Serious Crime Bill (HL)

Serious and organised crime includes drug trafficking, human trafficking, organised illegal immigration, child sexual exploitation, high value fraud and other financial crime, counterfeiting, organised acquisitive crime and cyber crime. Organised crime costs the United Kingdom at least GBP24 billion each year.

As at December 2013, there are some 36,600 organised criminals in 5,300 groups currently operating in ways that directly affect the UK.

The Government's Serious and Organised Crime Strategy (Cm 8715, ISBN 9780101871525) aims to reduce substantially the level of serious and organised crime affecting the UK and its interests.

The strategy has four components: prosecuting and disrupting people engaging in serious and organised crime (Pursue); preventing people from engaging in such activity (Prevent); increasing protection against serious and organised crime (Protect); and reducing the impact of such criminality where it takes place (Prepare).

The principal objective of the Bill is to ensure that law enforcement agencies have effective legal powers to deal with the threat from serious and organised crime. The Bill will: strengthen the operation of the asset recovery process by closing loopholes in the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002; better tackle people who actively support, and benefit from, participating in organised crime; create new powers to seize and detain chemical substances suspected of being used as cutting agents for illegal drugs; and amend the Computer Misuse Act 1990 to update the existing offences to cover importing tools for cyber crime (such as data programmes designed for unlawfully accessing a computer system).