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Serious Crime Bill [HL]

That is not the case. On the first day of Committee I tried to explain that we will have prosecuted significant players in most of these cases. We are trying to interdict criminal activity in the future. The purpose is therefore not simply to consider the offences that have been committed, because we will prosecute those where appropriate, but to see how we can prevent similar offences being committed in the future by those individuals or by individuals with whom they associate and who have facilitated serious crime. That is why Clause 1 provides that they have been involved in serious crime. Clause 2 considers whether it is right, fair, just and proportionate to make an order to prevent such individuals continuing to act in that way. I am very concerned that there is almost a suggestion that we should either prosecute or make a preventive order. In most of the cases, we will want both. They may happen at different times. A prosecution, such as in the case of Adams, may take a very long time, so we may want to put preventive orders in place before such a situation comes to fruition. It is not either/or; it really is both, and it is preventive in nature.