Serious Crime Bill [Lords]

I thank my hon. Friends who served on the Committee and applied the scrutiny and the approach to which the Minister has alluded in seeking to highlight points in the Bill and to raise the concerns that rightly exist in relation to the operation of its provisions. I want to put on record my thanks to the Home Office officials for providing assistance, guidance and information and for responding to the questions that I asked them. I also want to put on record my thanks to the Under-Secretary for his courtesy in dealing with the points raised with him, even though we were unable to reach an agreement or find a resolution in relation to the points that have been highlighted. The essence of the debates on the Bill has been whether it will prevent serious crime from occurring. The key part has been the introduction of the serious crime prevention order—in essence, a new hybrid of an ASBO and a control order. However, as I have said today, given the experience of the way in which the Government have used civil remedies, we still have considerable questions about what difference the new order will make in practice. As we know, control orders have not been a full success, with a third of those subject to the apparently stringent conditions of the orders having absconded. ASBOs have been breached in record numbers, with the National Audit Office reporting that 55 per cent. are breached and some areas reporting breach rates as high as 70 per cent. Although the public may welcome measures, such as ASBOs, as an indication that something is being done, when examined more closely, that perception turns negative in respect of whether they stop people causing antisocial behaviour, as they were supposed to do. The same questions apply to the serious crime prevention order. As Chief Superintendent Neil Wain, a borough commander on the Greater Manchester police force, notes in his recent book, ““The ASBO: Wrong Turning, Dead End””, not only are ASBOs regularly breached, but they do not appear to control the behaviour of those subject to them. In addition, many of those on ASBOs were persistent criminals, and rather than controlling behaviour, the orders appeared to be more like post-conviction bail conditions, where the objective was breach and imprisonment. Again, that underlines some of the points that have been made this evening and the question whether serious crime prevention orders will be applied in such a way that amounts to a punishment, whatever assurances the Minister may have given most genuinely to the House this evening. That is why that we believe strongly that there should be close scrutiny and examination of the practical use to which such orders may be put. But even if that were taken on board and we accept all the provisions on the wording of serious crime prevention orders, there is always the question of how they will be monitored. They will be only as good as the monitoring and enforcement that lies behind them. The appalling case of Garry Chester-Nash clearly highlights the possible weaknesses of the Government's arguments if they are not prepared to follow through rigorously any order that is granted under part 1. Chester-Nash had a string of 30 convictions, including for several offences involving knives. He was identified as such a significant risk to the public that he was made subject to one of the most stringent ASBOs imposed, which banned him from all licensed premises in England, from carrying any weapon and from seeking employment that would bring him into contact with women. He was also subject to one of the highest levels of supervision by a multi-agency public protection arrangement. Yet, on his release from prison, when he failed to return to the bail hostel in east London, as he should have done, he travelled to Cornwall instead and stabbed to death 59-year-old Jean Bowditch in a bungled burglary on the bungalow that she was supposed to be cleaning. At his trial last year, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a recommended minimum sentence of 30 years. Such appalling cases continue to make me sceptical of the impact of serious crime prevention orders. Whatever may be written into the Bill, whatever the stated intentions and whatever the terms of the orders that may be granted, serious crime will not be prevented without rigorous supervision, monitoring and enforcement. If offenders are that much of a risk, the Government should not contemplate the use of such orders but use the full force of the criminal law and ensure that dangerous prisoners serve the full term of their sentence, rather than being let out early, subject to a serious crime prevention order or other order, however stringent its terms are supposed to be. In combating and preventing acts of serious violence and terrorism, we remain committed to the introduction of intercept evidence—a measure that is used successfully in other countries, and we believe that it should be applied here. In the Lords, the noble Lord Lloyd introduced an amendment that would have put such a measure into law, but the provision was removed by the Government, without them giving any assurance on that important subject at the Privy Council review. In Committee, the Under-Secretary said:"““The Government are absolutely committed to a review of the use of intercept. We are also committed to using intercept as evidence if we can find a workable model and the necessary safeguards can be put in place. That is the Government's position. It is clear, and there is no rowing back from it.””––[Official Report, Serious Crime Public Bill Committee, 26 June 2007; c.82.]" There has been no rowing forward either, as far as we can see, and the Government made no reference to the issue tonight. No indication has been given of the likely timing of the outcome on the review's findings, which we will obviously note with interest. That is an area in which we believe that we could make a real difference in preventing crime and terrorism. We have made some progress in other areas. We welcome the Government's concessions on a number of points raised by Opposition Members—the addition of firearms offences as serious crimes under the terms of the Bill; confirmation of the seniority of officials in Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs who are able to use specific surveillance powers under the Bill; and the introduction of a code of practice to govern the data-sharing provisions for public authorities in part 3 of the Bill, together with the clarification that powers are to be used only for fraud prevention. On that last point, I remain of the view that it would have been more appropriate to give the Information Commissioner a specific right of audit and inspection in the Bill, but I acknowledge that a workable arrangement has been achieved through the code, and I am prepared to accept that. However, there is a bigger debate to be had about the function, powers and authority of the Information Commissioner in the context of his increasingly important role of making sure that data are supplied correctly, and that the interests of the private individual are protected. The House will need to return to that subject in the near future. We also welcome the reform of the law relating to inchoate offences in part 2 of the Bill. The reforms implement the recommendations of the Law Commission in a sensible, appropriate way. The Bill finally puts to rest the ill-fated Assets Recovery Agency, which was tasked with recovering assets from criminals using new powers of civil recovery, as well as powers of criminal confiscation and taxation. However, as the Public Accounts Committee recently reported, by December 2006 the agency had recovered assets of only £23 million; that is against an expenditure of £65 million. The Committee noted that "““The Agency was set up, however, with insufficient preparatory work. There was no business case setting out the expectations for the Agency, resulting in unachievable delivery aims.””" Both the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee made recommendations, arising from the structural and operational failures of the Assets Recovery Agency, which led to the proposed transfer of its operations to the Serious Organised Crime Agency and the National Policing Improvement Agency under the Bill. It is essential that the recommendations be implemented by the successor organisations, and that the weaknesses are not merely transferred to the new bodies. It is important that assurances on the disclosure of information and on the performance of the assets recovery functions continue to be published in a format that allows comparison with the previous activities of the Assets Recovery Agency. We will be monitoring closely to ensure that a change in the structure leads to a step-change in performance. The Bill was a lost opportunity to ensure that stop and search powers were granted to police sergeants, as we today argued that they should be. That would offer the public greater protection from violent crime, and underline the importance of decisions made within communities affected by gun and knife crime. However, we accept that the amendments proposed by the Government on stop and search have some merit, although we question the extent of their impact. We will watch with interest to see whether stop and search turns out to be another area in which the Government subsequently decide to adopt Conservative thinking and make an important change to prevent crimes of serious violence. Despite our reservations about the serious crime prevention order, and the reservations of the Law Society, Liberty and others on whether the measure will be an effective, or indeed appropriate, remedy for reducing the harm caused by serious crime, we share the Government's desire to bear down on serious organised crime, and we will not oppose the Bill's Third Reading tonight. However, we will monitor closely whether the powers are applied in a way that is not intended by the House, to discover whether the Bill will simply join the long list of previous pieces of Home Office legislation introduced by the Government, promising much but delivering virtually nothing.