Serious Crime Bill [HL]

I rise to put our arguments in support of the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay. We have been assisted in our amendment, Amendment No. 61, by Liberty. Its purpose is to remove the power of the court to sub-delegate requirements in relation to prohibitions and restrictions in serious crime prevention orders. It would allow determination of the precise means of performing an obligation imposed in an order to be sub-delegated. As presently drafted, subsection (7) would completely undermine the principle of legal certainty and would allow the courts to confer unacceptable powers on law enforcement agencies to restrict a person’s freedom. It states that the actual prohibitions, restrictions or requirements that are imposed by the serious crime prevention order do not need to be set by the court and stated on the face of the order. They may also be ““determined”” in accordance with provision made by the orders, including provision conferring discretion on law enforcement officers. This would mean, for example, that a serious crime prevention order could state merely that, ““Mr X shall comply with anything the police tell him to do which they think is necessary to stop Mr X engaging in criminal activity””. This degree of legal uncertainty and sub-delegation of law making to law enforcement authorities is wholly unacceptable, especially in connection with an order which, if breached, could lead to up to five years’ imprisonment. The Government have provided an example, which I too shall quote: "““An example of this would be where a term of an order stipulates that certain information had to be provided to law enforcement officers on a regular basis, but that law enforcement officers could stipulate at a later time the means or specific timing of that information’s provision””." We consider there to be a notable distinction between this example and what the Bill would actually allow. The example refers to law enforcement officers specifying reasonable means by which a person should perform a requirement imposed on an order by the court, not setting the requirements or prohibitions themselves. The amendment would permit the kind of scenario given in the Explanatory Notes, but would allow only the courts to impose restrictions, requirements or prohibitions on a serious crime prevention order.