Serious Crime Bill [Lords]

for the purposes of my argument, I think I must accept that the principle against which I am arguing has been breached to some extent. The hon. Gentleman is right, however: the quality of the breach is entirely different in the case of bindovers. I am deeply concerned by clause 1(3), which permits the court or the applicant a very wide ambit. It states:"““An order under this section may contain—""(a) such prohibitions, restrictions or requirements; and""(b) such other terms;""as the court considers appropriate for the purpose of protecting the public by preventing, restricting or disrupting involvement by the person concerned in serious crime in England and Wales or (as the case may be) Northern Ireland.””" Clause 2(1) states:"““For the purposes of this Part, a person has been involved in serious crime in England and Wales if he—""(a) has committed a serious offence in England and Wales;""(b) has facilitated the commission by another person of a serious offence in England and Wales; or""(c) has conducted himself in a way that was likely to facilitate the commission by himself or another person of a serious offence in England and Wales (whether or not such an offence was committed)." The court need not have within its grasp evidence that a serious criminal offence has been committed; it need merely be persuaded that it is likely to be committed. A facilitator, however, is quite likely to be caught by the clause, even if he did not know about the offence and even if he did not intend to facilitate its commission. Clause 5(2) states:"““In deciding for the purposes of this Part whether a person…facilitates the commission by another person of a serious offence, the court must ignore…his intentions, or any other aspect of his mental state, at the time.””" I accept that there are absolute offences, but it seems to be that a serious criminal offence, or the facilitation of a serious criminal offence, ought at least to be in the mind of the respondent to the application. Otherwise he could well be penalised—subjected to a five-year term of imprisonment—despite his innocence. Five years is a long time for breaching an injunction. Even the Contempt of Court Act 1981 provides for a limit of two years for that form of breach, and I think that my hon. Friends will need to examine that provision very carefully in Committee. We had a degree of fun over the definition of ““serious crime”” I think that most people could understand the concept without its having to be defined in a schedule, but at least there is a definition in the Bill for the benefit of those who are likely to be caught, those who may wish to make applications, and Members of Parliament who may come upon Hansard by accident and read the speeches of those who spoke before me. Part 1 of schedule 1 defines serious offences as drug trafficking, people trafficking, arms trafficking, prostitution and child sex, money laundering, fraud, corruption and bribery, counterfeiting, blackmail, and offences relating to intellectual property—the hon. Member for Taunton had some fun with those—and the environment. It seems to me at least possible that the Minister for Security, Counter Terrorism and Police, who introduced the Bill, has not read the underlying legislation to which the schedule refers. The clue is that the Minister tends to resort to abuse rather than argument when faced with a difficult question. I am not suggesting that we are discussing the possibility of people being caught by prevention orders for fishing with a spinner during the fly season, but I do think the Minister ought to come here with his work done before trying to explain what the Bill is about. I doubt very much that he has any idea what it is about. The Minister chided me, telling me that I ought to get out more. I would get out more if I were not having to keep the Government under a watchful eye, but there are some interesting gaps in the schedule. For instance, homicide, grievous bodily harm, offences of robbery and indeed terrorist offences are not included in part 1 of the schedule. Perhaps the Government let them slip. I worry that the Ministers in charge of this Bill have not been giving it their proper attention. One other issue about which the House ought to be concerned is clause 5(4), which yet again provides an example of this Government requiring this Parliament to give this Government Executive powers to amend the criminal law without resort to Parliament. Clause 5(4) says, in the most disarming way:"““The Secretary of State may by order amend Schedule 1.””" I really do not think it appropriate to allow any Home Secretary—certainly not the catalogue of Home Secretaries we have had to put up with since 1997—to get anywhere near amending any Act of Parliament by expanding, or even reducing, the list of criminal offences that are affected by the Bill without proper parliamentary scrutiny on the Floor of the House; not tucked away in some Committee Room upstairs but down here where all of us can scrutinise it. If one wants to change the principles or detail of primary criminal law, one should do it by primary legislation. What will these orders be able to cover? My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon has been through those. These are fundamental restrictions on liberty, on where you can work, to whom you can talk, where you can go, who you can meet, what you can do with your money and matters of that nature. They apply to individuals, to partnerships, to unincorporated associations and to corporations. Most extraordinarily, we have these examples, which as my hon. and learned Friend pointed out, are merely examples of requirements that may be imposed:"““a requirement on a person to answer questions, or provide information, specified or described in an order…at a time, within a period or at a frequency…at a place…in a form and manner; and…to a law enforcement officer or description of law enforcement officer…notified to the person by a law enforcement officer specified or described in the order.””" It would be amusing, were it not so serious; even when serving the order, the authorities are entitled to break into your house to see if you are there to receive it. It strikes me as deeply worrying and concerning that the Government thought it appropriate to pass such legislation without more ado. I will not delay the passage of the Bill this evening; I simply cannot. But I urge all of us—I know that my hon. Friends on the Front Bench are aware of this—to study the implications of the Bill, to think hard about the consequences of its passage, to test some of these ideas, to destruction if necessary, in Committee and to permit only what is necessary and only what can be justified to the public to become part of our criminal law. The Minister said that it is a civil procedure or a civil matter; I have also heard the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker), say that from a sedentary position. It is not a civil matter, except by description from the Government. In terms of the European convention on human rights, which the Government have domesticated into our jurisdiction and jurisprudence, we are talking about the imposition of savage penalties—five-year prison sentences—for breaching a civil order. That is a penalty in anyone’s book. If the Minister thinks that simply by mouthing the word ““civil”” in front of every piece of criminal procedure or criminal law that he brings into this House, he makes it actually a civil penalty, he is in a greater state of unknowing than I had previously thought that he and his colleagues might be. I do not want to use the same sort of language that the Minister used in his speech but, with equal vehemence, I urge the House to be careful.