Clause 6 - Search warrants
Copyright, etc. and Trade Marks (Offences and Enforcement) Bill
10:45 am
Mr Nigel Waterson (Eastbourne, Conservative)
I shall not detain the Committee for long. However, before we bid farewell to the Bill at this stage, I shall raise two or three points with the hon. Member for Twickenham about enforcement. No matter how well intentioned and excellent the provisions of the Bill may be, it is important that they are enforced after it becomes law. I fervently hope that it will be enacted. If there is not proper enforcement, the process in which we are involved will be almost a complete waste of time. Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that the Bill will not increase dramatically criminal penalties but will harmonise criminal penalties for cases in which there are current anomalies?
I return to a point that I made in an intervention about the tariff, which I address more to the Minister and his advisers. It is desperately important that we do not pass maximum sentences. Ten years is a sensible maximum sentence given that we may be discussing hardened criminals—I shall not make the obvious joke about stealing the intellectual property rights to viagra—and serious sums of money are involved in such activities. For both reasons, a court may well wish to impose a sentence of up to 10 years. The tariff adopted after the Bill becomes law should reflect that. The committee of judges which decides the tariff may set it at a low rate when considering such crimes in comparison with others. We must send a message—and this is my only way of sending it to those who produce the tariff—that such crimes are potentially very serious, involve large sums of money and damage respectable businesses and our economy.
The second point, which I do not wish to labour, concerns the potential damage to people's lives caused by, for example, toys having a dangerously high lead content, badly constructed Christmas tree lights or counterfeited defective Bob the Builder toys. The
worst example is of drugs being pirated on a massive scale, especially in India, and then sold to countries in Africa and elsewhere.
Who will enforce the provisions? The explanatory notes are more helpful than usual. In paragraph 15, assurance is given that the Bill will not involve any additional public expenditure and that there may well be cost savings. The following paragraph states that
''increases in manpower are not anticipated.''
That is a tad worrying because, as those of us who have been closely involved with our local authorities know, trading standards departments are under enormous pressure. They are almost always the first to experience cuts and have a massive range of legislation to enforce, ranging from noise and nuisance through to dodgy timeshare selling. Not matter how well intentioned and committed the men and women who work in those departments are, they do not have time to do everything.
The police would also be involved, and I should not need to mention the problem of police numbers and so forth. A question of priorities would arise. The Government must consider the issue of resourcing. In fact, I am surprised not to have received a brief from the Local Government Association on the under-resourcing of trading standards officers. Such points should be considered, otherwise what we do in Committee will make no difference. I welcome the Bill, wish it a fair passage and hope that it is on the statute book as soon as possible.