Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much money has accrued to the public purse from confiscation orders in each year since 2010.

Confiscation orders are the principal means by which the government carries out its policy to deprive criminals of the proceeds of their crime. They are used with the intent to disrupt and deter criminality. Confiscation orders are not punitive in nature but are designed to require the defendant to pay back the proceeds of their crime and to thus deprive them of the benefit of their crime.

A confiscation order is issued against an individual after they have been convicted of an offence, ordering them to pay back the amount that the court has determined they had benefited from their crime.

The court will determine the amount of the benefit received based upon the relevant criminal conduct. In determining the benefit amount the court can take into consideration all the financial assets of the defendant including gifts, “hidden assets” and the “criminal lifestyle” of the defendant. By including the value of assets such as those classed as “hidden” or “gifts”, the aim of the court is to effectively deprive the defendant of their use and take them out of circulation. The court will then determine the available amount which may be less than the benefit amount.

Receipts from confiscation orders, excluding any compensation amounts, are paid to the Home Office.

Prior to 2013-14 the available data reports do not distinguish between confiscation orders and compensation and thus the amounts due to the “public purse” cannot readily be identified.

Note 1

A confiscation order can include a compensation order to compensate the victims of the crime which the court will instruct is to be paid from the proceeds of the confiscation order. In this situation the compensatees are paid from the first available receipts that are received. The amounts shown above exclude any compensation payable from the order.

Confiscation orders can have multiple defendants linked to them, in these cases the cases can be classed by the court as joint and several liability cases, the effect of which is that even though orders may be issued against every defendant they can only be enforced to the extent that the same sum has not been recovered through another confiscation order made in relation to the same joint benefit. i..e the benefit amount can only be collected once. The numbers above have not been adjusted for any joint benefit cases.

Note 2

Collections relate to all amounts collected in that financial year, the amounts will include receipts for orders imposed in prior financial years