§ LORD FERRIERMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government the total amount of unpaid court fines in the United Kingdom on the latest date for which figures are available; and what proportion, if any, of that total is now deemed to be irrecoverable]
§ THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM)My Lords, in 1968 the Home Office received from the courts in England and Wales, outside Inner London, fines totalling £12,127,174, and £198,527 was written off as irrecoverable. That is about 1.6 per cent. The arrears on December 31, 1968, amounted to £3,749,625, but they included fines the time for payment of which had not expired. I regret that comparable information is not available for Scotland, where there is no comprehensive central record of fines paid into courts, unpaid fines or fines written off as irrecoverable.
§ LORD FERRIERMy Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his reply. Can he say whether the courts have power to record a liability to a fine on an offender's insurance card; and, if not, would such power help the situation?
§ LORD STONHAMMy Lords, the courts have no such power. As to whether it would help, I should have thought there were enough recourses in law to make the noble Lord's suggestion unnecessary. Certainly it would involve a great deal of work to small purpose, because if the amount of fines written off is something like 1½per cent., part of which must come under the new powers of the courts to reduce fines, it does not seem to me that such a stringent proposal as that is required at all.
LORD HAWKEMy Lords, for how long are unpaid fines carried forward? Is it up to the period allowed by the Statute of Limitation? I cannot quite understand why they should be written off at the end of one year.
§ LORD STONHAMMy Lords, I am sorry if my reply misled the noble Lord. The amount of £198,000 that I gave 206 was the amount that had been written off during the year. Some of those fines would, of course, have been imposed in earlier years, just as the amount of £12 million-odd received during the year would be in part fines imposed during 1967. I mentioned that the amount still outstanding was some £3¾ million, but of course 98½ per cent. of that could be expected to be recovered. As to when they are written off, they are written off when the court decides that it is not going to get them.
§ VISCOUNT DILHORNEMy Lords, is the noble Lord satisfied with the procedure for recovery of fines which are overdue? Also, is he satisfied with this writing off procedure, which means that those who have been fined for criminal offences escape without paying any penalty at all?
§ LORD STONHAMMy Lords, I cannot accept that of necessity they escape without paying any penalty. That would arise only if they paid no fines at all, but, as the noble and learned Viscount is aware, we inserted into the Criminal Justice Act 1967 a provision for the courts to collect fines by instalments. We are having research into the working of the new 1967 provisions, and perhaps I shall be able to answer that question properly in a few months' time. Meanwhile, things seem to be going pretty well. In Inner London the irrecoverable part is only 1.4 per cent.
§ VISCOUNT DILHORNEMy Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his reply
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDSMy Lords, will my noble friend tell me whether this very small figure of 1½ per cent. is perhaps due to deaths, to people permanently leaving the country or to other such reasons? It seems to me a very small proportion to explain in any other way.
§ LORD STONHAMMy Lords, I think that the small proportion is explained by the general probity of the British people and the efficiency of the courts. My noble friend has suggested obvious reasons for writing off fines. If a person is dead or has gone to another part of the world, of course we must write them off. But when we think of the possibilities for fines being irrecoverable, 1½ per cent. is a very small percentage, and a most gratitfying one.