Clause 2
Serious Crime Bill [Lords]
4:30 pm
Vernon Coaker (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Gedling, Labour)
Good afternoon to you, Mr. Benton, and to all members of the Committee. Before I continue what I was saying before lunch, I wish to take the opportunity to welcome you formally to the Chair. We had an interesting and good debate this morning and I am sure that it will continue. We very much look forward to serving under your chairmanship this afternoon and during forthcoming sittings of the Committee.
I was replying to the debate on amendment No. 57. As I was saying to the hon. Member for Taunton, the key point to when a person should be liable for an order is that their actions must be unreasonable in the circumstances. It is not enough for the person simply to be told by law enforcement that their actions are facilitating serious crime.
The right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham has said a number of times that the orders are based on strict liability and that there is no mental element in relation to facilitation. As I was trying to make clear before lunch, including the mental element suggests that the orders are criminal in nature. Concepts such as intention or knowledge are inappropriate in that context. In the case of McCann, the House of Lords decided that antisocial behaviour orders are civil orders. One of the reasons for that decision was that the court does not consider whether the subject had a particular mental state.
As I have said several times, the orders are not punitive. We are not concerned with whether a person intended harm, but with a person’s actions and their outcome. Including a mental element will make it more difficult to obtain an order even when it may be reasonable to impose an order on the basis of behaviour when it would not be possible to prove intention or knowledge.
I was giving the hon. Member for Taunton a number of examples and was finishing with the example of a person who owns a string of lodging-houses that had been found on several occasions to contain individuals who have been trafficked or smuggled, with the accommodation paid for by others. The first option for law enforcement might be to approach the owner and make him aware of the problem. However, if it continued to happen, law enforcement might decide to apply for an order. Although the matter would depend on the circumstances, in such a case there would be a doubt about whether law enforcement could prove that the owner had the requisite intention. The owner might argue successfully that he had no knowledge that the people were being trafficked or smuggled or that his purpose was to make money and run his business rather than to facilitate people-trafficking.