Serious Crime Bill [HL]

I appreciate the noble Lord’s wisdom, as we had much debate on those provisions. In this instance we are trying to deal with the defendant or person who avoids placing themselves in a situation which could be construed as engaging in criminal activity. Such behaviour must be stopped. We believe that, by making a civil order, we do not criminalise these individuals but we stop them from engaging in activity that facilitates crime. Serious criminals who are repeat offenders are very adept at taking advantage of such people in order to facilitate their crime. I am sincerely grateful for the noble Lord’s suggestion. We considered carefully whether we could adopt it but came to the conclusion that the prevention orders were the most appropriate response because there was a balance between creating another criminal offence and targeting the behaviour which we wanted to arrest. We believe that these orders do just that. However, we are very conscious of the concern raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. That is why we have crafted the measure in the way that we have. We have had very full debate on all the clauses. We believe that Clause 1 supports the intelligence-led approach driving the work of the Serious Organised Crime Agency—and, more generally, other law enforcement agencies—which will be specific and tailored to the response to that intelligence. On Clauses 2 and 3, we have discussed what constitutes involvement in serious crime, and we will shortly discuss in detail the necessity of maintaining the discretion of the court to treat an offence as if it were included in Schedule 1. I look forward to debating that matter with whichever of the noble Lord, Lord Henley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, is privileged with the burden of discharging that related duty. We have outlined how Clauses 3 and 4 are affected, so my reiteration of why Part 1 should hold would not benefit from repetition unless noble Lords think that it would be helpful. To the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, I would say that we will continue to look at this matter as we move through the Bill and maybe we can then persuade him that the second limb is as proportionate as the first; we have been able to persuade him of that. Hope springs eternal, so I will not hold my breath—just in case.