Clause 133

8:15 pm

Henry Bellingham (Shadow Minister, Justice; North West Norfolk, Conservative)

We have supported the Government’s policy of including part 7 on criminal memoirs in the Bill and have taken the view for some time that people who commit heinous crimes should not benefit financially from them after their release or, as in some cases, while they are in prison. Will the Minister give us a two-minute thumbnail sketch, which will be a challenge for her, of how the clause will work?

David Howarth (Cambridge, Liberal Democrat)

Like the hon. Gentleman, I have no objection to the general principle—indeed, I support it—that people should not benefit from their own wrong. Civil remedies in this area are more difficult to obtain than and are not as extensive as some academic commentators would have us believe. I have two points, however, one of which applies to the whole of part 7, while the other, which I would like the Minister to address, relates specifically to clause 133.

On the general point, there is rightly very little sympathy for a criminal’s right to express themselves and gain from writing about or exploiting their criminal career. Nevertheless, freedom of speech is not only about the rights of people to share information, but about the rights of other people to receive it. I am slightly concerned that the rights of the general public, who might view certain information or opinions as useful, have not entirely been taken into account. I will talk about that in slightly more detail when we get to clause 140.

In certain cases, someone taking part in a protest might be found guilty of criminal trespass or some other offence related to direct action, or someone might be found guilty of an offence under the Official Secrets Act, whereby the person expressing their views and telling their story should not particularly have any rights. We should not worry about that, but we should worry about the fact that we as citizens might be denied the opportunity to hear what happened to such people and to judge the authorities’ actions in the light of that.

Edward Garnier (Shadow Minister, Justice; Harborough, Conservative)

I may have misunderstood the hon. Gentleman’s point and the clause under discussion, but the contents of clause 140 may be of use to him. As I understand it, clause 133 confiscates the profit, but it does not prevent the publication.

David Howarth (Cambridge, Liberal Democrat)

As the hon. and learned Gentleman says, we will get to the detail of the issue in clause 140. However, if all profits are taken from certain activities, that will result in less information on those activities being available in the public domain in the long run.

George Howarth (Knowsley North and Sefton East, Labour)

That depends whether an offence has been committed.

David Howarth (Cambridge, Liberal Democrat)

Well, there might also be further information of interest to the public. I have no interest in, or brief for, the offender, but the public’s interest in hearing about certain activities is affected to some degree. We will come back to the details in clause 140.

My second point is about where the money goes. Under clause 133, the money will go to the Consolidated Fund. In other words, it will go to the Government. Surely, if the concern is mainly with the victims of the crime, the money should go to the victims, or if not to the particular victim, to victims in general.

Maria Eagle (Parliamentary Secretary, Government Equalities Office; Liverpool, Garston, Labour)

I am happy to deal with the points raised, although the first point that the hon. Member for Cambridge made was somewhat esoteric. I am not going to argue about why we should have the scheme, as everybody seems to agree that we should have it, and it has been quite a long process to decide what balance to strike and how it ought to be done.

Subsection (1) will provide a relevant court with the power to make an exploitation proceeds order against qualifying offenders who have obtained a benefit from exploiting material pertaining to a relevant offence under subsection (3). The order will require the offender to pay a sum of money—the recoverable amount—in respect of the proceeds obtained to the relevant enforcement authority. The order will specify the recoverable amount and identify the benefits to which the order relates. It is intended to make sure that it deters, by way of removing profit, the convicted person from producing their book, memoir, film or whatever if the sole interest is in making a profit for the offender.

Subsection (6) explains that, if a respondent fails to pay the recoverable amount, he or she must pay interest at an appropriate rate. The appropriate rate is defined in subsection (8)(a). Payment itself, including any interest, is made to the Consolidated Fund, although the intention is that it should then be divided up between the enforcement agencies to assist them in carrying out further operations.

The hon. Member for Cambridge is right in saying that the recovery money is not intended to go directly back to victims. Victims of crime can, of course, claim criminal injuries compensation. That is the intention and the purpose of the scheme. As the hon. and learned Member for Harborough said in his intervention, it is not an attempt to prevent freedom of speech or to stop people from publishing; it is an attempt to remove profit from any such publication.

The hon. Member for Cambridge, in his somewhat esoteric first point, was really asking whether there was a public interest test. Enforcement authorities, when deciding whether to apply for a court order, will decide whether there is any public interest in doing so. One expects them to be rather less inclined to take out, or apply for, such an order against a protester who has been locked up than against a triple murderer who is seeking to exploit his notoriety by producing lurid publications to the evident distress of his victims. Those who are responsible for deciding whether to apply for such an order—whether the Attorney-General or the Serious Organised Crime Agency—will be perfectly capable of making a proper distinction between those two examples.

Clause 133 is the first of a number of clauses in part 7 that will implement the civil recovery scheme and are intended not to prevent publication but, with a public interest test, to protect the fact that there are certain circumstances—for example, academic research—where it would be perfectly sensible to publish and not to remove profits from publications. There will be a small number of cases, perhaps one or two a year at most, where that might deter someone convicted of a serious offence from exploiting the notoriety of their offence for personal and monetary gain.

Edward Garnier (Shadow Minister, Justice; Harborough, Conservative)

A publishing company that publishes books, as opposed to newspapers, will presumably not enter into a contract to publish if it feels that the book will fall foul of the provision; or will the book publisher be able to make a profit even if the author—the criminal—cannot?

Maria Eagle (Parliamentary Secretary, Government Equalities Office; Liverpool, Garston, Labour)

The answer to that is probably yes, because we are not intending to chase the publisher or to try to prevent publication. We are trying to prevent the thing that upsets victims and relatives of victims in these instances: the criminals—the notorious offender—making a profit from their crime.

I am sure that the hon. and learned Gentleman has had a close look at the Bill. He will know that we do not intend to pursue publishers for any money that they make, but we would expect them to co-operate by telling us of any arrangements that have been made with the individual against whom the order will be made. The intention is to prevent the offender from profiting, not to chase any kind of profit that might result from publication.