Serious Crime Bill [HL]

Before the noble Baroness responds to the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, I remind her of the position of noble Lords on these Benches. As my noble friend and I made clear, we are sceptical about the prospects of success of serious crime prevention orders. As the Minister made clear, and as my noble friend made clear at Second Reading, we believe that the real answer in the end has to be successful prosecution and that that ought to be pursued. Having said that, like the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, we understand what the Government want to achieve. Certainly, at this stage we are not prepared to strike out the whole of Part 1 or even Clauses 1 to 5 and Schedules 1 and 2. We shall want to look very carefully at what the noble Baroness is about to say, particularly in response to our second amendment where we debated, to some extent, the general principle behind Clause 1. Before we make any final decision, we will want to look at the Government’s response to further amendments that we have tabled to the rest of Part 1 and to Schedules 1 and 2. My noble friend has tabled amendments to explore why some crimes are included in Schedule 1 and others are not. The noble Baroness may remember that we had some sport on that at Second Reading. I am still intrigued as to why it is even necessary to have Schedule 1 at all when one bears in mind that Clause 2(2)(b) makes it clear that the courts can decide to add anything else they want to Schedule 1. To that extent, Schedule 1 seems to be a waste of space. No doubt the noble Baroness will respond to that at the appropriate time. For the moment I remind her that we are sceptical about the prospects of success and we need convincing.