Clause 57
Coroners and Justice Bill
8:40 pm
David Howarth (Cambridge, Liberal Democrat)
I beg to move amendment 187, in clause 57, page 33, leave out lines 30 and 31.
After the rather dark and disturbing topics that we have discussed, amendment 187 might be thought of as some sort of light relief. It does, though, have some serious aspects. Clause 57 concerns conspiracies by people in this country to commit offences in other countries. The current provision is in the Criminal Law Act 1977 as amended. It covers conspiracies to commit offences outside the UK. Clause 57 seeks to change that situation by concentrating on England and Wales as opposed to the UK. That means that it is possible to conspire in England and Wales to commit an offence in Scotland or Northern Ireland—or that is the explanation given in the explanatory notes. The Criminal Law Act has a provision that exempts from the scope of the offence people who hold office under the Crown; I will return to the matter of why that situation should exist and what kinds of people it is meant to cover. However, in terms of clause 57 and the changes it means to make to the law, that provision—which exempts those who hold office under the Crown from the coverage of the section—has a rather startling effect. The effect is—I understand from the clause—that a conspiracy to commit criminal offences in Scotland or Northern Ireland by those who hold office under the Crown in England and Wales, would be lawful. I want to know why that is the case.
Lord Hurd used to write thrillers in which the plots were based on conspiracies in Scotland to do with Scottish national politics 20 or 30 years ago. If one were to allow one’s imagination to run wild one might think that this matter is similar. I venture to suggest that, instead, it is an accident in the way that the clause is drafted. However, there is an aspect of it that makes me think that perhaps it is not an accident. That is, later on the clause endeavours to make sure that there is no retrospective effect in Northern Ireland—that the exemption does not cover the legacy cases there, since they are, of course, very politically sensitive. If that is the case, the question still arises as to why there should be this exemption for conspiracies by servants of the Crown when it comes to crimes that may have been committed in Scotland and Northern Ireland from now on. That is the first point.
The second point is what is the interaction between this provision and section 7 of the Intelligence Services Act 1994, the provision that is sometimes called the James Bond clause? Section 7 of the 1994 Act allows the Secretary of State to authorise acts—which might otherwise be illegal—outside the British Isles, in cases where what is being done is necessary for the proper discharge of a function of the intelligence service. The provision was controversial at the time and it still is, especially in light of accusations around Binyam Mohamed, and similar cases.
Nevertheless, there is an argument that section 7 of the 1994 Act is entirely preferable to the blanket provision in clause 57. Section 7 is at least limited to the functions of the intelligence service and does not apply to anyone holding office under the Crown—of whom there are quite a few in this room at the moment. Also, the second advantage is that, under section 7—I would be grateful for the expertise of the right hon. Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) in this matter—there has to be a specific authorisation by a Secretary of State. Therefore, there is a line of accountability that does not exist under the clause, with its blanket immunity.