Serious Crime Bill [Lords]

I do not know the answer to that, but the serious crime prevention order as laid out in the Bill should be available to the courts. That will be a matter for the courts, and it will be for the applicant authorities to go to the courts where they think it appropriate and where they think that a serious crime prevention order will seriously impact on crime. With respect to new clause 1, the inclusion of authorised monitors is important because it will make the serious crime prevention orders more effective, as they apply to businesses and organisations. Let me suggest to the hon. Gentleman and to the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Browne) that I would have thought that all of us are united in wanting to ensure that serious crime prevention orders imposed on businesses and organisations are enforced and made to work, so that we can all see that they have credibility, and the use of authorised monitors will ensure that the terms are agreed to and, importantly, complied with. The hon. Member for Hornchurch talked about complexity. I said in my introductory remarks that businesses might want to use the complexity of the arrangements to hide accounts, transactions or what they are doing. That means that law enforcers will at times need the experience, ability, knowledge and skills of forensic accountants, who can scrutinise the accounts in a way that many law enforcers cannot. That means that the serious crime prevention order will prevent the serious crime that we are talking about. When such an order is made, we will be able to ensure that the terms are agreed with. He talked about the arrangements relating to costs. Of course, the courts will consider the costs when making an order. If the costs change, it is open to the subject to apply to the court for variations to the costs set out in the order. The hon. Gentleman raised a point about bodies knowing whether they are subject to an order. An organisation will either have to be represented at proceedings, or be sent a notice by recorded delivery or hand delivery, before the order takes effect, so they will have knowledge of the order and its terms. As he will remember, if an organisation's actions are reasonable, those actions cannot form the basis of a finding that it has acted in a way that has facilitated, or is likely to facilitate, serious crime. The burden is on the organisation to prove reasonableness, because the organisation is best-placed to know the background to its actions. If an applicant authority wants to make a body the subject of a serious crime prevention order, that body can use a defence of reasonableness in court. We went through that many times in Committee, as he knows. If the organisation can demonstrate that its actions were reasonable to the satisfaction of the courts, it will not be made the subject of a serious crime prevention order. As the hon. Gentleman will know, it is for the court to assess the evidence before it, as is the case for courts in all sorts of situations, and it is for the court to decide whether an organisation has acted reasonably under the group of new clauses that we are discussing. That is the protection against the injustice that the hon. Gentleman talked about.