Clause 27 - Information
Proceeds of Crime Bill
6:00 pm
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield, Conservative)
Yes. Draftsmen argue that they should provide the bare bones. The provision will obviously be embodied in a more practical order, but it will still have to be examined and I feel that duplication may be inevitable if comprehensibility is to be achieved. It is one thing to be referred to a section that is self-explanatory, but the reader is referred off to another section, which then refers him to another section, by which stage, the causal connection between one and the other will literally require the pages to be photocopied and put alongside each other. To my mind, that is not good drafting. Will the Minister consider making improvements? I realise that that will be difficult given that the Bill is already at this stage. Other clauses may demonstrate the problem, but clause 27 is the one on which it really hit me. The circularity of it could be altered, so will the Minister ask his officials to do something about it?