§ 4 a.m.
§ Mr. CorbettI beg to move Amendment No. 1, in page 1, line 10, after 'offences', insert
'(not being a summary offence or summary offences)'.
§ Mr. CorbettThe purpose of this amendment is to seek to make it impossible for a conspiracy charge to be brought on a summary offence, even though it is accepted that the penalty for conviction would be no more than for the substantive offence itself.
To try to clear the situation, I would ask the Minister to confirm that in furtherance of a trade dispute a charge of conspiracy would not arise, provided that it is a summary offence for which imprisonment may not be imposed. Will the Minister explain why he wishes to allow a conspiracy charge to arise on a non-trade dispute summary offence? We are concerned about the wisdom of allowing a magistrates' court in some circumstances to hear a conspiracy charge which has arisen on a summary offence. It is a very frightening charge to have to face, and the catch-all nature of a conspiracy charge remains. I hope that the Minister will seek to clarify the point, because we are puzzled to know why the Government seek to retain the power to bring a conspiracy charge arising out of a summary offence.
§ Mr. Arthur DavidsonI hope that my reply will satisfy my hon. Friend on this 670 matter. He seeks to remove the possibility of bringing a conspiracy charge in respect of a summary offence. The Law Commission's working party expressed the provisional view that, while conspiracy to commit one summary offence should no longer be an offence, conspiracy to commit more than one offence should continue to be a crime.
Most of those who commented on the working party's proposals agreed that conspiracies to commit summary offences should be crimes and the Law Commission finally concluded in its report that there will be occasions—though they will be rare—upon which conspiracy to commit summary offences ought itself to be the subject of penal sanctions.
The justification for this is the social danger inherent in the deliberate planning of offences on a widespread scale. The classic case quoted in the Law Commission's Report is the case of The Queen v. Blamires Transport Services. What happened in that case was that a company of haulage contractors, and its managing director, were found guilty of conspiring together and with other officials of the company to permit and encourage drivers of lorries to make false records of their daily driving over a period of six months and to drive their motor vehicles without taking the statutory rest periods. It is to deal with that sort of situation that the Law Commission recommended that conspiracy to commit summary offences should continue to be a crime.
I hope that my hon. Friend will accept that there could be cases in which serious offences that should be the subject of conspiracy charges could not be so charged if the amendment were carried.
My hon. Friend was right to imply that as a result of new amendments to the Bill which we shall move later the penalty for a conspiracy charge will not be the same as the penalty to commit a substantive offence. That will be brought into line with all the other conspiracy penalties.
I hope that that will go some way to allaying the fears that have been expressed. Although I understand those fears and the reasons for them, the case that has been mentioned is not an exception. The Law Commission recommended that the offence of conspiracy to commit an offence should continue. I 671 hope that the amendment will be withdrawn.
We are also discussing Amendments Nos. 15, 17 and 18 and it might be appropriate for me to deal with those amendments now. They are extremely simple. These amendments correct a defect in the drafting of Clause 4 whereby, in the case of conspiracy to commit a summary offence for which the consent of someone other than the Director of Public Prosecutions is required, the consent of both the Director of Public Prosecutions and the other person would be required for the conspiracy charge. This would be unnecessary and administratively clumsy. The effect of the amendments is to require the Attorney-General's consent for the cospiracy charge if his consent is required for the substantive offence and otherwise the Director of Public Prosecution's consent alone. I hope that my hon. Friends will be satisfied with the explanation that I have given.
§ Sir M. HaversThe Parliamentary Secretary has been of great assistance, but would he assist in another matter? When do we have a statutory rest in this House and at what time do we start legislating without due care? Is it after 4 a.m.? Perhaps the Minister could help.
§ Mr. DavidsonThe significance of that escapes me now. It could possibly be that the right: hon. and learned Gentleman is referring to a description that I gave of reckless driving and that it so enchanted and fascinated him that he constantly refers to it. However, I do not intend to be drawn into that now.
§ Mr. CorbettIn view of the persuasive words and sensible comments of the Minister, I shall not withdraw the amendment but I shall not press it.
§ Mr. FarrI want to raise a couple of points about the amendments and particularly Amendment No. 17. I want to call the attention of the House to what the situation will be if the Bill is enacted in its present state. Under Clause 4, to which Amendment No. 17 relates, it will be impossible in future for prosecutions to be undertaken without the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions. In many cases in the past the DPP has been most unwilling to authorise another body to make a prosecution.
672 What I have in mind particularly applies to a current case involving four peregrine falcons that were stolen from Scotland and found by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in a shed near Lord's cricket ground. The participants in this affair are being charged by the RSPB with conspiracy under the Protection of Birds Act 1954. Such action would be impossible under Clause 4 without the consent of the DPP who, as far as I know, has never authorised prosecutions where the prosecutor was not a Government Department. I am sure that he would regard cases such as that involving the falcons as insignificant and not worth bothering about. The DPP's office is always slow, and prompt action would be impossible. If adequate evidence were not available at the time, the DPP would take so long to get round to the case that it might be too late.
