The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Henley)
My Lords, as always, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and to other noble Lords who have spoken, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and my noble friend Lord Dykes who are members of the committee. I am grateful that we have had an opportunity to debate this report of the EU committee as well as, to some extent, the 2009 report and the Information Commissioner’s report which dealt with a number of these matters. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, for outlining the very important work that the House does in relation to its post-legislative scrutiny of these matters. I hope that I can give a reasonably detailed response to the various points that have been made.
The first important point is the Information Commissioner’s report. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for emphasising that. That made a number of findings, notably referring to the Elmer database. As someone rather new to this, I was fascinated to discover that the Elmer referred to in that name is not an acronym but the first name of the original head of the United States Department of the Treasury intelligence unit, back in the 1920s or 1930s, who was responsible for nailing or achieving the conviction of Al Capone on the famous occasion when they got him for tax evasion rather than for other matters. We must be grateful to that Elmer—I imagine in the United States they are even more grateful—for so doing.
The first point of call with the Information Commissioner’s report is access to the Elmer database. Secondly, the Information Commissioner referred to the retention of records, which are of no concern and which may not comply with data protection principles. Thirdly, the report also refers to how SOCA develops retention policies which are data protection and human rights compliant. I hope that I can deal with all those matters as I know that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, as chairman of the committee, will have been particularly concerned about how SOCA had been actively working on these recommendations.
I start with access to Elmer. As recommended in the report, SOCA has continued to maintain its robust policies and procedures in respect of access. It must be remembered that Elmer is a very important intelligence tool, not just in respect of financial crime but in respect of all levels of all crime. The use of financial intelligence is not an addition but an essential part of the wider armoury of techniques to investigate criminality. That said, obviously access to Elmer has to be limited and those wanting direct access have to go through a user agreement which sets very strict criteria and which is kept under review. It is also of importance that these are individual financial investigators rather than bodies themselves. SOCA provides guidance to users and all users are required to undertake training which is generally delivered by the National Policing Improvement Agency or some other similarly approved agency before accessing the database.
Having said that, I cannot give any assurance about who may have access to Elmer in the future but, of course, concerns of this House will be considered very carefully as we develop these items.
I move on to the question of record retention and deletion policy. SOCA has introduced a new retention regime that will delete suspicious activity reports that are more than six years old. It expects to complete this task very soon. I will add one further remark. I need not even say “very soon” because the task was completed today. I can assure the noble Lord that as of today there are 1,384,477 entries on the Elmer database, and that 584,351 entries were deleted in a recent exercise. All entries that were more than six months old were deleted today, so we achieved the aim of deleting them by the end of the year.
My third point on the Data Protection Act is that SOCA will implement a Data Protection Act and Human Rights Act-compliant retention policy in three months. It is important to note that the Elmer database does not focus specifically on collecting information relating to individuals. It is essentially an assembly of reports submitted in the light of the Proceeds of Crime Act, the Terrorism Act and associated regulations. SOCA has introduced processes that will provide for the immediate deletion of SARs that are confirmed as being not linked to criminality, and for the deletion of others after six years. That is why I was pleased to make the remark about what we achieved today.
The report also asked if there was a justification for the current arrangements for reporting SARs. We feel that setting a suspicion threshold would send the wrong signal to reporters, who may reduce their scrutiny. Experience shows that criminals will attempt to find ways to circumvent controls in order to avoid arousing suspicion—for example, by breaking down large deposits. Reports that may look minor may take on a much larger significance to law enforcement when matched with intelligence both within Elmer and beyond. A threshold might have the unintended and unwanted effect of causing us to miss vital intelligence opportunities.
I will deal with a couple of further questions. The first, which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, referred to Somali piracy. We recognise the committee's concerns regarding possible links between the payment of ransoms and terrorist finance in Somalia. There is currently no evidence of any formal organisational relationship between pirates and terrorist organisations operating in Somalia. However, we are keeping this assessment under review. My honourable friend Mr James Brokenshire, who was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, is in receipt of the letter on this matter from the noble Lord, Lord Roper, and will provide an appropriate reply in due course. I cannot take that further and say precisely when it might appear.
The second point I will deal with, which concerns money-laundering and the Financial Action Task Force, was raised by my noble friend Lord Dykes.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
The noble Lord is moving on from the question of Somali piracy, so I must draw his attention to the fact that he has not answered the main point that I made. One can have two views about whether it is meaningful to say that there is no direct evidence of ransom moneys reaching terrorists. However, I am not pressing the point and did not press it in my introductory question. The question that I pressed, to which he did not reply, was why the Government do not consider that the assembling of such ransoms should give rise to the filing of suspicious activity reports, because the ransoms concerned will undoubtedly be the proceeds of crime and will undoubtedly end up in the hands of criminals? In all our correspondence it has been impossible to get an answer on this point. That is why I used the somewhat unparliamentary term, “obfuscation”. Why are the Government not simply telling people who put together these ransoms that if they have reason to believe that these will end up in the hands of criminals—and I cannot believe that they do not have that—then they should file an SAR? That does not mean that the person who files the SAR is committing or admitting any wrongdoing at all. However, I find it hard to believe that since the British Government are, I assume, trying to prevent the laundering of the proceeds of ransoms around the world, are working with many other countries to do that, and have, I believe, an intelligence operation based in the Seychelles to compare evidence and to try to find out where this money goes to—
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
I am sorry; I am just coming to the end. I just was saying that I still find it very odd—it would be helpful if the Minister would reply on this point—that the Government do not consider that an SAR should be filed in such circumstances.
Lord Henley
My Lords, the noble Lord would never expect any obfuscation from me. He is a very distinguished former civil servant from the Foreign Office, a department which also has never obfuscated in any way whatever. I would prefer it if he would wait for a response from my honourable friend Mr James Brokenshire, which I am sure will be provided in due course. I think that that is as far as I can go on these matters, and I hope that the noble Lord will accept that. I am also mindful of the intervention of my noble friend the Chief Whip that I must move on.
I was briefly touching on the question of the Financial Action Task Force, and briefly making it clear to my noble friend Lord Dykes that it is reviewing global standards on countering money-laundering and terrorist financing. In February 2012 the FATF member countries will approve changes to the standards following this review. I hope that my noble friend will be prepared to wait for that review.
I hope that I have given a number of assurances that will satisfy noble Lords, even the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. I hope that he will be prepared to await the response from my honourable friend Mr Brokenshire. Again, I am grateful to all noble Lords for their interventions in this debate. I feel that we have had a useful discussion on these matters.