Clause 12 - Time for payment
Proceeds of Crime Bill
10:45 am
Mr George Foulkes (Minister of State, Scottish Office; Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, Labour/Co-operative)
Despite the disarming introduction to the amendment by the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster, on which I congratulate him, I must resist it. The amendment would stop the court ordering the payment of a confiscation order within less than seven days, and amendment No. 102 would require the defendant to pay interest on every confiscation order that has not been paid within seven days of the making of the order, even if the court had allowed longer than seven days to pay it. That may not be what the hon. Gentleman had intended.
The court has always had the power to order the payment of a confiscation order immediately, because Crown court fine enforcement procedures allow it. As the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland said, payment is deemed to be required forthwith, unless time to pay is allowed. The amendment, like other Opposition amendments before it, would row back even from the existing legislation concerning immediate payment.
I shall explain why the Government oppose the amendments. Clause 12 aims to tighten up the current time-to-pay regime. We do not want any time to pay allowed unless the defendant specifically applies for it and justifies it. The power to order immediate payment of a confiscation order is clearly justified. We start from the premise that a confiscation order is made by the court only if the defendant has sufficient funds available in cash or property to pay it. By definition, a defendant must have the assets to pay a confiscation order, as the amount of the order cannot exceed the available amount that has been calculated by the court.
There may be cases when a confiscation order will be for a small sum and the defendant may have on his or her person in court sufficient funds to pay it there and then, whether by cash or cheque. I put it to the hon. Gentleman that, under such circumstances, it would not be appropriate to allow any time to pay.
The hon. Member for Beaconsfield referred to circumstances in which the defendant needs time to realise property or to arrange for investments to be cashed so that he can pay the confiscation order. The clause will allow that, subject to a cut-off point of a maximum period of 12 months.
I am concerned about the effect that amendment No. 102 would have. It cannot be right that a defendant should have to pay interest from seven days after the confiscation order was made when the court had agreed that he should have longer. Is that really what the Opposition intended?