Serious Crime Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 7: 7: Clause 2, page 2, line 36, leave out paragraph (b) The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 12, 15 and 20. I tabled these amendments in Committee but I have brought them back for further clarification because I am still dissatisfied on this point. I thank those on the Liberal Democrat Benches who give their support. The amendments challenge the Government’s proposition that the definition of serious crime can be changed on what appears to be a day-to-day basis. They would remove the element of judicial discretion imposed by Clauses 2 and 3 in the determination of the definition of serious crime within the context of applications of serious crime prevention orders. Schedule 1 lists a range of criminal offences to be treated as serious crimes; we will return to which crimes should be listed when we consider a later group of amendments. The schedule provides the parameters that the Government maintain will guide a judge’s considerations as to whether a crime is serious. At our meeting last week, I was grateful to the Minister for going into some detail on how she expected the parameters to operate. But as I said then and put on the record now, I have always understood parameters to be limiting factors within which one works—they serve to define the scope of a function. Since I was not sure of that, despite the years that I have been on this Earth, I actually looked in the dictionary, which seemed to agree with me, so it must be right. However, the Government will allow judges to go beyond the parameters set by Schedule 1 because the Bill provides that a serious offence includes any that, "““in the particular circumstances of the case, the court considers to be sufficiently serious to be treated for the purposes of the application matter as if it were so specified””." Even if an offence is not listed in Schedule 1, a judge can treat it as if it were. Whatever our faith in the ability of our judges to acquit themselves impeccably in the application of this new law—and, as ever, I declare an interest as the wife of a part-time judge, a recorder—it will still lead to a lack of clarity and certainty. That is where my concern lies. What consistency does the Minister expect to be applied to the power in Clause 2? Earlier, she gave us a helpful explanation of the process and procedures that are applied, but she took care to talk about court procedure rules; she may wish to refer to those in more detail again. I am also aware that not all High Court work is carried out by those who are permanently appointed to the High Court Bench. Some who sit in the Crown Court are ticketed. This is a minor point, but do the Government expect those who are ticketed to carry out High Court work to be given the same Judicial Studies Board training on this Bill as those who are permanent High Court judges? I beg to move.