Coroners and Justice Bill

I will be delighted to do that. As one of the victims’ charities pointed out in response to our consultation on making sure that crime does not pay, any financial loss to criminals as a result of our measures will be minimal compared with the terrible damage to the health and future happiness of grieving families should the practice of profiting from crime be allowed to continue. It is worth pointing out that both the main opposition parties in the other place were broadly supportive of our proposals. I turn to what the noble Lord said about the prison rules and existing legislation. He is, of course, right to say there are already some measures in place that may, in certain circumstances, prevent criminals exploiting their crimes for gain. The prison rules govern what prisoners can publish or send to the outside world in correspondence. The Press Complaints Commission’s code of practice provides that payment for stories that seek to exploit a particular crime must not be made unless publication is in the public interest. A similar provision is contained in the Ofcom programme code, which sets out rules and guidance with which broadcasters must comply. History shows that these safeguards cannot fully address the problem; prison rules are effective only while an offender is in prison, and the influence of the Press Complaints Commission and Ofcom does not extend to other forms of media. As far as the law is concerned, there is little that applies directly to the publication of material by criminals about their crimes. Confiscation laws have been used on only one occasion: the Randle and Pottle case in the late 1980s. The law has been updated since then and confiscation is now covered by the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. The simple reality is that dealing with publications about crime is not what the confiscation provisions in Part 2 of that Act are designed to do. Their application in circumstances such as these is far from certain. The legislation is generic and bears only incidentally on accounts of crime. In addition, and importantly, confiscation orders are obtained at the point of conviction, whereas a publication about a crime may not be written until many years after the event. In a similar vein, civil law provides little opportunity to address the problem of profits from accounts of crimes. In summary, we do not agree that existing laws are adequate to deal with the problem of criminals profiting from accounts of their crimes. Our scheme will remove the legal difficulties and uncertainties that I have highlighted and ensure that the High Court has the power to act, on application from a relevant enforcement authority, when an offender exploits material pertaining to the commission of an offence. I urge the Committee to remain focused on the overall aim, which is to—