Global Anti-Corruption Sanctions Regulations 2021

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Jones, and I thank and congratulate my noble friend the Minister on bringing forward these much-needed regulations today.

The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, referred to the guidance; it has indeed been published but, as he might imagine, it is not incredibly clear because, I understand, it has to be read together with a number of other guidance documents from other departments issued at the same time in April.

I entirely support the point made by my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier on how “serious corruption” should be defined. It is interesting to note that the guidance—where you might expect a broader definition of “serious corruption”—says in the first line:

“The Regulations enable Ministers to designate persons involved in serious corruption”,


but then goes on simply to say that,

“For the purposes of the Regulations, corruption means: ... bribery; … or misappropriation of property”.


I am sure that it will come as a disappointment to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, that her wish list does not appear there. But it is slightly disappointing, as we could have taken the opportunity to have a broader definition of serious corruption there, as I imagine that practitioners will be relying on the guidance.

I looked at the sanctions list, which is available from the most recent guidance, and it makes for very interesting reading. I notice that there are two references—I think it is on page 106, if that helps—one in particular to The Republic of Belarus (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 and one relating to The Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019. I take the opportunity to ask the Minister, in summing up, to say whether these regulations to which those two entries refer have now been replaced by the regulations before us this afternoon? It appears that these were regulations that already applied following our departure from the European Union which permit sanctions to be imposed on citizens of Belarus.

Obviously, I would be particularly interested to know, given the appalling incident of the hijacking of the Ryanair flight from Athens to Vilnius, whether there is a legal basis under these regulations. I welcome the report in the Financial Times today that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is minded to consider that sanctions be imposed pretty urgently on Belarus, in light of the fact that two private citizens were escorted off a plane—it was a civilian aircraft taken under duress, so effectively an international hijacking incident—and taken to the capital, Minsk. Do these regulations provide that legal basis, or would the Government have to look elsewhere?

I join with others in congratulating the Foreign Secretary and the Government on bringing forward the regulations before us today and the guidance that was issued at the same time. I hope that my noble friend will undertake to make sure that the guidance is updated regularly and perhaps made a little more user-friendly. With those few remarks and questions, I support the regulations before us in the strongest terms.