Clause 181
Enterprise Bill
12:45 pm
Mr Nigel Waterson (Eastbourne, Conservative)
I can deal with this amendment fairly briefly, as we have dealt fairly exhaustively with some of the relevant issues in the previous debate. These amendments add up to two different approaches. The first is to remove the possibility of imprisonment altogether as a sanction but leaving the prospect of a fine. That seems a reasonable compromise. I merely pray in aid the arguments that we used in the previous debate. As we voted against clause 179 it is clear that we are still not happy with the Government's approach. They have not made their case for criminal sanctions. We will return to that at much greater length on Report.
Amendment No. 90 has a slightly different effect. If the Government insist on having the threat of imprisonment, it should be reduced to three years, rather than five, which is the sentence available in the
US. A five-year sentence is extremely serious. Even the hapless Mr. Taubman got only a year and a day—I am sure that he does not regard that as particularly lenient—for what was a pretty egregious, to use a lawyer's word, price-fixing offence. Given the deterrent effect that the Under-Secretary claims for the measure, it seems to have had remarkably little effect on Mr. Taubman and his associates.