Thank you very much, convener. Good morning, committee.
I thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to discuss the provisions of the Serious Crime Bill for which we are seeking consent. As you will be aware, the Serious Crime Bill was introduced in the House of Lords the day after the Queen’s speech, in early June. It has now progressed through the House of Lords to the House of Commons, where it had its first reading on 6 November. A number of provisions in the bill are reserved to the United Kingdom Parliament. I want to discuss those provisions that fall within the devolved competence of the Scottish Parliament and, in particular, the legislative consent motion that requires to be agreed to allow the UK Parliament to legislate on those matters.
The principal objective of the bill as a whole is to ensure that law enforcement agencies have effective legal powers to deal with the threat from serious organised crime. Much of that will be achieved by updating existing legislation. The LCM seeks approval for the UK Parliament to apply to Scotland provisions in four main areas of the bill: amendments to the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002; amendments to the Computer Misuse Act 1990; amendments to the Serious Crime Act 2007; and an amendment to the Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation (Scotland) Act 2005. I will briefly outline each of those areas.
The Scottish Government has undertaken to strengthen the proceeds of crime legislation—which is also referred to as POCA—in the current session of Parliament. Committee members will be aware that, although criminal and civil law are generally devolved, POCA provides for the confiscation and civil recovery of the proceeds of reserved crime, such as drug trafficking and money laundering, as well as the proceeds of devolved crime. Because the majority of cases that come to court involve drug-related offences, the legislation is reserved.
Two of the clauses in the bill—clauses 19 and 23—provide for measures that relate to Scotland that will close the gap with the rest of the UK for default sentences and the civil recovery of assets. The bill includes provisions proposed by the UK Government that the Scottish Government agrees will strengthen the operation of the asset recovery process. The relevant provisions are contained in clauses 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 37 and 38. The practical impact of the amendments in the bill is to reinforce the powers that are available to prosecutors and the civil recovery unit at the Crown Office by strengthening the existing legislation.
The criminal law relating to computer crime that is found in the Computer Misuse Act 1990 is generally a devolved matter, but clause 40 introduces a new offence concerning
“unauthorised acts causing, or creating risk of, serious damage”.
It relates to reserved matters, such as national security, and devolved matters. Provisions in the bill also implement the European Union directive on attacks against information systems and reduce the threat and impact of cybercrime by ensuring that the legislation is robust and consistent with that in other parts of the UK.
Back in 2006, the Parliament agreed a legislative consent motion on changes to the Computer Misuse Act 1990 for the reasons that I have given. We consider that it is again appropriate for certain changes to be made in that way, and that the Serious Crime Bill presents the most efficient and effective way of transposing the directive’s requirements in or as regards Scotland.
The bill amends part 1 of the Serious Crime Act 2007 to extend serious crime prevention orders—SCPOs—to Scotland. These are civil orders that will be used to protect the public by preventing, restricting or disrupting involvement in organised crime in Scotland. The practical impact of SCPOs is that law enforcement agencies will have an additional tool for tackling serious organised crime in Scotland. Amending the 2007 act to extend SCPOs to Scotland will ensure that the civil orders will be able to cover areas in which the Scottish Parliament does not currently have the appropriate legislative competence, which include areas such as drug trafficking, money laundering the proceeds of drug trafficking, counterfeiting and arms trafficking.
As there are significant overlaps between SCPOs and the financial reporting orders—FROs—that were introduced by the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, the bill seeks to repeal the provisions on FROs in that act to provide for such orders to be imposed through serious crime prevention orders.
The bill seeks to extend the extraterritorial reach of the offences in the Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation (Scotland) Act 2005 so that they apply to habitual as well as permanent UK residents. The practical impact of that amendment is the closure of an existing legal loophole. The provision has been included in the bill only for the purposes of speed. We want the identified loophole to be closed as quickly as possible, instead of having to wait to make the amendment through a specific piece of Scottish primary legislation. I hope that the committee agrees with that approach.
Although the Scottish Parliament can legislate on devolved matters, the legislation that is amended by the Serious Crime Bill covers a mixture of reserved and devolved issues. I believe that it is sensible for the provisions in the bill that amend POCA, the Computer Misuse Act 1990 and the Serious Crime Act 2007, and the provision that amends Scottish legislation to close a loophole on female genital mutilation, should be dealt with by the UK Parliament on this occasion.
I therefore ask the committee to support the draft legislative consent motion and will be happy to answer any questions.