Clause 6 - Making of order
Proceeds of Crime Bill
2:30 pm
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield, Conservative)
We return to the point that, as I recollect—1986 is a long time ago—under the regime of the Drug Trafficking Act 1994, the seizure of assets arising from a conviction for a drug trafficking offence involved seizing assets that were said to relate to or arise out of drug trafficking. Of course that could be extended to other offences, but surely the Minister understands that that is not our objective in this case.
By virtue of a trigger of a criminal conviction that can be very slight, assets of every description will be seized within a six-year preceding period and assumed to result from generalised, rather than specific, crime, unless the defendant in such circumstances can rebut. The matter is much wider not only in the sense of the nature of the offence but given the fact that the offence and the confiscation are not directly related.