Clause 59 - Restrictions on use of statements
Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill
10:15 am
Ms Caroline Flint (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (reducing organised and international crime, anti drugs co-ordination and international and European issues), Home Office; Don Valley, Labour)
The amendment would prevent a statement made under a disclosure notice being used against the person who made it in civil proceedings. Such statements will be made only in relation to documents or information relating to serious criminal offences and so will not routinely include information of relevance to civil proceedings.
The clause ensures that self-incriminatory statements made under the powers in chapter 1 cannot be used in criminal proceedings. That replicates the current safeguards on Serious Fraud Office powers, which have been thoroughly tested by the courts. The provisions are also consistent with the use of disclosure notices in asset recovery, where there is no bar on self-incriminatory statements being used in civil proceedings.
It is open to a court to decide not to admit a specific statement if there is no statutory prohibition on its admissibility, but we do not believe that it is necessary or desirable to provide an absolute prohibition on the use of such statements in civil proceedings. An example involving the SFO would be where it passes information to the Financial Services Authority to look at in civil proceedings on financial irregularities. I hope that that explains the situation and ask that the amendment be withdrawn.