Fraud Bill [HL]

This was an issue that the Law Commission quite specifically excluded from its review. It says at the beginning of its report that there are certain specialist branches of fraud that, in its view, required separate consideration. Among those it included tax evasion offences, and there is a footnote which I am assured makes it clear that these include the common law offence of cheating the Revenue. If there is evidence of a problem—and I have not heard these remarks from the learned professor to whom the noble Lord refers—then it is going to require a separate review. It has simply not been looked at. As it is, however, I am not at all convinced that there is any problem. This is an offence which has been prosecuted for many years. In fact, it is an essential part of the Revenue’s toolkit—now HMRC and, of course, the Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office, the new prosecuting authority. If anyone thought that it was analogous to conspiracy to defraud, contrary to what the noble Lord has said, the criticism cannot be made of cheating the public revenue that it creates an offence which is not an offence for one person to do, but is for two to do. I understood that to be a particular point. It does not arise in that area. The noble Lord may be familiar with the case of Pattni and others in 2000, in which the question of the certainty of the offence for the purposes of the European Convention on Human Rights was looked at. The judge in that case rejected the criticism that the offence was too uncertain. It may be that if the Bill is enacted the use of the offence of cheating the public revenue will decline. As it stands, the offence is regularly used by prosecutors for the Inland Revenue, or HMRC as it is now, to deal with cases of tax evasion. I am sure that we all want to ensure that HMRC continues to have all the tools necessary to prevent others not meeting their fiscal obligations. I resist the amendment and invite the noble Lord to withdraw it.