Immigration Control (Gross Human Rights Abuses) Bill [HL]

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 15th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)]

My Lords, I join every other speaker in the House in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, on bringing this Private Member’s Bill to the Floor of the House. I will be with her every step of the way in ensuring that we get as much support as we can to make it pass.

Before I commence the substantive part of my speech, I declare under category 2 of the Register of Lords’ Interests my role as a remunerated chair of the Five Rights campaign, a new human rights campaign.

The Bill is very timely, coming as it does a year after the signing into law in the United States of the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, on 23 December 2016. This went a step further than the Magnitsky Act 2012, in bringing the provisions of that Act, which were specifically directed towards Russia, into a global framework so that there would not be impunity anywhere in the world for people who commit human rights violations. We in the UK should be extremely proud that we are trying to move in the same direction today. This Bill will also bring clarity and give teeth to the travel ban aspect, which is currently missing in other legislation, including the Criminal Finances Act, which others have mentioned.

I too have the privilege of knowing Bill Browder and take inspiration from his courageous leadership, which is so frequently absent from commercial life.

In the late 1990s and into the early 2000s, I worked for the Commonwealth Secretariat and had particular responsibility for its good governance, human rights and democracy aspects. That was the period when, for example, the regime of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe was committing heinous human rights violations. The Commonwealth ministerial action group charged with oversight and powers to sanction countries in that regard knew what was going on. We had verification and Foreign Ministers knew exactly what was happening, yet we sat in utter and complete frustration as international tools and law, as well as United Kingdom law, did not provide us with any ability to stop Robert Mugabe, his henchmen and his wife coming to the UK for medical treatment—or, more likely, to spend their ill-gotten gains in our high-end stores in this capital city.

Another useful example is Pakistan, where an individual called Altaf Hussain was thought to have committed enormous numbers of human rights violations, which he sanctioned while living in self-imposed exile in London. He was a known person of interest to UK law enforcement. There were a minimum of at least 31 charges against him in Pakistan itself, for allegations of murder, money laundering and a multitude of other human rights abuses. However, he was able to preside over and interfere in Pakistani politics with impunity. I have heard a Pakistani describe it as such: he was running something akin to SPECTRE from the Bond movie. This diminished the United Kingdom in the eyes of millions of ordinary non-partisan Pakistanis who were not involved in politics. They read every day of the violations that were occurring—the murder, the torture and the beating of his opponents in Pakistan while he sat here in London. If this Bill had been in place, that could not have happened. It tarnished the reputation of the United Kingdom.

Clause 1(2), which refers to Section 241A of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, is particularly important as it defines “unlawful conduct” more broadly. The UK has long had a reputation for tolerating financial crime and wrongdoing in terms of welcoming people who have ill-gotten gains. But this does not include only the developing world, although the two examples I have used do. It covers many other states too.

As far as I know, London is one of the few cities of the world which has a kleptocracy bus tour, although I understand that the organisers are planning to expand to New York shortly. I took this tour last year with my family, as I saw it as an essential part of my learning and that of my teenage daughter. It was not a pretty sight. I suggest that other noble Lords take this tour—it takes off from Whitehall Place, not very far from here, and takes little more than two hours. It provides a real insight into who owns London, our capital and home to Europe’s largest financial services sector.

Corruption and money laundering is not of itself a gross human rights violation within the ambit of our narrow interpretation of human rights, but the two often go hand in hand, with those who are grossly corrupt often outsourcing their intimidation, torture and murder to others in order to silence public officials who cannot be bought off. If one superimposes a map of gross human rights violations on to a map of corruption in Russia, central Asia or the Caucasus, it is the same states that come up. That applies to other regions of the world as well.

There is secrecy at government level here in the UK that allows us, the public, to never be clear on what basis the wrongdoers are here in the UK. We see in our Library briefing that the then Minister of State for Security and Immigration, James Brokenshire, stated in response to a Written Question that:

“The UK has a long-established practice of not routinely commenting on the details of individual immigration cases”.


This is what the Bill throws light on. We cannot allow that to continue. It suggests that the Government prefer to continue dealing with shady people on the basis of a nod and a wink—presumably on the basis that they are close to people in power that the Government wish to keep sweet and on side. I know that this is not a foreign affairs debate, but I say to the Minister that, if she had heard the condemnation of Saudi Arabia on 16 November in a Statement on Yemen, she would know what I am talking about.

The era of gross hypocrisy on the part of states is over, and the public demand to know what their Government are up to. The US Magnitsky list is an unclassified document, with classified sections as and where necessary, but only on grounds of national security interests and consistent with congressional intent. Legislators can request that names be added and evidence can be obtained from US and non-US sources. This is important, as those on the ground in those rights-violating states are best informed of the facts.

We often find that countries hide behind the excuse that we will leave the sanctions regime to be implemented at the EU and UN levels. While I am highly supportive of smart sanctions, we also need to see our own country rising to the challenge. This Bill would improve and fast-track the ability of UK authorities to take action themselves where international bodies have not reached agreement or are too slow to respond.

I conclude by urging the Government to support this Bill. The year 2018 will be the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It will also be the year when the UK hosts the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting—the first time that the UK will have had that role this century. In a post-Brexit environment, what a powerful signal it would be if the Government followed Canada’s example and incorporated this Bill into law by April 2018.