Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (References to Financial Investigators) (Amendment) Order 2009

My Lords, we are most grateful to the noble Earl for bringing this matter before the House. My Liberal Democrat colleagues in the Commons prayed against this order, but there are different procedures there and the matter was therefore not debated. We should also thank the media, as the noble Earl said, specifically the Times. We may not always regard the media as our friends, but they are part of the scrutiny process. There is one thing to be said for the order. It sets out in full—including the added organisations—a schedule of the organisations and their relevant purposes whose staff may be accredited as financial investigators. This is the sixth version of the list. The schedule seems to have gone from three pages in its original version in 2002 to the current 18 pages. I have not had time to count the individual organisations. I have a number of questions for the Minister. I hope that he has received my e-mail asking these—he indicates that he has. Why is this order needed, a mere six months after the last order? Have any agencies requesting these powers ever been refused in their request? What is the relevant training, if that is the term used, required for accreditation? I am aware that it is training by the National Policing Improvement Agency, but I am concerned, as the House should be, to know its content, length and so on. What monitoring and reporting mechanisms are there, both to monitor the detail and to provide us all with the big picture? The Explanatory Memorandum published with the order is very useful. It tells us that various bodies will be, ""less reliant on more traditional law enforcement agencies, notably the police"." It is significant that it was the chairman of the Police Federation who raised this issue. I suspect that he shares my view. Should not organisations such as Transport for London and local authorities be reliant on the traditional law enforcement agencies, notably the police, for things like the recovery of cash in summary proceedings? Before anybody accuses me of betraying my background, I have checked this out with the Local Government Association; I simply disagree with it about the extent of the powers. I am well aware that offenders can often be charged for a range of offences once they are picked up for an individual offence, but that does not seem to me to warrant what this order proposes. Search and seizure warrants in confiscation, money-laundering, civil recovery and detained cash investigations are serious matters on which to give so many organisations what are effectively law enforcement powers. One of the agencies that now within the new remit is the Department for Regional Development in Northern Ireland. I mentioned this to my noble friend Lord Alderdice, who observed that currently this department is under the ministerial leadership of Conor Murphy of Sinn Fein. We seem to be unable to devolve policing and justice to the Northern Ireland Assembly, but we are granting these powers. I do not suggest that crime is not serious. I accept that in some cases of serious crime powers of search and seizure can be effective. But who exercises the powers is, in our view, of fundamental importance. I do not want to be overly dramatic, but I could not help thinking that the extension of investigatory powers is a characteristic of totalitarian states of which in the past we have been rightly critical. It also occurs to me that such powers seem to have appealed to the worst in some individuals over the years, attracting the wrong people into particular services. Therefore, another question for the Minister is whether accreditation has ever been refused. The noble Earl referred to the incremental extension of the powers. Along with bonuses and incentives, which he mentioned, that makes us uneasy. Of course agencies and organisations will want powers—this is why the local authorities want them—to carry out their jobs as effectively as possible. Consulting them and only them misses the point, as does the NPIA’s verdict that they are suitable to be given the new investigatory powers. More accurately, expecting the NPIA to give the assessment is not right. What should concern us is the big picture—bigger than the sum of the parts of the order. Why did the Government not consult widely on the development of the order, in accordance with their own guidance? I am sure that I could have found the answer to my final question somewhere. I was intrigued by paragraph 11 of the Explanatory Memorandum. We know that the powers are intended to deal with the Mr Bigs, but paragraph 11 tells us: ""The legislation does not apply to small business"." Perhaps the Minister can help me to translate that. We support the Motion.