Clause 46 - Interpretation of Chapter 4
Crime (International Co-operation) Bill [Lords]
11:00 am
Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 100, in
clause 46, page 27, line 7, leave out paragraph (a) and insert—
'(a) an offence which requires a prison term of 10 years or more, or'.
Our amendment would replace reference to the protocol with a provision saying that ''serious criminal conduct'' was any offence carrying a sentence of 10 years or more. The Minister will be aware that the issue was debated in another place on 27 January. That debate is in column GC 144 and thereafter in Hansard in another place. My noble Friend Viscount Bridgeman made it clear that he was probing the issue, and we do the same again today. It would be helpful to know which other countries follow the guidelines in the protocol. Have the guidelines been amended? Could they be? Would it be helpful to have those guidelines listed in the Bill for the sake of clarity?
At the moment, ''serious criminal conduct'' is simply defined as an offence under the 2001 protocol or as
''an offence specified in an order made by the Secretary of State''.
We do not think that that is sufficient. The amendment would put in
''an offence which requires a prison term of 10 years or more''.
We might have chosen ''five years or more''. There was some discussion in another place about whether 10 years was the right level. There were some offences that ought to have been included but would not fall into that category. We wanted to probe the matter further, because we did not think that it got a tremendously thorough answer from Lord Filkin, who spoke for the Government. I hope that the Minister will respond to that.
Amendment No. 143, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome, seeks to delete paragraph (b).