The fact that the DPP has authorised prosecutions by Government Departments only is a weak spot in the Bill that is highlighted by the case to which I have referred. I hope that the Government will pay attention to this point before it is too late.
§ Amendment negatived.
§ Mr. JohnI beg to move Amendment No. 2, in page 2, line 14, leave out from "offence" to end of line 17 and insert:
which is not punishable with imprisonment".
Mr. Deputy SpeakerWith this, we may take Government Amendments Nos. 3, 4, 21 and 22 and the following Amendments:
§ No. 5, in Clause 3, page 3, line 17, after "question", insert "twice".
§ No. 6, in Clause 3, page 3, line 20, after "question", insert "twice".
§ No. 7, in page 3, line 22, after "and", insert "twice".
§ No. 8, in page 3, line 22, after "or", insert "twice".
§
No. 9, in page 3, line 27, leave out
imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year
and insert
such penalty as could have been imposed had the conviction been for any offence that he was convicted of conspiracy to commit.
§ No. 10, in page 3, line 28, leave out "one year" and insert "two years".
§ No. 11, in page 4, line 1, after "question", insert "twice".
673§ No. 12, in page 4, line 3, after "question", insert "twice".
§ No. 13, in page 4, line 5, after "and", insert "twice".
§ No. 14, in page 4, line 6, after "or", insert "twice".
§ Mr. JohnThe amendment simplifies, but does not alter the sense of the clause, It takes out some unnecessary words. The other Government amendments fulfil undertakings that I gave in Committee to my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Miss Richardson) who said that it was not entirely true that the penalties for conspiracy were being made wholly related to the penalties for the substantive offences because there was a minimum sentence of one year. I undertook to look at this point sympathetically, and the amendments ensure that there is an assimilation between the penalty for the substantive offence and the penalty for conspiracy.
I shall not comment on the Opposition amendments until they have been explained.
§ Sir M. HaversOur amendments seek to provide power for the courts to impose on conviction for conspiracy a sentence of twice the sentence for the substantive offence. No doubt every hon. Member has read with interest and fascination the debate on this subject in Committee and is familiar with the arguments.
These are not political amendments. They are meant to cover the situation of a Mr. Big whose front men carry out the crimes that he plans and arranges. He may be brought into conspiracy cases, but often his part is very much bigger than the part played by those who carried out his arrangements. We seek to give the courts power to deal with him more severely than with his henchmen.
4.15 a.m.
The fear has been expressed that this power would be used by the courts in a way that would be wrong. I do not share that view. Let me take a simple case, that of a big drug ring. The carriers bring drugs into the country from Marseilles or the Far East. It is a highly organised and highly financed operation in which a number of carriers are used. It might be that those carriers are caught on the first trip. One hopes that they 674 are. Mr. Big, who has organised the carriers in a successive group of operations, might have brought the drug in Tibet. The part that he plays compared with the part played by those who bring the drugs in is hardly comparable.
What we are seeking to do is to enable the courts, in those circumstances, if Mr. Big can be put in the dock with the carriers, to give him a sentence that can be twice as much as the maximum sentence that can be imposed on the carriers. It is right that the House should be reminded that the Law Commission, although it originally considered that view, in the end came out against it. But those who have had experience in the courts, particularly with drug offences, feel that that power ought to be given. That is why we seek to double the sentence where conspiracy is proved.
§ Mr. JohnWe reject the Opposition amendments because we take our stand on the Law Commission's Report, which comes out for the principle of making the penalties for conspiracy analogous to the penalties for the substantive crime. That is the basic, philosophical view that the Law Commission reached, and we agree with it.
I am sure that the right hon. and learned Member for Wimbledon (Sir M. Havers) recognises the difficulties in what he is proposing. On 12th May, at column 84 of Hansard, and at other columns, he spoke forcefully about the consultations that he had had and the worries and anxieties felt by those whom he had consulted about the effects of this proposal. He said that the matter would be put right on Report so that the sentence was impossible only in exceptional circumstances.
I am bound to advise the House that, having examined the Opposition amendments, I find that they are in the same form as the amendments tabled in Committee and do not deal with the exceptional circumstances of the example given by the right hon. and learned Gentleman. Therefore, we get to the situation that if a maximum sentence was impossible, someone found guilty of conspiracy would receive double that sentence and he might serve a much longer sentence than someone serving a life sentence. That seems to be basically unfair and at variance with the views of the Law Commission, which 675 recommended that the penalty for conspiracy should be the penalty for the substantive crime.
§ Amendment agreed to.