Clause 69 - Financial reporting orders: making
Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill
2:30 pm
Mr David Heath (Shadow Minister (Home Affairs), Home Affairs; Somerton and Frome, Liberal Democrat)
I have some sympathy with the amendments, and I had intended to raise the issue in the clause stand part debate. I have no problem with the principle behind the financial reporting order procedure that the Government propose. The order is a potentially useful tool, but it is also a very substantial and potentially intrusive tool as far as an individual's privacy is concerned. It must be proportionate to the crime of which that person has been convicted.
The danger does not lie in the application of such orders by the Crown court, and we can be reasonably assured that the level of offence involved and the consideration given in such courts will be appropriate. Without in any way denigrating the powers or the responsibility of magistrates courts, however, the offences that are usually tried before them—irrespective of whether such offences fall within those listed in subsection (3)—are not such that one would normally consider a financial reporting order to be commensurate. There is a real issue of proportionality. The Minister may be able to convince me that there is a need for magistrates to have this power, but we need to hear that argument.
The same, of course, applies in Scotland. I think that the amendment to clause 70 tabled by the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly) is slightly defective in its phrasing, but nevertheless exactly the same arguments apply to the sheriff in Scotland, in relation to the level of criminality that is the subject of the trial.
Mr. Tony McWalter (Hemel Hempstead) (Lab/Co-op) rose—