas, the Government announced the availability of a further £10 million for refuges as a recognition of the valuable work they do, particularly in relation to women who are leaving a domestic environment where they have been subject to domestic abuse. On female genital mutilation, it is important to ensure that the young people involved are aware of what they are able to do in order to escape this danger. It is also important that we send out very strong messages from this place, and generally, about the fact that it is a criminal act that we are not willing to accept in this country, and that we will make every effort we can to ensure that we eradicate the practice.
Sir William Cash
I commend my right hon. Friend and the Government for this incredibly important provision and the manner in which it has been handled in the House of Lords. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham), who is away at the moment, is chairman of the all-party group on FGM, of which I am also a member. We wonder whether it will be possible to insert in Committee arrangements ensuring that where the court makes an order it should protect a girl against not only the commission of but the risk of commission of a genital mutilation offence. I will deal with that when, I hope, I speak subsequently in this debate. Will my right hon. Friend be interested in listening to those arguments?
Mrs May
I look forward to hearing what my hon. Friend says about this later and the detail that I am sure he will fill in. We are addressing the whole question of the risk that an individual may face from female genital mutilation in the new offence of failing to protect a girl from the risk of FGM. It is important that those who have responsibility for these young girls and are aware of what might be happening recognise that they need to do something to ensure that the individual is not at risk and is not put through FGM. I look forward to hearing the arguments that my hon. Friend will advance later in relation to his point.
Part 5 of the Bill includes another child protection measure in making it an offence to possess so-called paedophile manuals—material that contains practical advice on how to commit a sexual offence against a child. It beggars belief that such things actually exist, but regrettably the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, a command of the National Crime Agency, has seen a number of examples. That being the case, it is right that we act to outlaw the possession of such material. In doing so, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford), who has campaigned assiduously on the issue.
If there are other gaps in child protection legislation, we are determined to take the necessary action to safeguard those at risk of harm. That is why last month my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced that we will amend the Bill to make it an offence for an adult to communicate sexually with a child. Many hon. Members have supported the campaign by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and I pay tribute to them for highlighting this gap in the law.
Before leaving this part of the Bill, I confirm that we will table amendments in Committee to strengthen the protection afforded to the victims of domestic abuse. As the House knows, over the summer the Home Office ran a consultation seeking views on whether a specific offence was needed to criminalise coercive or controlling behaviour in intimate personal and family relationships, and 85% of respondents agreed that the law in this area needed to be strengthened. With over 1 million calls for assistance to the police each year for domestic abuse-related incidents, but only 78,000 prosecutions, it is clear that the criminal justice response to domestic abuse is woefully inadequate. The new offence will provide an additional charging option where there is a pattern of non-violent controlling conduct, the cumulative impact of which can be no less traumatic for the victim.
Mrs May
Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will allow me the next sentence.
I am aware that a number of hon. Members, including the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), have campaigned for the introduction of such an offence. I pay tribute to Members who have brought this important matter to the attention of the House. Does the right hon. Gentleman still wish to intervene?
Mr Llwyd
I want to say that I am delighted by what the Home Secretary has said. I thank her for her preparedness to discuss the matter over the past few weeks, and I am grateful for this move forward. As always, the devil is in the detail, but I am greatly encouraged by her comments.
Mrs May
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the interest he has taken in this subject and the way he has pursued it.
Finally, the Bill will close a gap in our current legislation in relation to terrorism. Clause 72 extends the reach of the UK courts so that those who prepare or train for terrorism abroad can be prosecuted should they return to this country. As the House is aware, a significant number of UK nationals or residents have travelled to Syria and Iraq to take part in the conflicts in those countries. We face the very serious threat that those fighters may seek to return to the UK and carry out attacks or radicalise people here. Extending extra-territorial jurisdiction for the offences in sections 5 and 6 of the Terrorism Act 2006 will bolster our law enforcement agencies’ ability to protect the public—but we will need to do more. Later this week, the House will have the opportunity again to debate the wider provisions of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill, which is designed to disrupt the ability of people to travel abroad to fight and to counter the underlying ideology that feeds and supports terrorism. Given the immediacy of this threat, we will bring forward amendments in Committee to provide for the provisions in clause 72 of this Bill to come into force on Royal Assent.
Before I conclude, I want to advise the House of one further amendment that we will bring forward in Committee. The use of unauthorised mobile phones in prison poses a significant threat to prison security, as well as affording prisoners the opportunity to continue engaging in serious and organised crime while serving their sentence. While significant effort is put into tackling this problem within prisons, physically detecting handsets, let alone SIM cards, is clearly challenging given the ease with which they can be hidden. We need to find a more cost-effective way of denying prisoners the use of mobile phones. Our amendment will therefore confer a power on the civil courts to require mobile network operators to disconnect unauthorised mobile phones in use in prison.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
The Home Secretary has not found time in her speech to mention the provision on the possession of knives in prison, which ensures that that can be dealt with by the courts. Alongside the Attorney-General’s willingness to prosecute when prison officers are threatened with knives, that is very welcome.
Mrs May
My right hon. Friend highlights another important aspect of the Bill. When this was first brought to my attention, it seemed strange to me that the use of knives in prisons could not be dealt with in the same manner as the use of knives in other scenarios in public places. As he says, we have done the right thing in bringing that into the Bill.
The Bill contains a range of measures to protect the public from those who would do them harm. It will give law enforcement agencies and the courts greater powers to strip criminals of their ill-gotten gains and to prosecute those who support and benefit from organised crime, and ensure that no one is beyond the reach of the law. It will enhance the protection of vulnerable women and children who face violence and abuse at the hands of the very people who should care for them most. It will close a gap in our current terrorism legislation. Together, these measures will help law enforcement agencies to keep the public safe and secure. There can be no greater aspiration than that, and I believe it is an objective that all right hon. and hon. Members can support. On that basis, I commend the Bill to the House.