Serious Crime Bill [HL]

I understand the nature of the noble Baroness’s amendment and Ishall try to concentrate not on its form, but on its intent. Amendment No. 124 seeks to ensure that the Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs may delegate the powers in Schedule 11 only to named officers with appropriate seniority and skills and whose functions include the investigation and prosecution of serious crime. I should make it clear to the noble Baroness that no officer of Revenue and Customs is responsible for prosecutions, as that is now the responsibility of independent prosecutors such as the Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office. So we have that distinction and specialisation. Otherwise, the amendment could lead to confusion and prevent HMRC from using the powers at all for any matter, including where those powers are currently available for use by the department. This includes combating serious smuggling and tax crimes such as carousel fraud, about which the noble Baroness knows well. In addition to that technical matter, applications to use these powers, as the noble Baroness is aware, are already subject to rigorous internal controls and authorisation procedures and, under administrative law, the commissioners can delegate their powers only to suitable officers. The powers in question are available for HMRC to use only to prevent or detect serious crime. Only five senior civil servants in HMRC’s criminal investigation section can authorise applications to use them. Each of those five officers has extensive experience of criminal investigations and the use of these powers. For example, any possible application to a surveillance commissioner for approval to use intrusive surveillance must first be considered and approved by one of those five officers. Those authorising officers and the officers whose applications they consider are responsible only for criminal investigations and do not undertake other work, such as civil inquiries into tax matters. The noble Baroness asked how the Chinese wall works. That is how it works—and to some good effect. Before approving an application, the authorising officer must be satisfied that human rights have been fully considered and that the action proposed is proportionate and necessary to tackle serious crime. Only after those stringent procedures have been followed can an application be made to an independent surveillance commissioner, who then considers the application. I hope that I have explained how these issues will be dealt with. I know that the noble Baroness said that 20,000 people had the power of arrest and asked how that would be reduced. We hope that there will be an opportunity to look at that matter and to implement appropriate measures in the Finance Bill 2007. Powers will be available only to authorised officers who have appropriate skills and seniority. That is the result of the review that has given rise to these other proposals. We do not believe that there will be the confusion that the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, were concerned about in terms of keeping the civil and the criminal issues appropriately separate. The law ensures that the majority of these powers can be used only to tackle serious crime, and HMRC’s stringent internal processes and controls will ensure that officers could not apply to use them in civil matters. Therefore, the system should work well. We have been very careful to replicate the existing stringent safeguards to address the mischief that the noble Baroness feared regarding the manner in which the powers might be used.