Police and Justice Bill

I want to direct hon. Members’ attention to a small point that arises in amendment 5E. Subsection (1) would provide that a financial penalty may be attached to a conditional caution for any offence that the Secretary of State prescribes by designation. The Solicitor-General has been kind enough to confirm that the designation will happen through the negative, not the affirmative, resolution procedure. That means that, through negative resolution procedure, the Secretary of State can put into a statutory instrument any offence that he may wish to designate. The effect is that the Government can drive up the gravity of the offences that the financial penalty covers. The Solicitor-General fairly said that he did not wish domestic burglary to be included in the designated category of offence. However, I believe that he would concede that his successors could include domestic burglary or, indeed, grievous bodily harm, if they were so minded, in the designated class of offence to which the financial penalty attaches. They could do that by the negative procedure. Anyone who is familiar with the procedures of the House knows that the statutory instrument procedure is imperfect because the House either accepts or rejects a statutory instrument in its entirety. I can contemplate a statutory instrument that includes several offences, some that hon. Members would not wish to be included in the designated category and others that they would be content to welcome into it. However, we could not pick and choose because of the procedure. In a spirit of compromise, I ask the Solicitor-General to publish a draft of the statutory instrument before it is formally laid so that hon. Members and, indeed, anyone who dissents from the proposition that one specific offence should be included in the draft statutory instrument, could object at that early stage rather than being obliged to try to reject the whole list by a negative prayer. I do not like the procedure, but if we must have it, an undertaking to proceed in the way in which I suggest would go some way towards dealing with the objections that I have always had to the overall procedure.