Clause 36 - Making, varying or discharging account monitoring orders
Crime (International Co-operation) Bill [Lords]
10:00 am
Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)
Amendments Nos. 94 and 97 go together, because amendment No. 97 would have the same effect on clause 41 for Scotland as amendment No. 94 would have on clause 36. Amendments Nos. 98 and 99 would have the same effect on clause 44.
Opposition Members suggest that the powers should apply only to investigations into serious criminal conduct. An important point is involved. A great deal of criminal conduct is low level. Although it is still crime and still important, and nothing that I say will suggest that it should not be investigated, we are talking about a quite serious erosion of customers' privacy and the banker-customer relationship of privacy and confidentiality. That should not be eroded unless the criminal conduct being investigated is serious.
We all understand that, if there is major international financial fraud, there has to be a way in which the state has power to look into customers' accounts. However, we do not want the Bill to become a state snooper's charter. That goes back to the point made by my noble Friend Viscount Bridgeman in the debate in another place to which I referred earlier. We want to ensure that there cannot be massive fishing expeditions by the forces of the state. We want to support the work of the police, but the way in which we can protect the traditional banker-customer relationship of privacy and confidentiality is by ensuring that it is eroded or impinged on by the Bill only if serious criminal conduct is being investigated. That is why we say that it would be an important protection to insert the word ''serious''.
I hope that the Minister will not resist the amendment, because it would provide clarification in the Bill to keep the balance right and a sense of
proportionality. The Minister's predecessors as Home Office Ministers were often given briefs that said, ''We need to keep a sense of proportion.'' Proportionality has been a buzzword for Ministers in this Government. Opposition Members say that if the word ''serious'' were inserted in the Bill as a restriction, so that an investigation could take place only when serious criminal conduct was being examined, a sense of proportion would be kept. As I said, I hope that the Minister will accept the amendment.