Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2017-02-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Edward Garnier (Conservative, Centre-right): I am sure that my hon. Friend will have plenty of opportunity in the next two or three hours to make his own speech, but I am always very happy to take his interventions. If, however, he looks at The Hague convention—which is being brought into our criminal law by this Bill—he will see that there is no rubric or form of words that are required by that convention to be imported into our criminal law. If we are to base our criminal law on a form of precedent, I would look to the most recent statute, which is the 2003 Act, rather than two undebated and, I think, time-limited statutory instruments. But anyhow, my hon. Friend will no doubt have an opportunity over the next few hours to develop the points that he has thought a great deal about I have yet to be persuaded that the Government’s counter-arguments, which I rudely describe as mere assertions, deal with the points that I made on Second Reading. I will not repeat what I said on Second Reading—I know that the hon. Member for Cardiff West, speaking from the Opposition Front Bench, has carefully read what I said on 31 October and recited it every week at the Labour party parliamentary meetings, which is why Labour Members have not attended this afternoon—but I make a serious point: the content of clause 17 sets up two systems, which is to say, actual knowledge, which is fair enough, and "reason to suspect", which in my view is not fair enough and could lead to the conviction of people for lacking curiosity or being careless, rather than for having the requisite criminal knowledge During the meetings, as I say, the Government undertook to find out from the Crown Prosecution Service how many cases had been dropped or not pursued by virtue of what was described as the high level of criminal intent required under the 2003 Act. As I understand it—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—there is no information to support that assertion. That argument, it seems to me, falls away To persuade me and those who think like me who come from the art market rather than from Parliament that this is a perfectly acceptable way to design this clause, it has been said, "Don’t worry; we will produce some guidance to the CPS, or the CPS itself will produce some guidance, which will inform the decisions of the police or prosecutors about whether to prosecute under the ‘reason to suspect’ arm of clause 17." Of course, we have not seen that guidance, and we do not know where it is or what it will say; neither do we know what its legal effect will be I repeat that we are here creating an offence that could lead to somebody being sent to prison for seven years. Now if I am about to be sent to prison for seven years, I would rather like to know why. If I am to be prosecuted—even if I am later acquitted—I would again like to have some clearer information about the basis on which I am to be prosecuted I would hope, too, that all of us in the Chamber would like to keep an eye on the public expenditure implications of running prosecutions. We all know that the court system is overloaded; we all know that bringing prosecutions is expensive and has to be paid for by the taxpayer. If we are asked to introduce into our criminal law wording that foments uncertainty and a sense of unfairness, we should all be a little more careful before permitting such wording to go ahead As I said a few moments ago, I shall not repeat everything I said on 31 October, because it is there on the record for everyone to see. Let me finish, however, with this plea. If the Government are not persuaded to get the law right, simply because so few people are interested in this subject, and they know that they can whip the Government party to come in here and vote for whatever it is they want, I say fair enough in that I accept the arithmetic of our legislative democracy. It would be foolish of me to think that by standing up and speaking on a Monday afternoon I could persuade others to defeat the Government I am not going to press my amendments to the vote. I do not know whether my hon. Friends the Members for Kensington and for North West Norfolk have other plans, but for my part, I shall not urge them to press these amendments. What I do urge, however, is that the Government at least condescend to tell us what on earth they are on about. So far, we have not had any genuine information or any genuine evidence or any thoughtful response to the concerns that I have expressed. As I said on the previous occasion, these are not just my concerns; they are shared by many who have worked for many years in the art market and have practical experience of the difficulties caused by woolly wording My arguments have also been assisted by and based on what has been said by people who have far greater legal expertise than I have. I listed their names on Second Reading. They include a former Lord Chief Justice, a professor of law at Leicester University, a highly respected Queen’s Counsel who specialises in criminal law, and many others who—while approving of the policy behind the Bill and the inclusion of this ancient convention—fear that we are setting off on a wrong track that may lead to injustice. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister hates injustice of all sorts, and I suspect that, when she finds it in a Bill of which she has the conduct, she will probably want to do something to correct it.