Serious Crime Bill [HL]

I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this short debate. In particular, I thank my noble friends for raising the issues of Scotland with the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland. I am sure we will return to these issues. The Minister has given my noble friends the opportunity, as my noble friend Lady Carnegy said, to consider these matters further between now and Report. The Home Office has a record that is not particularly envied outside, except in respect of its attention to detail over Scottish matters in response to issues raised by my noble friends. We have certainly appreciated the fact that the Bill team has brought to meet us those who advise in Scotland. Therefore in the past we have been able to ensure that Bills are appropriate for action not just in England but in Scotland too. I am sure we will keep our eyes on that as this Bill proceeds through this House. I am grateful to the Minister for addressing the issue of clarification. We will return to the matter of crimes in detail in later amendments. I was particularly interested in the question of which criminals the Government are trying to target. I note that the noble Baroness tried to explain how criminals have developed in different ways. They are not just more violent and do not just have greater access to funds but appear to be even more careless of the safety and security of anybody else except themselves and are therefore increasingly dangerous to the public, and particularly to those police and security forces who try to protect us. When the noble Baroness says that the Government have rejected the definition of organised crime because there are so many different understandings of what that is, I have to agree with her. But then the Government seemed to be going out of the frying pan into the fire. In view of the way in which serious crime is treated in the Bill, the Government have raised difficulties about how to construe what serious crime is. They have not been able to resolve those difficulties in Schedule 1, which we will examine later, such that they even leave it to a judge to determine on a day-by-day basis what serious crime may be. We will need to consider that issue very carefully to see whether Part 1 is going to be fit for purpose in the Home Office’s terms. I am grateful to the noble Baroness. I think she has started to set out the Government’s stall in a way that will assist scrutiny. I am not sure she will be particularly happy with some of the conclusions that we will draw from it, but at this stage I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.