Counter-Terrorism Bill

moved Amendment No. 5: 5: Clause 65, page 47, line 30, at end insert— ““( ) This section does not apply to any decision of the Treasury to make an order under paragraph 8 or 28(6) of Schedule 7 to this Act. The noble Lord said: My Lords, My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 5. I will speak also to government Amendments Nos. 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19. Last week, we had a good discussion on the provisions to which these amendments relate. I thank your Lordships for the constructive and helpful manner of that debate which was particularly useful given the importance of these measures and the unfortunately brief time your Lordships have had to consider these provisions. As these amendments mainly concern issues outlined in our previous discussion, many of which were first raised by noble Lords on the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Benches, I will attempt to be brief. Amendment No. 5 seeks to remove from the application of Clause 65 the order-making power in paragraph 8 of the schedule which enables the Treasury to alter the definition of persons operating in the financial sector, and to whom it could therefore give directions, and the order-making power in paragraph 28(6) of the schedule which provides for appeals to be made to the VAT, Financial Services and Markets, or Consumer Credit Appeals Tribunals rather than to the first-tier or upper tribunals to manage the transitional process here. The effect of this amendment is that challenges to orders made under paragraph 8 and paragraph 28(6) will be subject to the normal judicial review procedure rather than to the procedure in Part 6 of the Bill. I hope your Lordships will agree that this is a more appropriate procedure given the nature of such orders. Amendment No. 8 seeks to address a point that was raised in the 15th report of this Session of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in relation to these provisions. Specifically, the committee recommended that the order-making power provided for in paragraph 8 of the schedule should be more explicit in its intention to allow for purely technical adjustments of the definition or be made subject to the affirmative rather than the negative resolution procedure. I said on Report that I would give careful consideration to the committee’s recommendations. I appreciate the efforts of the committee to scrutinise our provisions at short notice as well as the useful part its members and ex-members played in our previous debate. This amendment seeks to address the committee’s recommendations by now providing for an affirmative order in this case. I thank my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey for raising this matter. Amendment No. 9 provides for an explicit requirement on the Treasury to apply these powers proportionately, according to the risks that they are seeking to address. This requirement was discussed on Report and the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, was keen to see it addressed in the Bill. As I have previously assured noble Lords, proportionality is an important requirement for the operation of any administrative order of this type and I am happy to recognise this explicitly in the legislation. I will briefly take Amendment No. 18 out of order as it similarly addresses another matter that I consider essential to the proper and effective use of these powers— the production of guidance for industry on their implementation. Such guidance by industry bodies and supervisors plays a valuable role in our current anti-money-laundering regime. As with the previous amendment, the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, was rightly concerned that the Treasury should assist relevant bodies to produce this guidance. I have assured the noble Baroness that this would be the case—it is, after all, in our interests to ensure that it is as simple as possible for business to implement our directions—but I am happy to accommodate such a requirement directly in the Bill. Amendment No. 10 substitutes ““undertake”” for ““take”” in line 18, thereby ensuring consistent terminology throughout the provisions. This reflects the point raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, on Report. I thank him for his observation. Amendment No. 15 simply leaves out lines 27 and 28 on page 101 of the Bill, thereby removing a typographical error which had made its way into the provisions. Amendments Nos. 16 and 17 are moved in response to the issues which the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, helpfully raised on Report on behalf of the Liberal Democrats and in relation to provisions in paragraph 34(1) of the schedule which replicated those of Clause 29 of the Bill concerning jurisdiction over offences. As I undertook on Report, these amendments alter those provisions so that they now apply only to offences committed outside the United Kingdom. The final amendment I am concerned with today, Amendment No. 19, is merely intended to clarify the situation regarding the use of any penalties received by the FSA in its supervisory role. As is standard, and as is the case for the FSA’s other supervisory actions under the money-laundering regime, this amendment provides for any penalties received to be applied against expenses incurred in connection with its functions. This provision also reflects the position in respect of penalties imposed by the FSA under its powers under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, which must be applied for the benefit of authorised persons. I hope I have sufficiently explained all the amendments. I believe that, save the odd minor adjustment, they all reflect issues and concerns that were recognised on Report. I hope noble Lords agree that they will all usefully improve the provisions and that they can support them. I beg to move. On Question, amendment agreed to. Clause 81 [Control orders: powers of entry and search]: