§ 41. Mr. SkinnerTo ask the Attorney-General whether he has any plans to meet the Director of Public Prosecutions regarding City fraud; and if he will make a statement.
§ The Attorney-GeneralI meet the Director of Public Prosecutions for discussions frequently, and plan to continue to do so. Subjects include the handling of fraud cases, whether arising in the City or elewhere. Some cases of serious and complex fraud, however, are now handled by the serious fraud office.
§ Mr. SkinnerI wonder whether the Attorney-General or the DPP have a quiet little chuckle to themselves when they meet and discuss things such as City fraud as opposed to laws affecting trade unions? Is it not rather odd that in our society people such as Peter Cameron-Webb and Peter Dixon—city fraudsters who got away with £40 million—are not extradited now that five years has elapsed and yet when workers go before the courts, the judges find the appropriate sentences in some old or new law book in order to hammer the railwaymen, the miners, the seafarers and now the dockers? Surely the truth of the matter is that in our society, run by the Tory Government, there is one law for the bosses and City crooks and one for the workers.
§ The Attorney-GeneralI am afraid that, yet again, the wish has been the father to the thought. The confusion in the question lies between the ability to extradite from the United States in which we are bound by⁁
§ Mr. SkinnerYou let them go.
§ The Attorney-GeneralThe hon. Gentleman asked a question as well as making a long speech and I am giving him the credit of expecting an answer to it, which I am trying to give.
In the case of extradition from the United States, we are bound by the provision of the United States extradition law. In the case of prosecution for fraudulent and criminal conduct we are bound by our own provisions. The hon. Gentleman refers to the Lloyd's scandals. He may know, but he did not mention it because it did not suit him, that there is a prosecution now in train against a number of those who have been charged with offences in the course of the Lloyd's scandals. Under the administration of the serious fraud office and the Office of the DPP I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the criminal law is administered without fear or favour, affection of ill will.
§ Mr. LathamWill my right hon. and learned Friend confirm that he and his fellow Law Officers take such offences extremely seriously? Will he also confirm that they are being dealt with as quickly as they can by the police, because that does not always appear to be the case?
§ The Attorney-GeneralI confirm each of those questions, but the police, of course, are outside my ministerial responsibility. I suggest that the attitude of this Government to serious fraud may be judged by the fact that we have invited Parliament to legislate to introduce the serious fraud office, with unique powers, which have led to cases bring brought to court months and sometimes years earlier than would otherwise have been possible. The House need not accept my word on that, but take the word of the Commissioner of Police for the City of London in 552 his most recently published report, in which he paid great tribute to the serious fraud office at the end of its first year of operations.