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 is right. He has stumbled on an important matter which should be exposed to scrutiny. I shall continue to explain the Bill's current provisions and he may raise any resulting matters.
There is a special provision in the confiscation regime in which both orders are made in the same case. Confiscation enforcement techniques may be used exceptionally to enforce a compensation order. Under such circumstances, compensation order recipients would enjoy the benefits of enforcement techniques to which they would not normally be entitled. Therefore, it is reasonable that they should bear their share of enforcement costs on a pro rata basis. I tell the hon. Gentleman—for the benefit of what he may wish to say, although he probably has more knowledge than I about the matter—that compensation orders, even those ordered by the Crown court, are relatively small. We envisage that confiscation orders will be made for substantial amounts. Therefore, the costs must be pro rata to ensure that, in the majority of cases, only a small proportion of costs will be reclaimed from the compensation order rather than attached to the confiscation.
That is the Government's thinking about the Bill. The hon. Gentleman did not stumble over only a drafting matter; it is a more important matter which he may wish to pursue.