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Fraud Bill [HL]

Perhaps I may pick up on a point made a moment ago by the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, about uncertainty. The issue about conspiracy to defraud in the common law is that it is vague. If the defence asks for particulars, it will be given either a vague account of what is alleged, or alternatively something rather like an insurance policy, a response which covers all eventualities. Either way it means that the trial is extended because much more ground needs to be covered. I should have thought that that goes directly contrary to the recently stated policy of both the Government and the judiciary to try to confine trials involving fraud within a smaller compass; issues which can be dealt with in six months at the most. The virtues of this Bill—which we have all sung both at Second Reading and, to a lesser extent, today—are that it builds a framework around the law of fraud. Within that framework it is possible to set out goals to be achieved by the prosecution within the sort of compass I have just mentioned. To retain the broad common law offence of conspiracy to defraud is to leave things in the worst possible state. At times I have tried unsuccessfully to limit the scope of a conspiracy offence to the opening of prosecuting counsel, but I have not necessarily been successful in that effort. In one particular case that I recall, I considered that the ground had shifted over the course of a four-month trial, and that at the end I was being accused of something I was not being accused of at the beginning. That is the sort of problem which can be derived from the common law offence.