Clause 55 - Sums received by justices' chief executive
Proceeds of Crime Bill
10:30 am
Mr Bob Ainsworth (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Coventry North East, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman employs a dreadfully unfair tactic. If he looks at my copy of the Bill, he will notice that there are a number of question marks scribbled by subsection (7) as well. I shall attempt to help him understand how subsection (7) works.
The amendment would require the Crown to bear the cost of enforcing a compensation order where payment of the order was ordered out of confiscation money. The Bill carries forward existing legislation. The effect of clause 14(5) and (6) is to empower the court, where it makes both a confiscation order and a compensation order in the same proceedings, to order any shortfall in the payment of the compensation order out of the confiscation money, provided that the offender does not have sufficient funds to pay both orders. In effect, the provision enables the enhanced confiscation order enforcement powers to be applied to assist victims to receive their compensation.
The provisions that the amendment would delete deduct the cost of enforcement, pro rata, from any confiscated money that is paid out to satisfy the compensation order.