My Lords, Amendments 58 and 59 deal with the same provision in the Bill. We have now come to the chapter on money laundering.
Under new Section 336B(6), the Bill provides that the court must direct the exclusion from the hearing of an application of,
“the interested person to whom that application relates”,
and “anyone representing that person”. The second of my amendments would make that discretionary for the court, but the principal amendment would remove the provision, because it would be appropriate for the Committee to hear the Minister’s justification for excluding from the hearing without alternative arrangements on their behalf the suspected person and his representatives. I acknowledge that I missed a similar provision earlier in the Bill, but the point remains.
I appreciate that there is concern not to tell that person what evidence the police have when they seek to extend the moratorium period, but it is serious to restrict arguments and representation when the person is likely to be subject to an extension of the moratorium. It is part of the whole landscape of innocence until
guilt is proved. As far as I understand it, that person will have no opportunity to object to the extension—or perhaps will have an opportunity but no real target to aim at because neither he nor his representatives will have heard the arguments.
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Amendment 60 would amend Clause 10. This is less significant but still significant. In dealing with a disclosure request, on the information requested the words are “ought to be disclosed”. That seemed to me unusual terminology in a Bill, as “ought” has an element of judgment in it. There are conditions to be applied, and I am not sure whether “ought” refers to those conditions; the criteria for this provision should be made clear.
Amendment 61 takes us to our old friend, breaches of obligations of confidence and the common-law duty of confidentiality and, in particular, legal professional privilege. The Bill overrides the common-law duty of confidentiality and, as far as I can see, legal professional privilege is not dealt with, although in this complex forest—I think that is the noun—of legislation, it may well be somewhere else and I have not seen it. I raise the point partly because intrinsically it is important but also to ask whether the professional organisations have commented on this issue. There is an equivalent provision elsewhere in the provisions about terrorist property; why not in Part 1 of the Bill? I hope the Minister can help me on that matter; I am sure she can. I beg to move.