Financial Services Bill

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard
Wednesday 3rd March 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Altmann (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I apologise for the inadvertent interruption to the Committee’s proceedings on Monday. I declare my interests, as shown in the register.

I have sympathy with the intentions of all the amendments in this group. I have added my name to Amendment 51, in the name of my noble friend Lord Holmes. I also support Amendment 84, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles. I have added my name to Amendments 82 and 83 in the name of my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier. All these amendments relate to confidence in our financial system, whether of customers using financial services or of corporates—both domestic and overseas—engaging with British firms in our financial services sector. Both of these are important.

In his introduction to Amendment 51, my noble friend Lord Holmes clearly explained the need for a review of the “know your customer” regulations, and I agree with him. That, hopefully, could help to improve customers’ confidence in the suitability of products sold to them. One example would be the sale of annuities by firms without having previously asked what state of health the customer was in and whether the annuity they were being quoted was at all suitable for them. Another would be credit companies extending credit without necessarily knowing the credit position of the customer. I do hope that the Government may agree to a review, whether in the context of the Bill or not.

Amendments 82 and 83, so comprehensively and expertly spoken to by my noble and learned friend Lord Garner, would strengthen corporate criminal law to ensure that companies do not profit from criminal acts committed by their employees. These companies need to have much stronger reasons and incentives to ensure that crimes are avoided, rather than blind eyes being turned, so that we have a zero-tolerance approach for corporates. These amendments, in the name of the noble and learned Lord, supported by the noble Lords, Lord Rooker and Lord Faulks, demonstrate this. A change to corporate practice is long overdue, so that senior managers in financial services firms will themselves change their procedures to try to prevent employees committing financial crimes and will install adequate processes to demonstrate that they have taken this issue seriously. I am grateful to my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier for raising this issue.

The pre-emptive nature of financial services processes that can avoid problems needs to be encouraged. These amendments could do this and would be a welcome addition to our financial landscape. All too often, firms and, indeed, regulators, seem to be taken by surprise when offences occur and then have to react to them, rather than doing more to prevent the wrongdoing occurring in the first place. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will consider these amendments sympathetically and that the Government will accept them or bring forward their own version. They would be a useful addition to this legislation. I will now mute myself.

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, this has been a fascinating debate on a fascinating part of the Bill. I know that progress has been slow in Committee and I certainly do not intend to speak for too long. In fact, most of what I was going to say has been covered. I will make a few comments in support of Amendment 84, but first, I point out that I certainly support the speeches of my noble friends Lord Eatwell and Lord Sikka. My noble friend Lord Eatwell made the point about the history of dealing with this in Companies House. I remember reading about Kevin Brewer.

I also remember the remarkable speech in, I think, September 2015 in Singapore by David Cameron when he was Prime Minister; it foreshadowed a lot of change in this area regarding access to beneficial ownership, which seems to have been buried. It was absolutely solid, but obviously it was not supported by those who followed him. It is certainly worth looking back on.

The other issue is the reluctance regarding the financial intelligence unit. It is almost the same as the Home Office’s reluctance to institute an inquest when we had the murder by polonium in London. We had an inquest in that case only after the family had been to court. The Home Office’s defence for having no inquest was the effect on international relations. The reluctance to operate on money laundering is exactly the same. I am sure that the Minister will not admit that—he probably has not been given the evidence for it—but the suspicion has to be that the effect on international relations is slowing matters down.

My noble friend Lord Sikka made the point on his Amendment 51A, which I much support, about the trade bodies and the anti-money laundering organisations. It is exactly the same in property transactions. I remember a Bill from a couple of years ago, when a dozen or more organisations were involved in checking money laundering property transactions and they were all trade bodies. Trade bodies will not operate that way. They exist only because of income from their members. It is exactly the same situation. Now we have regulation in secret. That is the real danger: it is regulation in secret by bodies that cannot be checked on.

Amendment 84 was admirably spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, so I do not intend to go over the detail, but I will add a few points based on the briefing I received before Second Reading from Spotlight on Corruption, which was incredibly helpful. As has been said, bribery and tax evasion are already on the statute book in terms of failing to prevent crime, so what is the difference in including false accounting, fraud and money laundering? By the way, I might say something about the Chancellor’s very last point in his Budget, about free ports. I read the report yesterday from UK in a Changing Europe. The scope for money laundering via free ports is enormous. That will certainly have to be added to the list.

The amendment would widen the scope of the existing statute book: this is not reinventing the wheel. It is supported by the Treasury Select Committee and the prosecutors. In the consultation that took place—I know that it was some ago—it was supported by more than 70% of those who responded. The list of examples given by Spotlight on Corruption of companies that could not be prosecuted or brought to book for corporate wrong- doing in recent times—whether it was Serco, Olympus or Barclays—is enormous. I do not see why they should be allowed to get away it, but there are gaps in the law.

I am not an avid reader, but it is always worthwhile reading the manifestos of the various parties. I do not read too many of my party, by the way, but the 2015 Tory manifesto made this commitment, which resulted in the consultation. But the consultation closed three and a half years ago. It has just been one delay after another. It shows a lack of commitment and a lack of drive from the top. If the drive from the top is there, things happen in government—that is the key that I picked up during my 12 years.

The key benefit of the amendment is greater fairness for how large and small companies are held to account. It is dead easy. The small companies are the ones that are gone after by the prosecutors: they are low-hanging fruit and it is easy. That can make the numbers look good, but it is not fair.

Of course, bringing the UK into line with international standards of corporate crime is where we come up against our friends in the European Union. This is a situation where UK companies operating in the European Union are going to operate to a higher standard than they do at home. It is preposterous. It is going to make the UK top of the list for those who want to engage in money laundering. It puts the UK’s reputation in tatters.

The charge that my noble friend Lord Eatwell made about London being the money-laundering capital is true. There are so many different allegations and they are tied up with the operation of many of our blue-chip accountancy firms and blue-chip corporate lawyers and legal firms, because these actions cannot take place without the acquiescence of these home-based enablers.

My final point is the obvious one. The amendment would bring these offences into line with bribery and tax evasion. Why leave a big gap? Bribery and tax evasion can and do involve money laundering and fraud on a grand scale. It is absolutely inconsistent to have different models operating for different economic crimes, where the crimes are linked. I look forward to listening to the Minister get out of this one.