Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2018-01-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Douglas Hogg (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I support what the noble and learned Lord has said. My own view is that the power in the Bill gives far too great a power to Ministers. The fact that this specific power is subject to the affirmative resolution procedure is not a sufficient safeguard, not least because—a point I have made time and again—the procedure does not provide a power of amendment Let us consider for a moment what this power enables the Government to do. It could be used in amending, revoking or repealing existing legislation or to extend classes of offence to which the amended legislation applied. It could be used to increase penalties. It could be used to remove statutory defences. It could be used to amend the definition of criminal intent. Indeed, it could make absolute offences that presently require proof of a specific intent. Because it is an amending power, it could be used to give further powers to the investigating officials or to increase the penalties imposed by the courts One can get a very good guide as to what could be done from the clause of the Bill on enforcement, Clause 16, where one can find among other things that the regulations could impose a sentence of imprisonment of up to 10 years. That could be done by regulation—without the power to amend. There is a further objection if one actually considers, just for a moment, the purpose that can be used to justify the regulations. Clause 1(2) states: "A purpose is within this subsection if the appropriate Minister making the regulations considers that carrying out that purpose would— (a) further the prevention of terrorism, in the United Kingdom or elsewhere, (b) be in the interests of national security, (c) be in the interests of international peace and security, or (d) further a foreign policy objective of the government of the United Kingdom" Paragraph (a) is all right, but paragraph (b) is becoming pretty broad and paragraph (c) is even broader, and paragraph (d) refers to an objective that might never previously have been discussed by Parliament or even disclosed to an admiring public. We are enabling a Minister, by fiat, to introduce regulations of that kind There are well-intentioned Ministers on the Front Bench such as the noble Lord, Lord Young. We have known each other for almost 60 years. I would no doubt be very content to let him have those powers. But then I ask myself whether I would want to give those powers to Mr McDonnell or Jeremy Corbyn. I suspect that nobody in your Lordships’ House tonight would wish to do that—certainly not the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, very sensible fellow that he is. I suspect that we would be paving the way to the elective dictatorship of which my father wrote and spoke If we are to do these things we do them by primary legislation, surely not by secondary legislation over which we have precious little control and when I know that the Whips will be very active with noble Lords who have never read the legislation. I do not know whether the noble and learned Lord will press his amendment, but, if he does, he will have my support.