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Lord Waddington: My Lords, will the noble Baroness bear very much in mind that many of us feel that it would be an intolerable insult to those of our Members who have suffered at the hands of the IRA if murderers, apologists for murder and associates of murderers were to come anywhere near this place?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I recognise that this is an issue on which feelings run very high. I am sure that all your Lordships recognise that there are those in this House who have suffered cruelly from terrorist activities. However, I remind your Lordships that we are engaged in a peace process at the moment and that many will wish to support that peace process in the way that was the case in another place. I stress that it will be a matter for your Lordships to decide. That opportunity will be presented in due course.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, will the noble Baroness ensure that the committee considering these matters is given access to the information held by the security authorities concerning the intelligence-gathering of the IRA, which continues, and its purchase of modern weapons from Russia, which also continues, so that the committee can take a view on whether the IRA's partners, and possibly the Members in the other place, are fit to be trusted to come to this end of the corridor?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I do not think that there would have been any question of allowing access to individuals thought to be a threat either in another place or in your Lordships' House. Of course I hope that all the available information that can be put before your Lordships is put before your Lordships, but I remind the House that some matters will, I am sure, be coming from very sensitive
intelligence sources and may not be readily available. I can only repeat that the sensitivity of the issue is fully recognised. However, not only will the Offices Committee have the opportunity to discuss it, your Lordships will have the opportunity to discuss it in due course thereafter.
Lord Dubs: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that, in principle, it would be unfortunate if this House were to adopt different practices regarding Members of another place than that place itself adopted? Would that not reflect badly on the overall running of the Palace of Westminster, and would there not have to be exceptionally good reasons for doing it? Is she also aware that at least one of the Members of Parliament in question is a Minister in Northern Ireland and serves in its Executive? The way in which some of the innuendoes have been cast today does not do the peace process any good.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I agree in part with some of my noble friend's comments. I agree, for example, that it is not right to refer in your Lordships' House to Members of another place as they have sadly been referred to during these exchanges. However, I do not agree that, having said that the Government will not be expressing a view on the matter, I can now express a view as a member of the Government that would effectively reverse my original answer. I can only tell noble Lords that, in the first instance, they will have an opportunity to express their views in the Offices Committee. The leaders of all the political parties represented in your Lordships' House, the Convenor of the Cross-Benchers and the Whips will be on that Committee and will be able to express their views. Thereafter, the matter will come before your Lordships' House and every noble Lord will have the opportunity to express a view on it.
Baroness O'Cathain: My Lords, can the Minister say whether those individuals will be permitted those rights in the interim before the view of the House has been expressed?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I thought that I had said that, in the interim, the passes allow access only to the public places in your Lordships' House. The issues of particular sensitivity mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Lamont—standing at the Bar of the House to listen to our debates; use of the Library reading rooms; use of the Members' Gallery; and sponsored visits on the Line of Route round your Lordships' House—will be considered by the Offices Committee on 14th May.
Lord Roper: My Lords, without wishing to pre-empt discussion in the Administration and Works Sub-Committee and in the Offices Committee, may I say that we on these Benches believe that the decision to make the interim ban and to put the issue to the appropriate committees of the House is the correct one?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I am delighted to hear the Chief Whip for the Liberal Democrats make such a very sensitive contribution.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, can the Minister say whether passes have been given to staff, researchers or assistants of those Members of another place who are part of Sinn Fein? If so, has there been any vetting or background checks?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, what I can tell your Lordships is that the applications for passes for researchers for the Members in question are being dealt with in the same way as they are for any other Member of another place.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, will that public access include the offices or the environs of the offices of former Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland who now serve in this House and may be at particular risk?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, as I understand it, Members of another place have access to the public parts of your Lordships' House. The public parts of your Lordships' House do not include the particular corridors on which particular Ministers, former Ministers or Members of the Opposition parties work. The sensitive issues are those that the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, mentioned and I have repeated in answering the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, we all understand the needs of the peace process. However, does not the noble Baroness understand that what repulses people across the country is the sight of people elected to Parliament who refuse to take their seat but who still receive hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money while at the same time carrying out some of the activities which my noble friend Lord Tebbit has just mentioned? Do the Government still believe that another place came to the right decision?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, the noble Lord will not be surprised to hear my answer. This is a matter for another place, and another place debated it. Another place also voted by 322 votes to 189 votes that they should go ahead on the basis with which all noble Lords are familiar.
