Clause 6
Serious Crime Bill [Lords]
10:15 am
Douglas Hogg (Sleaford and North Hykeham, Conservative)
I was wondering whether I was strolling around the place. [ Laughter .]
Anyway, the purpose of this group is twofold: to strike out subsection (1) and to modify subsection (3).
I remind the Committee that the definition of serious crime includes anything that the court wishes to treat as a serious crime. We have already had that debate. The language will be found in clause 2(2)(b).
We need to keep it in mind that the background is not just the defined offences but any other offence that the court thinks appropriate. Then one goes to clause 6(6) and we find something rather similar, because the various specific powers that are referred to in clause 6(3)—which are draconian, and have already been referred to by various hon. Members—are only examples. We are not confining the power of the court to the categories that are set out. The court can, in fact, make any order that it thinks appropriate; we go back to the language of clause 6(1). The various examples are but examples and they extend right across the spectrum of human activity: who the person meets; where they go; the type of business that they undertake; what they do with their financial arrangements, and this and that. It extends to the power to prevent a person from living in a particular place, or requiring a person to live in a particular place. I think that it would enable the court to impose curfew orders, which, as we know, are a form of house arrest.
There is no limitation to these powers, which is, of course, one of the reasons why in previous debatesI have tried to introduce the criteria of justness, proportionality and reasonableness, but I failed. This is an important clause, because it gives the power to the court to do anything that the court thinks appropriate. I cannot, cannot, cannot believe that that is right, and I really think that if this House understood what was being said and done in this Committee it would be deeply shocked.
The truth is, Mr. Bercow—you and I know this, as we have been in the House a very long time—that most Members do not read Bills, and they do not read Committee proceedings either. Most Members do not know what is happening and the Executive can do pretty well what it pleases, because of the rubber stamp procedures that, I am afraid to say, we have created in this place. I happen to believe that this Bill is a scandal and I really believe that a House of Commons that was unfettered and voting freely, probably secretly, would never pass this sort of thing. I very much hope that the Minister will reflect on whether it is right to give the court the power to make any order, of which this measure is but an illustration.