Fraud Bill [HL]

That is true, my Lords; on the other hand, a new factor has been introduced by a statement of the Home Secretary yesterday, which throws an entirely different light on the nature of the Bill and requires us to consider a totally fresh matter, new in this debate—that is, perhaps, why there have been an unusually large number of interventions on Report. I apologise for their number, but submit that they have been necessary, for the reasons given. I make one further short observation to the noble and learned Lord, in the hope of encouraging a response. The Attorney-General’s response to my last intervention clarifies something which had been a mystery to me ever since the seminar that he held in January 2005. In that seminar, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, said that he thought that there might be circumstances in which trial by a single judge in complex fraud cases would be desirable, but that the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General should be under no illusions about shortening trials by that means. If the Lord Chief Justice—as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, is now—is right about that, a new Bill in another place, whatever else its consequences might be, will not cut the cost of fraud trials.