Serious Crime Bill [HL]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for the way in which she introduced the amendment. It is clear that it is a probing amendment which seeks to understand how these issues are interpreted. I very much take on board her comments about the use of both ““serious crime”” and ““organised crime”” in the consultation document. I shall seek to explain why we settled on ““serious”” as the most appropriate description. I too thank the director for talking to us last night about these issues. I shall try to stick within the parameters of Chatham House rules in mentioning what took place. The crimes that we are talking about are very serious, including trafficking in people or in drugs, the illegal selling of guns, or money laundering. They are all committed, for the most part, by cunning, ruthless and innovative criminals. Regrettably, the number of these complex and far-reaching offences is growing. Innumerable offences are being investigated by the Serious Organised Crime Agency which the director, Sir Stephen Lander, explored in detail with us yesterday. An interesting development of serious crime is that many criminals do not participate in simply one form of such crime; the same criminal network may be involved in guns, trafficking, money-laundering and criminal drugs activity, as well as having some connection with terror. Those offences are very serious. The way in which these offences are committed has also become increasingly complex as serious criminals seek to take advantage of what would otherwise be legitimate activity when carried on by third parties. The Government are seeking to prevent that and are absolutely committed to ensuring that the law enforcement tools that we create prevent the damage to people’s lives that serious crime causes. These orders are therefore sought as a reasonable and proportionate response. I agreed with many, if not all, of the comments that noble Lords made on this issue today and at Second Reading. The orders have to be proportionate, reasonable and accurately targeted, so the first limb of the test provides that the order can only be made where the court is satisfied that its proposed subject has been involved in serious crime. Therefore, I understand why the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, asks how and why we alighted upon ““serious”” to best describe it. A simple answer is that the term has already been acknowledged and used in other ways in our legislation. One main reason that we rejected the term ““organised crime”” was that the term is widely used, both in this country and abroad, and there are so many different understandings of what it is. Noble Lords will recall that at Second Reading it was made plain that many of the serious offences and crimes are now, regrettably, not purely national; they have become international, and often we have to rely on other agencies in the international community working with us to interdict serious criminals’ activity in our various countries. The term ““serious”” has an existing definition in our jurisdiction; in other countries, there are a number of different definitions of ““organised crime””. Given the international nature of these crimes, we wanted to avoid any confusion, and we believe that it is appropriate to focus on the seriousness of the crime concerned as opposed to whether two, three, four or more people are engaged in the activity. The concept of serious crime, as I have said, is already understood and applied in related legislation; for example, the Proceeds of Crime Act. While the definition provided by Clauses 2 and 3, together with Schedule 1, is not identical to that in the Proceeds of Crime Act, since they are for different purposes, its basic similarity will make it familiar to practitioners and the courts. That related jurisprudence will greatly assist us. For these reasons, while I sympathise with the intent behind this amendment, and I hope that I have been able to explain why we have chosen ““serious””, I invite the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, not to press it. I turn to the issue raised by the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose. I will return in a moment to those raised by the noble Lord, Lord Burnett. A number of provisions in the Bill extend to Scotland. These are: Clause 74, on the use of force in executing search warrants, which applies only to Scotland; Clause 75, which relates to the extension of certain powers to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs; the breach of a serious crime prevention order being a criminal offence in Scotland, and the sharing of information with a specified anti-fraud organisation. The power to share, however, does not apply to information that would be within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament. The transfer of the powers of the Assets Recovery Agency to SOCA applies throughout the United Kingdom, and the ARA does not currently have powers to take civil recovery investigations and proceedings in Scotland; those powers will remain with Scottish Ministers. We engaged closely with the Scottish Executive from a very early stage to ensure that their views on the devolved matters affecting Scotland in the Bill were properly accounted for. We have made sure that provisions in the Bill—as currently drafted, I should emphasise—that touch upon the competence of the Scottish Parliament have been the subject of a legislative consent Motion in line with the Sewel convention. The Motion has been considered by the Scottish Parliament’s Justice 2 Committee, which supported it, and it is due to be considered by the Scottish Parliament in plenary vote tomorrow, 8 March—International Women’s Day. We cannot gainsay the view of the Scottish Parliament, but from the indications that we have received from the Minister of Justice, we expect that the Motion will be passed. The noble Lord, Lord Burnett, asked about resources. All that I can do is assure him that the resources that came from the three agencies into the Serious Organised Crime Agency have been adequate for its needs. Obviously, this matter will be raised from time to time in any budget or in other provisions made in relation to it. If I have further information, I will be happy to write to the noble Lord in due course.