Schedule 1 - The Serious Organised Crime Agency
Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill
2:30 pm
Mr Dominic Grieve (Shadow Attorney General, Home Affairs; Beaconsfield, Conservative)
The Minister said a moment ago that SOCA was a new organisation, designed to achieve something different. Just before the break, she ran through a list of other organisations that currently have powers akin to those of the police, such as Customs and Excise. Is the difference in the new regime that, whereas those other organisations have very specific remits—Customs and Excise dealing with revenue and importation, for example—SOCA is, by the nature of the Bill, going to deal with general policing matters? That is explicit in the powers that it has been given, including entering premises, interviewing people and seizing documents. Is there not a danger that, in creating a SOCA divorced from a police background, we are just adding something else to the existing organisations that have the powers of constables, creating a parallel police force? That is the matter that the Minister has not yet addressed.