Justice 1 Committee, 19 Nov 2003

Meeting date: Wednesday, November 19, 2003

Official Report 242KB pdf

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Subordinate Legislation

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Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 Amendment (Scotland) Order 2003 (Draft)

I welcome the Deputy Minister for Justice, Hugh Henry. Under item 2, we will deal with a draft instrument under the affirmative procedure. I refer members to the note prepared by the clerk and invite the minister to speak to and move motion S2M-566.

The draft order is proposed in exercise of powers conferred by section 142(6) of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, which I will refer to as POCA. Section 142(6) allows the Scottish ministers to amend schedule 4 of POCA, which applies to Scotland only. That is done through draft affirmative procedure.

Part 3 of POCA allows courts in Scotland to make confiscation orders against offenders who are convicted of an offence. Where the accused is deemed to have a criminal lifestyle, the court has the power in certain circumstances to assume that the accused's assets over the previous six years have been obtained from criminal activity and to calculate the confiscation order accordingly.

Schedule 4 lists the offences that are indicative of a criminal lifestyle. They include pimping, brothel keeping, drug trafficking, arms trafficking, money laundering and blackmail. The order before members today proposes the addition of the offence of trafficking in prostitution etc to the list of lifestyle offences in schedule 4.

The offence of trafficking in prostitution etc was created by section 22 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 and came into force on 27 June 2003. The offence covers arranging or facilitating the travel of an individual to, from or within the United Kingdom for the purposes of sexual exploitation, namely prostitution or the making or production of obscene or indecent material.

Trafficking individuals for the purposes of prostitution or the making or producing of obscene or indecent material is an exploitative crime. We believe that it belongs in schedule 4 along with other offences through which individuals seek systematically to make money from criminal activity and the suffering of other people. Similar provisions are in force in the rest of the UK by virtue of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002.

The proposal to add the offence of trafficking in prostitution etc to the list of lifestyle offences is entirely sensible and consistent. It will allow the courts to confiscate profits from the criminal lifestyles connected to that despicable trade. I therefore ask the committee to recommend to the Parliament that it should approve the making of the order.

I move,

That the Justice 1 Committee recommends that the draft Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 Amendment (Scotland) Order 2003 be approved.

When we were working on the budget, we had some discussion about what was happening with the money that is confiscated under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. We found out that 50 per cent of the money came back to Scotland via the Treasury but we are still a bit unclear about what that money is being used for. Can you give us some hard examples of what it has been used for up to now? For example, would it be your intention to put back some of the money that comes from the proceeds of prostitution into work with those who suffer as a result of prostitution?

I am not sure that we would want to start ring fencing money that was recovered for the sole benefit of those who might have been affected by specific offences. We would not be able to anticipate how much money would be recovered as a result of the activities of those engaged in trafficking in prostitution. Further, at some point in the future, we might want to help in that regard and might therefore want to use money that had been recovered in relation to other crimes.

Currently, £250,000 is being provided to help to support addiction services for the Glasgow homeless. Clearly, that money is being used to work with a group of people whose lives are affected by criminal activity. We have also spent £180,000 to help to establish a new network of family support groups for the families of drug misusers. Often, the families are the forgotten victims of drugs. Some people make money from the drug trade and some individuals become victims of it, but families also suffer, sometimes because the drug user steals from them but also because of the emotional and physical consequences of having a drug user in the family.

We have been trying to support those family support groups, which do an excellent job. However, we are keeping the situation under review and will reflect on what future moneys should be used for.

Would it be possible for us to see how much money is brought in under the orders each year? It is important that the public be made aware of the effectiveness of the legislation and one of the best ways in which to do that would be to show how much had been confiscated.

The Executive and the Crown Office will soon be able to give the committee details of money that is recovered. You might recall that we gave a commitment to publish details and make them available to the Parliament. However, the legislation has not yet been in operation for a full year—the cash seizure provisions commenced on 30 December 2002, the civil recovery provisions commenced on 24 February 2003 and the criminal lifestyle provisions commenced on 24 March 2003. Once we have been able to find out what has been happening over a period, we will report back to Parliament on a regular basis.

The provision is welcome. When we discussed the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill, the connection between the new offence of trafficking in prostitution and proceeds of crime did not occur to me, but they are connected. We welcome the addition to the other offences that the minister outlined.

The question is, that motion S2M-566 be agreed to.

Motion agreed to.

That the Justice 1 Committee recommends that the draft Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 Amendment (Scotland) Order 2003 be approved.

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Victim Statements (Prescribed Offences) (Scotland) Amendment Order 2003 (SSI 2003/519)

Agenda item 3 is on a negative instrument and will not take long. Members will recall that we asked the Scottish Executive to add to the offences in the schedule to the Victim Statements (Prescribed Offences) (Scotland) Order 2003, which it has agreed to do. That shows that we are paying attention. Is the committee happy to note the order?

Members indicated agreement.

In that case, we will break for tea and coffee. We will take agenda item 4 at about 12 o'clock.

Meeting suspended.

On resuming—