Clause 42
Serious Crime Bill [Lords]
6:00 pm
Douglas Hogg (Sleaford and North Hykeham, Conservative)
I have not yet had the opportunity to welcome the Under-Secretary to the Committee, at least not formally. I recognise that we are now debating a part of the Bill for which she has responsibility. I am sorry that she feels that she has sat here for too long, but we understand that—it is the Opposition’s business to ensure that she sits here somewhat longer to answer our queries.
Part 2 originates from the Law Commission, and they are likely to have pored over in some detail the clauses that we are now debating. I shall therefore venture with more diffidence than usual. Although there is a risk that I am dancing on the head of a pin, as it were, I think that my anxiety is worth exploring.
Amendment No. 152 would change clause 42(b). The present drafting will enable a disjunction of time between the doing of an act and the belief that it will have criminal implications. It will not happen often, and it may not happen at all, but if one reads the Bill, one sees that an offence will be committed when a person
“does an act capable of encouraging or assisting the commission of an offence; and...he believes...that the offence will be committed”.
The clause does not provide that the belief must be associated in time with the act. I may be dancing on the head of a pin, but I could contemplate a situation in which someone has done something in their past that is
“capable of encouraging or assisting the commission of an offence”.
—they could, for example, make a loan. At that stage, the person acts innocently or not fully aware of the circumstances. Later on, he discovers that the person to whom he has made the loan intends to use the money in order to commit a criminal offence or to fund one. I agree that it is not terribly likely, but it seems to me that it could happen and that it would be better by far to make it plain that the belief must be associated with the act so that the offence is committed only when the person carries out the act and at the same time has the belief provided for in the clause. It is in that spirit that I move the amendment.