Coroners and Justice Bill

As noble Lords will know, the JCHR produced a recommendation on criminal memoirs. It goes to the issue concerned in paragraph (f), and stated: ""We remain concerned that making an Exploitation Proceeds Order (EPO) in part dependent on the degree to which a victim, their family or the general public are offended in a particular case could unnecessarily risk arbitrary application of these proposals. We recommend that the Government should consider an amendment to the Bill to remove any reference to the degree of offence aroused by the relevant profits, while retaining the ability of the court to consider the wider public interest"." I can do no more than quote the Government’s response: ""The inclusion in those factors of ‘the extent to which any victim of the offence, the family of the victim or the general public is offended by the respondent obtaining exploitation proceeds from the relevant offence’ does not, in the Government's view, mean that the scope of the court's discretion and the manner of its exercise is rendered insufficiently clear to give adequate protection against arbitrary interference. Indeed, given the highly detailed nature of the statutory scheme, the Government believes that the provisions in the Bill provide a very high level of protection against arbitrary application.""For these reasons, the Government is not currently persuaded of the case for amending the scheme in the way the Committee suggests"." I am not a lawyer, and I am certainly not a judge, but in Clause 145(3)—this goes to the generality of the scheme—not only is there paragraph (f), about which there is concern, but there is paragraph (c), which states, ""the extent to which the carrying out of the activity or supplying of the product is in the public interest"," so there is a public interest defence. There is paragraph (d), ""the social, cultural or educational value of the activity or product"," and paragraph (e), ""the seriousness of the relevant offence to which the activity or product relates"." I have faith—perhaps greater faith than the noble Lord—that judges will be able to interpret that in a balanced way to ensure that the Bill is appropriately applied. I think that I have covered most of the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, but I have to admit that I believe that any offence is covered by the provision. I may have to write her to be slightly more specific, but the protection against the trivial offence is in the generality of the clause and the surrounding clauses. The noble Lord, Lord Rees-Mogg, said that this problem is largely obsolete. That is good—I am delighted—but it is not obsolete sufficient to the point where we do not believe that the general public and victims are concerned about it. The newspapers may not do it now, but there is still a wide variety of publications. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, asked whether "memoirs" mean just memoirs. No, it means all the means of distribution set out in the Bill. We recognise that newspapers may have cleaned up their act, but we also recognise that victims groups and their representatives have been very concerned that this should be brought under control. That is why we have brought the legislation forward. Finally, in a sense, I welcome the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. I think that his colleague in another place said that people committing heinous crimes should not benefit. We think that that covers the generality, but we pick out the "serious" provision as the way that the court will protect that. If I may, I shall try to sum up the Government's general case on the clauses.