Serious Crime Bill [HL]

I shall address the Committee briefly on fishing with rods and lines in rivers and on armed robbery. They appear to be miles apart but the principle is very much the same. As I understand it, Section 1 of the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Act 1975 applies to rivers and estuary waters. I, too, fish for salmon, often without much success. Poaching of salmon by organised gangs can take a substantial form. Years ago a gang dropped a woollen sock filled with cyanide into a river, taking out hundreds of salmon in one go. Quite literally, a killing was made by the perpetrators of that offence. Highly organised salmon poaching disrupts people like me and other noble Lords when fishing; but, much more seriously, it affects the fragile rural economy of the area in which it takes place.We can therefore see the seriousness of the Bill. The difficulty is that it can apply all the way down to somebody using a rod that is prohibited. There is then an argument about proportionality, which is a matter for discussion elsewhere. With the greatest respect to the noble Lord, I must say that fly-tipping in this sense is not dropping a cigarette paper or something similar but tipping tonnes of toxic waste into a watercourse or the sea. That is done at very high reward for those disposing of it. One needs to bear that in mind. I too was surprised that armed robbery was not included. On the basis of figures that I have notyet had a chance to substantiate, I learnt only this morning about a spate of robberies of cash in transit in the capital, in which many millions of pounds have been stolen. I understand that there has been a threefold increase of that type of robbery. In many of those incidents in the past 12 months, knives have been used. Why are only firearms included in the amendment? We all know—it has already been referred to in your Lordships' House—the ingenuity of criminals who, one concludes, will immediately turn away from firearms and use knives, petrol or a range of other things. One might look at the American legislation, which uses the term ““deadly weapon””, which is strictly and carefully delineatedin USA law. An amendment could encompass something like that. I vigorously suggest that armed robbery should be included.