Fraud Bill [HL]

I do not know whether it would or would not have been appropriate in the other cases. I interpret the 1,000 as being defendants, and a number of those will have been charged with other defendants in the conspiracy. It does not inevitably have to happen that way, but I cannot give the noble Lord any further information in that regard. I turn finally to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, who understands the case—if I may presume—for retaining the offence for the time being, recognises that there is much to be done and to be seen before one could be safe in removing the offence, but proposes that we should repeal now but leave the Government to commence the provision at some future date. As the noble Lord rightly noted, we do not regard that as the right way forward; we ought to be sure that we have created the conditions for repeal of common law conspiracy before we put the repeal on the statute books. That will take some time—and I have identified the other areas. Indeed, there is some learning on how desirable it is to take powers which it is not intended to implement, or the implementation of which is uncertain. Let me reassure the noble Lord on one point. He feared for us that if we did not take the opportunity now, we might not have the appropriate legislative vehicle. I assure the noble Lord that there will be no doubt that the Home Office, which is behind this Bill, will have the appropriate legislative vehicles to which such a provision can be attached at some stage in future. On that I believe all noble Lords can agree. I have spent a long time dealing with this matter, and I hope that noble Lords will forgive me, but it is a very important topic. The Government strongly take the view that it would not be right to repeal the offence. We understand the well expressed comments that noble Lords have made, but I hope that noble Lords accept that it would not be right to repeal the offence now. Having said what I have done about the review in three years’ time, I am very happy to consider, if noble Lords would think it helpful for me to do so, what further I could say about that and about how that review would take place. I ask that the amendment should be withdrawn.