Proceeds of Crime Bill
3.6 p.m.
Lord Rooker: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Rooker.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES in the Chair.]
Schedule 1 [Assets Recovery Agency]:
Baroness Buscombe moved Amendment No. 1:
- Page 263, line 34, at end insert—
The noble Baroness said: While the issue of performance targets set each year by the director of the assets recovery agency was the subject of considerable debate in another place, we felt it important to revisit this question and probe the Minister on whether the Government have thought more about it—particularly given that our concerns met with significant sympathy from the Government's own Back-Benchers.
We would like reassurances from the Minister that this open-ended desire for performance targets in Paragraph 8(3)(b) of Schedule 1—targets which need not relate to the director's objectives—will not in practice mean a plethora of targets that realistically cannot be met and indeed might compromise the entire function of the assets recovery agency. We are keen to ensure that the director will focus on a discrete number of realisable targets that genuinely contribute to the agency's effective operation. More importantly, we hope that that operation concentrates on the recovery of assets as opposed to economic targets. Although it would be nice to think that the assets recovery agency could pay its own expenses, that is not the aim of the exercise. I beg to move.
Lord Rooker: As the noble Baroness said, this issue has been discussed in another place—as have many other issues. The Bill was in another place for a long time and many of the issues which we shall be discussing have already been discussed there. To avoid repetition, I shall not make that point again. The Government are re-examining many of those issues.
The issue of agency targets has in fact been discussed on two previous occasions, and I understand that an amendment identical to Amendment No. 1 was tabled then. Although it is too early to say with any certainty what the targets will be, it might help our deliberations if I were to set out our broad thinking on the issue. Measures of the agency's output are likely to include targets relating to the number of confiscation orders obtained by the agency and the value of those orders; the number of successful civil recovery actions and the amounts recovered through that route; the number of successful taxation cases and the amounts recovered through that route; international co-operation over confiscation orders; the performance of the centre of excellence; the agency's financial performance, volume of output, quality of the service and efficiency and so forth; and the agency's involvement with the priorities of the Secretary of State and other government priorities.
We do not want to restrict the director's ability to draw up targets in terms of the number he may set or, indeed, to what they should relate. I fully accept the concerns expressed about a huge number of targets. However, at the end of the day in this case it is for the director to decide how many targets there should be according to his priorities and what he thinks he will be able to deliver. Frankly, if the director thinks that he should have 15, 20 or 30 targets, he should be able to put that number into his annual plan. We also anticipate specific targets being set in relation to Northern Ireland, which would increase the number of targets required.
The amendment would also require that the performance targets should relate specifically to the functions of the agency. The current provision requires the director to set objectives for the year but does not limit the targets he sets to those objectives. That is because he may want to set performance targets relating to functions which do not appear in his high-level objectives for the year. Paragraph 8(1) of Schedule 1 makes clear that while the director will be permitted to exercise only the functions he is given by statute, the annual plan must set out how he is to exercise those functions. In other words, it is not possible for the director to set performance targets that bear no relation to his functions. That is important because his functions are specifically laid down in the Bill.
The director will draw up his performance targets in his capacity as head of a non-ministerial department. That is not unique in Whitehall; there are several. It will be for him, with the agreement of the Secretary of State, to decide how many targets are appropriate. We should not place restrictions on the director in primary legislation.
Having given the noble Baroness an idea of the thinking behind the targets—certainly, we do not want to be prescriptive—I believe that, in the end, we should leave the matter to the director.
"( ) For the purposes of sub-paragraph (3), there shall be no more than 10 performance targets for any financial year and these targets shall relate specifically to the functions of the Agency."
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