Crime

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Trumpington on securing this debate and those who have spoken in it. I knew about Crimestoppers because of its work in Lambeth. The cases just illustrated by the noble Lord, Lord Imbert, underline its value to society. I add my voice to those saying that it should be properly funded, because it is becoming an essential part of the police intelligence effort to catch criminals. There can be nothing more sensible than a well organised charity doing work that benefits society as a whole. It is many years since I was involved in UK policing, first on Merseyside and then nationally during my years at the Department of Transport, but I endorse strongly the words of the noble Lord, Lord Dear, about preparations for 2012. I do so with a little background knowledge of the trials and tribulations of the South African police force in preparing for the World Cup in 2010. A great many aspects of policing will be thrown up in 2012 by the sheer numbers of people not only entering this country but travelling across the boundaries in Europe. My private information is that neither here nor in South Africa have all the boundary problems started to be thought through. I shall concentrate the rest of my remarks on the contribution of the police and, indirectly, the Home Office to the identification, prevention, solving and reduction of counterfeiting. It may not be immediately obvious to all your Lordships, but counterfeiting is a growing crime of enormous importance. Regrettably, it is closely linked to other national and international crime, especially drug trafficking and money-laundering. Lest your Lordships should think that this aspect of crime is far less important than others, perhaps I may explain that counterfeit goods in this country and across the world are posing increasingly serious threats to personal health, hygiene and well-being, be it in pharmaceuticals, food or skincare products, and to businesses micro, small, medium and large. Counterfeiting is causing severe loss of revenue to Customs and tax authorities in the developed as well as the developing world. While this issue is generally regarded as one for Trade Ministers and business, because global trade is now a massive loser of as much as $2,000 billion a year from counterfeiting, it is high time that we paid more attention to it. The OECD estimates of the cost to business are for more than $630 billion a year, but the cost to Governments in lost revenues, the cost to police and the cost from the health consequences of counterfeit pharmaceuticals cause the sum to more than double that cost to business. We all know that these issues are not popular ones, but my interest in fighting counterfeiters has developed over recent years because I see the effects of the failure to fight these criminals. That is why I ask the Government to give expert backing to the efforts of those police working with Interpol to set up exchange of information that can lead to the detection not only of the counterfeiters themselves but of those involved with them. Interpol is working closely with the World Customs Organisation, the World Intellectual Property Organisation, the International Trademark Association and Business Action to stop counterfeiting and piracy. Having spent some time at the fourth global congress on anti-counterfeiting and piracy last month, I am now more aware than ever of the growing dangers of counterfeit products and their interconnection with the drug traffickers and money-launderers and with every sort of crime. Another group of persons is usually not heard of, but I shall term them the ““counterfeit goods brokers””. They are people who are not involved in the production and never go near the products themselves. Those brokers, and the shippers who assist them, are a new link between the counterfeiters, wherever they may be, and the merchants who buy the goods cheap. This links with what my noble friend said about cybercrime; much of the counterfeit brokers’ activity is now on the internet. However, there are brochures and two annual conferences purely for these brokers to put on show their counterfeit wares. There is much more that we could do that is out in the open but is not happening at present for the lack of resources and lack of interconnection of those resources. In this regard, I mention the success that Interpol has had since 9/11 in the exchange of passport information between more than 100 countries. We now have an information network on passports, which, although it does not solve the problem of stolen passports being reused, is certainly very helpful to police forces across the world. We need to set up something similar for counterfeit goods, for the counterfeiters and for those who are bringing real sadness and trouble to others. Interpol is well engaged in this. It uses techniques from developed nations to train police forces in how best to fight the counterfeit battle, but without a database on the information we shall not make progress. Interpol plays a critical role with industry to deal with fakes of every kind. This is no cottage industry run by lovable rogues. I know all the stories about fake Louis Vuitton handbags not doing anybody any harm, but that is a tiny proportion of what does the harm. This is serious crime that is run worldwide, with organisational structures that mirror those of conventional business companies. I speak not only of fake CDs, DVDs, computer programmes, mobile phones or even cars, as we saw recently in the media. I speak also of electrical goods that cause fire, such as circuit breakers without a piece of metal to break the circuit; I speak of building materials that weaken structures and, in a recent earthquake zone, caused far more damage than would have been anticipated because the concrete was not properly made. I speak of fake gypsum boards and glass that is not shatterproof but is sold as cheap windscreens, of fake foods that cause illness and of household goods and fertilisers. I speak, above all, of fake pharmaceuticals, which do not cure but kill. The head of the Nigerian bureau fighting this crime lost her sister through fake insulin. We have a planned anti-counterfeiting trade agreement, which will help Governments in the task, but it is only by equipping our police force to work with Interpol as well as other agencies to apprehend the counterfeiters and the fraudsters that we shall decrease the worldwide trade in counterfeits and the pain and death caused by them to many people. Interpol’s help to the World Customs Organisation and the World Intellectual Property Organisation, as well as to business organisations, needs renewed recognition by the G8 to create global collective action. The G8 summits in 2005, 2006 and 2007 recognised that this huge global issue requires strong and sustained action by Governments. To beat counterfeit crime and to assist in the quicker and better detection of drug runners and other fraudsters, I ask the Government to give greater active support to Interpol in the important work that it does, much assisted by the police forces of the United Kingdom.