Clause 17 - Statement of information
Proceeds of Crime Bill
4:00 pm
Mr Bob Ainsworth (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Coventry North East, Labour)
There appears to be broad attack on this wording: it should be not only removed but whacked out. We will have to try to give it serious consideration.
The amendment would require the director and the prosecutor to include in their statement information relating to any risk of injustice that would arise as a result of the assumptions being made. Assuming that the test of serious risk of injustice was maintained in relation to the assumptions, the amendment would mean that the court would need to decide whether the risk that had been identified by the director or the prosecutor amounted to a serious risk. I am aware that the hon. Member for Lewes is opposed also to the words ``serious risk'', so I am not dead sure about the thrust of his argument.
The present legislation requires that there must be a serious risk of injustice if assumptions are not to be made. That test is re-enacted in clause 11. Clause 17 is designed to ensure that the director or the prosecutor brings attention in his statement to any information that is relevant to the matter. It has been argued before in Committee that we believe that the test of a serious risk, included under clause 11(6)(b), is pitched at the right level. If the hon. Member for Lewes or other members of the Committee think that it should be lowered, we must disagree. It is pitched at the right level and provides adequate safeguards. As has been said before, we are not intent on changing our position.
It is right that, when furnishing information to the court in a case when assumptions are likely to be made, the director or the prosecutor should have to provide information that would show that there would be serious risk of injustice if such assumptions were made. That goes hand in hand with clause 11. However, a requirement on the director or the prosecutor to produce information relating to any possible risk of justice is not necessary. There must be some risk at that stage in the proceedings and, by that stage, I mean the statement of the director or the prosecutor.