Clause 7
Fraud Bill [Lords]
4:15 pm
Dominic Grieve (Shadow Attorney General & Shadow Spokesman On Community Cohesion, Law Officers (Assist the Home Affairs Team); Beaconsfield, Conservative)
I beg to move amendmentNo. 1, in clause 7, page 3, line 15, leave out ‘or' and insert ‘and'.
This follows on from our earlier debate, but is slightly different because there is no equivalent offence to making or supplying an article as that is defined here. Subsection (1) states:
“A person is guilty of an offence if he makes, adapts, supplies or offers to supply any article—knowing that it is designed or adapted for use in the course of or in connection with fraud, or intending it to be used to commit, or assist in the commission of, fraud.”
If paragraph (a) were confined to knowing that it is designed for use in the course of fraud, I should not be so concerned. However, adapted for use in the course of or in connection with fraud seems to be a wide term. I worry that it could catch somebody who makes a perfectly reasonable device for legitimate use. On Second Reading, I used the example of the conjuring trick. Such tricks usually require somebody to commit a fraud upon a willing group of spectators. To say that an article of that sort is unlawful causes me concern, particularly as it is not “and” intending it to be used to commit, or assist in the commission of fraud but “or” intending it to be used to commit, or assist in the commission of fraud.
One way of dealing with the matter would be to say that it should not be “or” but “and”. That is what the amendment would achieve. However, I am aware that that would create a restricted offence of specific intent. I acknowledge straight away to the Solicitor-General that that might be too restrictive. Therefore, this, too, is a probing amendment, designed to tease out in the course of debate whether what has been drafted here correctly meets what we are trying to achieve, or whether it goes a little too far.
I shall listen to the Solicitor-General with interest, but my first reading of the clause made me slightly surprised, because articles made, adapted, supplied or offered is a wide term. The nature of fraud being what it is, all sorts of items could be included in that category. I shall be interested to know what defence could be raised, for example, if a person knows that he is supplying an article to a conjuror. He knows very well that it is designed or adapted for use in the course of or in connection with fraud—or could be—but that is not what is intended. Does he have a defence? That is the key question that the Committee needs to debate.