Customs and Excise (Hansard, 12 March 2001)

§ The Solicitor-General

The report by His Honour John Gower QC and Sir Anthony Hammond KCB QC was delivered to the Attorney-General on 5 December 2000. I have today placed a copy of the report in the Libraries and copies of the report are available on request to the solicitor for HM Customs and Excise.

The report concludes that the Customs and Excise solicitor's office should retain its prosecution function, but that in exercising this function, including the giving of advice to investigating officers, it must be truly independent and be seen to be so. To that end, the report has also concluded that in relation to the prosecution function the solicitor should be accountable to the Attorney-General rather than to the commissioners and that the solicitor/client relationship between the commissioners and the solicitor should cease in relation to this function. Where cases are referred to the solicitor's office with a view to prosecution, the decision on whether to do so will rest with the appropriate lawyer after consultation with, where 417W necessary, an administrator on matters of policy and public interest. These recommendations ate supported by a number of associated recommendations on detailed structural and financial aspects.

The Government have carefully considered all these recommendations. They accept all the recommendations in principle, but, given the significant resource implications associated with some recommendations, have opted for a phased approach to implementation.

The Government have had particular regard to the need to ensure that adequate resources arc made available to the solicitor's office to enable it properly to conduct the large and complex drugs and other prosecutions which were the main focus of the report, and which are conducted by the special casework division of that office (SCD). They have therefore decided to afford this area of work the greatest priority.

Accordingly, it has been decided that, with effect from 1 April 2001, Customs and Excise will invest sufficient extra resources in the solicitor's office to enable it to implement the recommendations in the report which bear directly on the cases conducted by the SCD. This will mean that, taken with additional resources already provided to the solicitor's office in relation to the Butler report, the number of staff working on those cases in the SCD will almost double.

These additional resources will enable recommendation 10 of the report (the attendance at conferences with counsel, and attendance at hearings in the Crown court) to be implemented quickly in relation to all SCD cases, and in over 60 per cent. of the cases conducted by the solicitor's office in total. The implementation of the remainder of that recommendation will be subject to local trials to evaluate the benefits and costs.

Recommendation 15 (the conduct of magistrates courts proceedings) will not be implemented immediately and will also be subject to such local trials.

The report concludes that Customs and Excise lawyers are dedicated professionals with valuable skills and expertise, and the Government believe that making the changes in accountability, responsibility and resourcing referred to above will ensure public confidence in the solicitor's office as a prosecuting authority.

To enable detailed consideration to be given to the implementation of the remaining recommendations in the report, particularly where these have structural and budgetary implications, the change in accountability will have effect on 1 April 2002.