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Crime and Policing Bill

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 418. I also support Amendments 417 and 419, which were spoken to so well by the noble Lords, Lord Banner and Lord Alton, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Goudie and Lady D’Souza—powerful testimony. Collectively, these amendments provide a necessary pathway for turning the proceeds of international crime into a force for restorative justice.

Currently, when the Crown Court makes a confiscation order, the primary objective is to deprive a defendant of their benefit from crime. While we support this, a significant gap remains in how these recovered funds are used, particularly when the criminal conduct involves serious human rights violations, mass-atrocity crimes or grand corruption. At present, funds not directly owed to a specific claimant in the immediate proceedings often flow into the general consolidated fund.

The Minister, in his recent letter to the human rights organisation Redress—of which I know there are many supporters in the Chamber today—suggests that current mechanisms are sufficient. He argued that the UK already shares over 50% of proceeds recovered through international co-operation with other Governments. However, as Redress compellingly points out, state-level sharing is not the same as victim redress. When funds are returned to a foreign state, the level of support victims receive depends entirely on the political will and potential corruption risks within that recipient state. Victims of mass atrocities and grand corruption

have a clear preference for reparations paid for by their abusers and enablers. It is a matter of human dignity, justice and their own healing journey.

Amendment 418 would give courts the discretion to direct a portion of these confiscated proceeds towards

“public interest or social purposes”.

This is not a mere accounting change but a mechanism to provide support, redress or therapeutic services to victims of international human rights violations who might otherwise have no procedural pathway to compensation. To ensure that these funds are managed with the highest level of integrity, my Amendment 418 would require the Secretary of State to establish a public purpose fund. This fund would be subject to strict regulations, operation and auditing. It would ensure that recovered sums are applied to defined social purposes before any remaining balance reverts to the state under Section 55(1) of the Proceeds of Crime Act, and it would require the court to calculate directives while respecting the duty to ensure full payment of any existing priority orders or compensation directives for direct victims.

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The amendment would insert a new systemic mechanism into the Proceeds of Crime Act: the judicial trigger. When the Crown Court makes a confiscation order under Section 6 of the POCA, the judge would be granted a new discretionary power to issue a public purpose direction. In deciding whether to make this direction, the court must look beyond simple numbers and consider the gravity and context of the crime. Specifically, the court would consider whether the conduct involves serious human rights violations, mass atrocity crimes or grand corruption.

The amendment preserves the integrity of current law by ensuring that direct victims remain the first priority. The court must ensure that all unpaid amounts under existing compensation directions or priority orders are fully satisfied before any funds are redirected. Once these priorities are met, the specified sum would be retained by a designated officer and placed into the public purpose fund. These funds would then be applied to defined social purposes, such as providing therapeutic services, and redress or support to victims, whether they are in the UK or overseas. It would also allow for contributions to reputable international funds, such as the ICC Trust Fund for Victims, which have the expertise to identify victims and map their support needs in a way that the courts cannot.

The Minister has previously pointed to existing uplifts to compensation orders as a solution. However, these are strictly limited by narrow legal definitions of a victim and their loss. They are fundamentally unsuited for the indirect victims of sanctions breaches—the millions of Ukrainians, for example, as we have heard today, harmed by the very war an oligarch has illegally supported. Amendment 418 would ensure that these rings of damage are addressed. Further, this is not intended to dismantle the asset recovery incentivisation scheme. These amendments are designed to work in parallel with ARIS, ensuring that any remaining balance after the public purpose has been served still flows back to law enforcement.

While Amendment 418 seeks to create the fund, Amendments 417 and 419 would provide the immediate vehicles for justice through public interest compensation orders. These, as we have heard, would allow the court to direct payments directly to established international bodies, such as the UN Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture or the Register of Damage for Ukraine.

This Bill is an opportunity for the UK to show global leadership by aligning our enforcement outcomes with the purpose of our sanctions—protecting the vulnerable. We cannot continue to allow millions of pounds in criminal assets to vanish into the general state coffers while victims of heinous crimes suffer in silence. It is time to make criminal assets work for justice. These amendments reflect a growing cross-party consensus on the need to modernise our laws against digital and coercive harm. They align with proposals advocated in the Commons debates, where there was a significant concern regarding the state’s ability to use the proceeds of crime to support victims of international law breaches and sanctions violations. By supporting this amendment, as well as Amendments 417 and 419, we could ensure that the UK remains at the forefront of global efforts to ensure that those who profit from atrocity and corruption are made to fund the recovery of those they have harmed.