Hansard

The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 was an exciting innovation in our justice system—a very good UK act, as Christine Grahame so appositely pointed out.

For a justice system to work, there need to be three components. First, the law and court sentences should reflect the public need for justice to be seen to be done. Secondly, the mechanisms of law enforcement and prosecution must be efficient and effective. Lastly and perhaps most important of all, there must be public confidence in how the whole system works.

The first two components will be materially important in creating that confidence, but I think that the Proceeds of Crime Act brings an added dimension. What it does is to provide tangible evidence to the public that reporting crime, helping the police to solve crimes and assisting in the prosecution of crime can result in real community benefit.

Back in 2002, I do not suppose that anyone was quite clear what the practical consequences of the act would be. The results, under both the previous Scottish Executive and the current Administration, have been positive. As others have pointed out, since 2007, £74 million has been recovered from criminals and invested in various activities.

The breadth of activity represented by the partnership organisations in sport, youth work, cultural activities, mentoring and youth employability, early years and community assets, all of which enable projects and facilities to be delivered across all of Scotland’s 32 local authorities, demonstrates both the diversity and the geographical reach of such benefits.

Many communities have seen at first hand the positive effect of recovering money from criminals and distributing it to communities. From the public perspective, ill-gotten gains are being recycled into positive community benefit. That is good. There is nothing to separate me from the cabinet secretary in how that is being addressed. However, I think that there is still a rich vein to be mined.

My colleague Margaret Mitchell was right to call, in her amendment, for more to be done to identify crimes with the potential to increase the recovery of proceeds from criminals. I do not think that anyone could object to that. Indeed, I say to Mr Adam that that might even benefit street stuff. He and I would cheer if that were the case.

Of course, the price of success is that more people become interested in getting their mitts on the cash. It is important to sort out some of the mitts. I have mentioned how important to a workable criminal justice system are efficient and effective mechanisms of law enforcement and prosecution. Those mechanisms are essential for public services and it is therefore a primary responsibility of Government to ensure that they are both provided and adequately funded. It is therefore with some unease—other members have echoed this—that I have noted, over the past five years, that some of the recovered proceeds of crime have been channelled to the Crown Office and, over the past four years, to the police. Indeed, very recently Police Scotland has voiced enthusiasm for getting its mitts on more of the booty.

Although the amounts are small—I accept that—there is an important principle here. Proceeds of crime were never intended to be a substitute for any part of the core funding of essential public services. That is a Scottish Government responsibility. However, quite distinct from that is whether, in certain circumstances, Police Scotland and the Crown Office should be able to benefit from the recovery of money from criminals if they can identify a project or initiative that is quite separate from their routine activities, which are already covered by their budgets. That is a different proposition. It would be on a bid-by-bid basis, the case would require to be made and there would have to be a transparent link to a specific benefit for the wider community.

That is a reasonable proposition, hence the reference to it in the Conservative amendment. I appeal to the flinty heart of the cabinet secretary. We are trying to help not to hinder. We are trying to introduce a degree of flexibility that is not hugely at variance with the cabinet secretary’s own assessment. What is unacceptable is that Police Scotland or the Crown Office should be put on a footing of automatic payments from the proceeds of crime that are recovered, because that would equate to Police Scotland being paid a commission on crime, which is undesirable. In that situation, there would be a clear danger of diluting attention on all crimes and focusing only on financial high-yield crimes.

If the cabinet secretary rejects the Conservative amendment, I am a little apprehensive as to where he is going. What is his direction of travel? I think that the amendment reflects what he may have had in mind and that he stopped short of doing something that everybody would regard as unhealthy, undesirable and not a good destination.

The cabinet secretary may, when he winds up, want to take the opportunity to reflect a little on the tone of Margaret Mitchell’s amendment. As I say, it is not meant to be provocative or hostile; it is meant to try to introduce an important element of flexibility. I am not unsympathetic to what I think Police Scotland is anxious to try to achieve; I am just cautious about going down a route of travel that may open the gates to something very undesirable that I do not think any of us would want to see.

At the end of the day, the police are there to serve us all. They are there to enforce the law when any crime has been committed. We would not want a police force in Scotland that was interested only in bonus, commission, dividend yield and targeting only high-value crime. We must be very careful that, whatever is proposed by the cabinet secretary, that is not where we end up.

I have found the debate constructive and interesting. I do not think that there is a world of difference in the chamber on where we want to try to go. I appreciate that my colleagues on the Labour benches are hostile to any possibility of any recovered proceeds going anywhere but to communities. All I am saying is that if the money would not be there in the first place but for the successful operation of the police and the prosecution service, do they not deserve the opportunity to get a wee bit of the cake? I do not think that that is too unreasonable.

I urge the chamber to support Margaret Mitchell’s amendment.