Clause 33 - Making, varying or discharging customer information orders
Crime (International Co-operation) Bill [Lords]
9:45 am
Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome, Liberal Democrat)
I have great deal of sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's comments. It worries me that the classification of a request to all financial institutions has two effects: it creates a great deal of work for many people at inordinate cost; and it renders of less value the information that comes back.
One of the facts that we know about financial investigation is that the amount of information that is coming in, mainly to the National Criminal
Intelligence Service, is vastly in excess of what it is successfully able to work its way through to good effect. Unless we shall have a doubling of the resources that are available—I literally mean doubling—to deal with such matters, I am not sure that useful information will be gained by an all-embracing request that covers every financial institution.
If the intelligence on which the request were based were so weak as not to narrow the scope from all financial institutions to a class of financial institutions, it seems that that intelligence would not pass the original test. It would not be a genuine request for information to enable an investigation to proceed. It would become much closer to a fishing expedition that seeks evidence when none is available. That worries me, too. I hope that the hon. Gentleman's words will be listened to with some care. No one wants to reduce the efficacy of the process. My argument is that the provision would increase the efficacy of the process by focusing it on certain classes of financial institutions.
We should not discount the implications for the industry, nor the investigations and work that will be required to comply with requests. If a customer information request is aimed at all financial institutions and one of them does not reply, it will be guilty of an offence under the Bill. That is inappropriate. Whether or not the institution has valuable information, it will be guilty of an offence. I do not want to overburden either the industry or investigating organisations in such a way that they cannot do the job that we want them to do effectively and at a reasonable cost. I hope that the hon. Lady will seriously consider the amendments.