Clause 11 - Assumptions to be made in case of criminal lifestyle
Proceeds of Crime Bill
6:00 pm
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield, Conservative)
I shall not be drawn to a detailed examination of the Scottish position. However, the intention is simply to highlight the fact that there are differences in the Bill between the regime for England and Wales and that for Scotland. Judging by the comments of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mr. Lazarowicz), he seemed to be gently putting the same point that I had put earlier, which was to ask whether it will really make a difference. The Committee will recollect that when we were considering clause 6, I said that it might make a difference but probably not an enormous one. It is a safeguard provision. I preferred the Scottish approach, and in the same way, I prefer the approach of the hon. Member for Lewes and my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath. It provides a measure of flexibility, whereas so much of the Bill has an inbuilt inflexibility, which is apparently designed to ensure that the Government's aims and objectives are achieved, and are not deflected by the problems of poor grocer creditors living round the corner, who have provided services to an individual whose money is to be confiscated, or, in this case, by a wishy-washy—perhaps I should use the word ``airy-fairy''—judiciary, which might get it into their heads that the assumptions that they are required to make are clearly not meeting the interests of justice in a particular case. In a nutshell, that is what this is about.