Serious Crime Bill [HL]

I have considerable sympathy with the speeches made in support of the amendment, but I am rather puzzled as to where, if the amendments are passed, that leaves this whole part of the Bill. As I understand it, the purpose of the Bill—whether it is acceptable or not is another question—is to enable someone to be dealt with where it could not be proved in the criminal court that he had committed an offence, so that the order could be made. If the amendment, together with Amendments Nos. 87 and 88, is passed, first, the order can be made only if it is proved beyond reasonable doubt—that is, to a criminal standard—that he has committed an offence and, secondly, you can use only such evidence as would be admissible in a criminal trial. Surely that means that you have enough to get the person convicted, unless you think, ““If I go in front of a judge without a jury I will get a conviction, or an order, but if I go in front of a jury, I will not get a conviction””. Well then, let us abolish jury trials for such offences. I gather that we are about to attempt to abolish jury trials for some other offences. It seems to me that there will be nothing left of the whole of Part 1 if the amendments are passed, with the possible exception that you may be able to get an order if you can only prove that someone must have been involved in a crime, rather than, as you must do in a criminal court, specifying the crime of which you are charging him and of which he is to be convicted. It is surely not satisfactory to say, ““It is obvious that you have committed a very serious crime. How on Earth else have you got this vast sum of money and are living where you do? I cannot tell what it is, but you must be guilty of a crime, so I shall make one of these orders””. I ask the proponents of the amendments to explain what is left of Part 1 if they are passed. They may say, ““No, nothing is left of Part 1, and a jolly good thing, too””. I may agree with them, but we should be clear whether we are being asked to strike Part 1 from the Bill or whether the amendments are something much less.