Schedule 2
Serious Crime Bill [Lords]
5:30 pm
Douglas Hogg (Sleaford and North Hykeham, Conservative)
Amendment No. 133 is not a minor amendment; it is, I hope, an important amendment. We have been over the nature of the orders many times—how wide ranging and draconian they are, the limited protection given to the citizen, the fact that they are renewable, and the rest of it. Some members of the Committee might have taken comfort from the fact that under clause 9 an application can be made by only a limited number of individuals—the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Director of Revenue and Customs Prosecutions, the director of the Serious Fraud Office and, in the case of Northern Ireland, the Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland. On the face of it, therefore, the central and important distinctions are being made at a very high level of administration.
That is the comfort that some members of the Committee might have taken from clause 9. However, I wonder whether they should have drawn such comfort, because in schedule 2, under paragraphs 2(1) and 2(2), paragraphs 7(1) and 7(2) and paragraph 17, the powers can in fact be delegated downwards to a relatively low level. So far as the powers of the Director of Public Prosecutions are concerned, paragraph 2(2) says: “References...to the Director” can be deemed to be
“references to...any Crown Prosecutor.”
Paragraph 7(2) says: “References...to the Director”—that is, the Director of Revenue and Customs Prosecutions—may be deemed to be
“references to...any Revenue and Customs Prosecutor.”
Similarly, paragraph 17, which refers to Northern Ireland, says: “References...to the Director” will be
“references to...any Public Prosecutor.”
The important point, which I have made already, is this. If we give powers to an official, we can be quite sure that those powers will from time to time be abused. When the powers are set a level at which the powers in question have been set, it is important that they should exercised at very high administrative level. I am very far from happy—indeed, I am extremely unhappy—that the powers to make applications that could lead to such draconian consequences should be entrusted to officials of fairly modest standing. That is not right.
That concern is reinforced by the fact that the Minister has told us on several occasions that we should expect only a limited number of applications to be made—he said that the regulatory assessment had suggested 30 orders a year. We are dealing with four jurisdictions—Northern Ireland, the Revenue, the DPP and the Serious Fraud Office. We are talking about only four, five or 10 applications per director, so why on earth can not it be confined to the director himself or herself, rather than being entrusted to a relatively junior official.
I hope that the Committee will reflect on those points and decide that applications of this kind, which are serious in their potential consequences, should be confined to senior officials, together with all the other consequential decisions that are referred to in, for example, paragraph 1 of schedule 2.