Clause 6 - Making of order
Proceeds of Crime Bill
9:30 am
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield, Conservative)
I agree—that is the principle of my approach.
I was asked for examples. I do not wish to detain the Committee or stray from the point, but we must consider the entirety of the clause. There would be more merit in the argument for a mandatory approach, which the hon. Member for Wrexham advanced, if subsection (2) were confined to offences or proceedings before the Crown court only. All the extraordinary aspects of the Bill are interlinked, which is why it is so difficult to consider one set of amendments without thinking through the implications of others down the road. If we consider subsection (2), which in turn requires consideration of clause 70, we realise the absolute catch-all nature of the sort of criminal conviction that could trigger the process. We will want to consider that aspect independently. I accept that one can argue that we should leave in the mandatory aspect of subsection (1), but let us remove some of the extreme criteria that could trigger the confiscation mechanism.
As was pointed out on Second Reading, subject to the Secretary of State's power under statutory instrument, it is possible for virtually any criminal offence in which there has been a benefit to be sufficient to act as a trigger. I referred to a road haulier who committed a series of three tachograph offences in six years. The Government want to extend the net very widely as they cast it upon the waters, which reinforces the desirability of a mechanism enabling the judiciary to exercise discretion and say, ``Don't be so stupid.'' That is the basic reason for a discretionary test.