Clause 25 - Inadequacy of available amount:
Proceeds of Crime Bill
5:30 pm
Mr Bob Ainsworth (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Coventry North East, Labour)
Clause 25 provides a simplified version. In certain circumstances, the justice's chief executive, who is responsible for enforcing the confiscation procedures, can apply to the Crown court to have a sum of under £1,000 written off.
As I said to the hon. Member for Beaconsfield, this issue has been raised with us because it is one that has arisen. The hon. Gentleman, thinking on his feet, rightly said, ``Well, the reverse could happen, so why on earth do you not provide your other sums in a simplified version?'' The reason is that the issue has not been raised as a matter of concern. During the formulation of the Bill, nobody told us that that they felt that people had been getting away with the proceeds of crime because of currency fluctuations. If someone had told us that, we might be offering to provide a simplified version to address the matter.
The provision is in response to a particular issue that has arisen: the simplified version has been provided to allow the justice's chief executive to get relatively small sums—which have arisen in specified circumstances—off his books, so that he can get on with his other duties.
The provision refers to England and Wales because we are dealing with parts of the Bill that apply to England and Wales. Northern Ireland will be dealt with in part 4, and Scotland will be dealt with in part 3: the provisions in those parts of the Bill will refer specifically to Scotland and Northern Ireland. However, there will be no difference in the way in which the provisions are applied in the different jurisdictions.