§ Lords amendment: No. 5.
§ Mrs. McGuireI beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.
Mr. Deputy SpeakerWith this it will be convenient to consider Lords amendments Nos. 11 to 13, 16, 17, 26, 27, 44, 49 to 51, 54, 55, 74, 80 to 82, 85, 86, 95 and 96.
§ Mrs. McGuireThis group of Government amendments on the subject of postponement has two basic purposes, and I trust that we can move forward on the basis of consensus. First, the amendments take account of the criticism of the original version of clause 7 that was made in Committee. Clause 7 originally stated that a confiscation order must be made before sentence. Although the clause was qualified by the postponement provisions in clauses 15 and 16, we agreed that it was somewhat too categorical. In practice, more often than not confiscation orders are postponed. Clause 7 and its equivalents in parts 3 and 4 have therefore been removed, and clause 15(1) and its part 3 and 4 equivalents now leave it open as to whether the court postpones the confiscation hearings.
Secondly, we have added a provision that will prevent a confiscation order from being quashed merely because of a procedural error in the court's application of the 505 postponement provisions. We are most concerned that that sort of thing should not happen to confiscation orders under the Bill. The main purpose of postponement provisions is to enable defendants to be sentenced quickly and to give the court time to deal with the confiscation issues. We do not wish them to be grounds for appeals on technicalities, and the amendments will prevent that from happening.
The amendments will improve the practical operation of the Bill, and I commend them to the House.
§ Mr. GrieveI can confirm to the hon. Lady that there is agreement on the amendments. I am grateful to the Government for having taken on board what was said during one of the constructive episodes in Committee in which we were pleased to participate. This illustrates the necessity of a dialogue between Opposition Members, Ministers and their Back Benchers to try to improve a Bill. I am delighted that the hon. Lady has been able to achieve that.
§ Lords amendment agreed to.