Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, I express my thanks to the Minister for having a discussion with me about the amendment, which enables us to debate it and look at it in some detail. Clause 64 amends the Criminal Law Act 1977, which was itself amended in 1998. The curious thing about this provision relating to conspiracy is that a review of conspiracy law is going on at the moment, which will shortly report and may well lead to some statutory effect being given to the law of conspiracy in the broadest sense. When one sees an amendment to the Act being proposed at this stage, suspicions are aroused that there must be a case knocking about somewhere for which this provision is being introduced. The clause changes the heading of Section 1A of the Criminal Law Act 1977, from "Conspiracy to commit offences outside the United Kingdom", to "Conspiracy to commit offences outside England and Wales". An agreement, which is part of a conspiracy, falls within this section if it is in pursuit of an agreed course of conduct, which would at some stage involve an act by one or more of the parties or the happening of some other event intended to take place in the country or territory outside the United Kingdom. That amendment to the 1977 Act removes the words "the United Kingdom" and puts in their place "England and Wales". One would have thought that, if there was a conspiracy in England and Wales that was to be carried out in Scotland or Northern Ireland, either the courts of England and Wales or the courts of Northern Ireland or Scotland would have jurisdiction. Why do we need a statutory provision of the nature now proposed? The curious thing about it is that Clause 64(1)(b) says: ""In relation to an agreement entered into during the period beginning with that date"—" that is, 4 September 1998— ""and ending with the commencement of section 64(1) of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, this section applies as if in subsection (2) for ‘England and Wales’ there were substituted ‘the United Kingdom’."." I have never come across drafting like this, in which the words are changed and then reversed in a subsection, so that for a particular period of time, instead of England and Wales, you go back to the original wording, "the United Kingdom". That was what caused me to have some suspicion that there might be an attempt to introduce some retrospective legislation that would catch a case that has not been prosecuted for some reason. Fortunately, the Minister and I have conducted some research into the matter, and I look forward to hearing an explanation, which may throw light on a very odd piece of legislative drafting. I beg to move.