My Lords, despite the frequency of Home Office Bills at times appearing to match the frequency of gas and electricity bills, the Minister has shown an enthusiasm for this Bill that has been surpassed, not for the first time, only by the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman. This Bill has a number of separate intended courses of action, rather than a single new theme or policy objective running through its provisions, other than a desire to make serious crime a less attractive proposition for those tempted to go down that road—mainly, though not exclusively, through higher sentences and more offences. It covers the asset recovery process, through amendments to the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, and increases sentences for attacks on computer systems, through amendments to the Computer Misuse Act 1990.
It moves on to serious, organised and gang-related crime generally, creating a new offence of participation in an organised crime group, and making changes to the law relating to serious crime prevention orders and gang injunctions. It provides for new powers on entering and searching premises for drug-cutting agents, makes changes to the criminal law in respect of protecting children and it makes amendments to the Terrorism Act 2006 to confer or extend extraterritorial jurisdiction relating to the UK courts in respect of the offences of preparation of terrorist acts and training for terrorism.
We have had detailed and highly informative contributions in this debate, which have rightly addressed—and, basically, welcomed—the main provisions of the Bill. The issue, though, is not so much to question the changes it seeks to make, or the outcomes it seeks to achieve, but rather to question whether the Bill always goes far enough or simply restates existing legislation that is not being fully enforced;
whether it will always achieve the objectives desired; and whether there could or should have been other issues covered in the Bill—a question that my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey in particular addressed.
We support doing more to recover the proceeds of crime. Performance in this area has actually got worse under the current Government. The amount collected by the police and the volume of confiscation orders has fallen, yet there are still some £1.5 billion of outstanding orders because assets have been hidden, moved away overseas or reduced by third-party claims. Only 18% of confiscation orders worth more than £1 million are recovered. The National Audit Office report indicated that just 26p of every £100 of profit that a criminal makes is confiscated.
We have been calling on the Government to end early release with regard to default sentences where organised criminals refuse to pay, and to stop loopholes enabling criminals to transfer assets to families. We will want to look carefully at the provisions to see whether they will be effective in confiscating criminal assets. It also appears that over the past five years or so, £200 million-worth of assets have been frozen by the UK courts in response to overseas requests for legal assistance, but that none of that money has been returned to the countries that asked us to seize and freeze those assets. Do the Government accept that that is the case and, if they do, do they think that will help in securing co-operation when we want it from overseas jurisdictions?
In her opening speech, my noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon indicated our support for the measures in Part 5 on the offence of child cruelty and conduct likely to cause psychological suffering or injury, as well as physical harm; on the new offence of possession of paedophile manuals; and on extending the extraterritorial reach of offences under the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003. However, there has been a drop in Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre arrests and in the number of child abusers being caught. Child cruelty conviction rates have fallen. In 2009, there were just over 700 convictions—about 720—but last year it fell to just above 550. Why do the Government believe that these developments have happened, and what measures do they propose to address the situation?
Violent crime has also risen while the number of prosecuted criminals has gone down. Reports of rape and domestic violence, like those of child abuse, are up, but convictions are not matching those rising reports. What is going up is the cost of some police and crime commissioners. The Northamptonshire commissioner, for example, now employs 34 staff at a cost of £1.4 million. That is at a time when the proportion of adults reporting seeing a police officer on foot patrol in the local area at least once a week has declined.
The Bill creates new offences and increases maximum sentences for attacks on computer systems and cyberattacks. These are crimes that can have serious consequences for the economy of the nation, of individual companies or of groups of companies, as well as for our national security. Such crimes are planned, premeditated, probably sustained and carried out over
a period, and the perpetrators know that they are hitting large numbers of people, including the most vulnerable in society. They should be dealt with severely. We should also be tough on those who through computer crime seek to trick and defraud large numbers of people who end up losing considerable amounts of their hard-earned money and savings.
However, the issue is not simply one of the level of sentences and breadth of offences provided for in the Bill. They may well be a deterrent—although, interestingly, the Government’s impact assessment says that there is no evidence that cybercriminals will be deterred by a longer sentence. The biggest deterrent, of course, is the likelihood of being caught.
Fraud and computer crime has been rising. It is a 21st century crime. It does not hit the headlines in the way, for example, that gun and knife crime or violent assaults do, but those who are victims of computer crime and fraud can also suffer devastating consequences. In some cases, it can have a serious effect on their health and, in extreme cases, even lead to death—as the Minister said in his opening speech. It does not hit the headlines because some feel almost ashamed of having to admit allowing themselves to be fooled—and perhaps because some of our major companies, including financial institutions, would not regard it as helpful if the full extent of the problem were widely known. It does not hit the headlines because there is no immediate victim in the way that there is in the case of gun and knife crime or violent assault, particularly when that is on a vulnerable person. Yet it is an area of criminal activity that is expanding fast and becoming of increasing concern, as reflected by the measures proposed in the Bill.
I hope that when he responds, the Minister will be able to say what the Government are doing to provide the necessary resources to fight this kind of crime at all levels. Police forces have made cuts; the temptation must be to make those cuts in areas that will have the least impact as far as adverse headlines are concerned. Have police forces around the country increased or decreased the number of officers engaged full-time in working to detect and prevent computer crime and the fraud associated with it? If the numbers have increased at a time of cuts in front-line policing, has that been in proportion to the increase in the volume of such crime?
On the national and international scene, this is an area in which the National Crime Agency and the City of London fraud unit are involved. Have their resources been increased and, if so, by how much? Are we still in a situation where the prospects of bringing the perpetrators of such crimes to justice are less than those of being able to disrupt the fraud or scam that is occurring, but without being able to call the key perpetrators to account?
The Bill does not offer a coherent government plan for tackling online fraud and economic crime. Recorded offences of fraud have increased by a quarter over the past year but prosecutions and convictions have gone down while business crime, which surveys indicate is going up, is not counted in official figures despite online crime exploding. I hope that the Minister will be able to give some assurance on these issues because,
important though it is that sentences should fit the crime, it is equally important that the required resources are there to keep such online fraud and economic crime in check and not allow it to become a crime with, all too often, apparently easy and secure pickings for those who engage in it.
As my friend Lady Smith of Basildon has already said, we support further action against those aiding and abetting criminals, subject to ensuring that innocent parties are not sucked in as well. We also support the proposed amendment to the Terrorism Act, although we question whether the Home Office is doing enough within communities to deter young people from acting on the words of those who encourage them to go to Syria.
This is not one of those Bills where major battle lines over principles have to be set out at Second Reading. However, there are details about the effectiveness and potential consequences of at least some of the Government’s proposals which will need to be addressed in Committee, as will the extent to which the Government are actually providing the necessary resources to deter or bring to justice the perpetrators of some of the serious offences set out not only in the Bill but in existing legislation.
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