Clause 42 - Restraint orders
Proceeds of Crime Bill
9:15 am
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield, Conservative)
I seek clarification from the Minister on one matter. I want to draw it to the attention of the Committee, because it may flag up a point of interest. One of the features of restraint orders as provided for under subsection (4) is that once the money has been restrained, you may be able to make use of it in a number of ways, under subsection (3), which states:
``make provision for reasonable living expenses . . . make provision for the purpose of enabling any person to carry on any trade, business, profession or occupation . . . subject to conditions.''
However, subsection (4) states:
``an exception to a restraint order must not make provision for any legal expenses which—
(a) relate to an offence which falls within subsection (5), and
(b) are incurred by a person against whom proceedings for the offence have been started or by a recipient of a tainted gift.''
Subsection (5) provides definitions.
I suppose that if you have a multimillionaire whose assets are placed under restraint, it would be undesirable if the money were frittered away on lawyer's fees as the case piled up, month after month, in relation to the offence for which he has been charged. Equally, however, it is a slightly odd state of affairs, especially in the public mind, if a Mr. Big who has yachts, villas, houses and motor cars is in receipt of legal aid on a full certificate. Given the way in which the legal aid principles operate, I wonder whether difficulty might arise if, for instance, legal aid were not granted for something that he wanted to deal with in the course of his defence. In those circumstances, he might feel aggrieved, and say, ``I'm perfectly prepared to spend my own money, but I'm not being allowed to, because it's subject to restraint.'' That raises an interesting human rights point, which I just wanted to flag up.
Can the Minister provide a little detail about the background to the provisions? I suspect that they applied in the earlier regime. Will he explain what happens at the end of the day? Will you end up with a legal aid bill of £5 million for convicting Mr. Big, without any regard to the fact that the money that was restrained and recovered would have covered that amount? That is bad PR for the legal system. Will the Minister explain how the system is designed to work?