Clause 2 - Director's functions: general
Proceeds of Crime Bill
11:15 am
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield, Conservative)
I am sorry, Mr. McWilliam. I was oblivious to the fact that I had said ``you''. I was not suggesting that you had a conviction for speeding or for anything else.
We are discussing a guidance note, but there is nothing to prevent the Secretary of State from issuing dozens of guidance notes subsequent to the Bill being enacted. How does the Minister view that? Is what we were handed by the Government prior to this debate a tablet of stone or holy writ? Is it the defining guidance document for the director, after which he will be told to get on with it, or is it the first of dozens of guidance notes that the Home Secretary will send winging to the director's desk as he seeks to meet the performance targets that we discussed under earlier amendments?
If the guidance note is a tablet of stone, why was it not included in the Bill as a substantive clause? If it is not, how does the Minister see future guidance being developed? Above all, what opportunity will the House have to debate such guidance? The Bill sets out clearly what the director should do. He is supposed to hunt for the proceeds of crime by confiscation or civil recovery. That is an onerous task and one that is clearly a quasi-prosecutor's role. I was a little alarmed when the Minister drew a distinction between a prosecutor and the director of the Assets Recovery Agency because, for civil recovery, the powers given to the agency are draconian in the extreme compared with what has existed before.
As we said on Second Reading, the Government are setting up a structure that can lead people to be drawn through machinery that will ultimately confiscate their assets under a civil standard of proof. I am not even sure that it is a civil standard of proof; it seems to be a method based on the balance of probabilities. We must consider carefully what we are doing and what guidance will be given. I hope that the Minister can respond fully to my argument because the issue is one of the most important that we shall be debating this morning. The guidance will be critical. As the Minister made clear, the director will be susceptible to it because he will have to respond to it. In itself, I do not take great exception to the guidance note, apart from flagging up the interesting issue under point 5 about whether the Bill applies to all crime generally rather than to crime for gain.
Having said that, I am deeply troubled by the prospect that the paper is only guidance note No. 1 and that a great deal more guidance notes will regulate the manner in which the director operates. They will fetter his discretion and we may end up with a system of administrative enforcement that is dictated by politicians and that will bring the mechanism of the Bill into disrepute. As I said to the Minister on Second Reading, we support the principle behind the clause. It is important that those who enrich themselves through crime have their assets removed.