Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 11th May 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, because I would certainly have attached my name to these two amendments had I been able to get my head sufficiently above the parapet in the face of the barrage of legislation that your Lordships’ House currently faces. They are terribly important amendments, as was highlighted yesterday in the other place in Prime Minister’s Questions, when the Prime Minister in response to a question about what is happening on Teesside said:

“Contracts at the site will be a commercial matter for the companies involved”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/5/23; col. 334.]


There is great public concern about what is happening on Teesside, and it is at the moment extremely opaque.

I shall concentrate mostly on freeports, because, as the noble Baroness said, investment zones are such a “fluffy” area that is very hard to grasp on to it. As to what we know about freeports and what is happening, a lot of the questions are being asked by the independent media and the civil society organisations referred to by the noble Baroness. I would point anyone who is interested to an excellent, 44-page report from the Byelines Network that was put out by local journalists from around the country in areas directly affected. It does a great job of examining some of the issues, but butting up again and again against commercial confidentiality and lack of recording. One of those reports notes that in 2020, the Royal United Services Institute Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies submitted evidence to the International Trade Committee saying that

“there is evidence of criminal activity taking place in multiple freeports around the world. It often involves trade in counterfeit goods, drug trafficking, smuggling of untaxed goods or trade-based money laundering”.

If we were to think of something that is essential to the purposes of the economic crime Bill now before us, shining the light, opening the doors and being able to see what is happening would clearly be it. What we are talking about with freeports are huge concessions from the Government. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, said, they include freedom from all kinds of usual customs controls, but also stamp duty land tax relief, enhanced structures and building allowance, enhanced capital allowances, employer national insurance contributions relief, and business rates relief and retention. Those are huge concessions. Surely it would only be absolutely fair and reasonable to demand full transparency about who is responsible and who is making those decisions.

It is very evident that there is great public concern. This is one way that the Bill or some other mechanism—I directly put the question, “If not this Bill, where else?”, to the Minister—will make sure of what will happen if we create these structures. The reason why people are so suspicious about this seems to go back to an uncredited blog from 2010 on the website of a right-wing lobbying group, the TaxPayers’ Alliance, which raised the idea of charter cities. People are very suspicious. Surely the Government would want to dispel some of those suspicions by ensuring that there is absolute transparency and openness.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

My Lords, I rise because I hope that I might be able to provide some help to my noble friend the Minister, as this is obviously not his area of expertise; this is at the Companies House end.

Right at the beginning of Committee, I tabled Amendment 44. Its explanatory statement says:

“This amendment mandates companies to disclose whether their shareholders are acting as nominees. Nominee shareholders protect the identity of the beneficiary of the shareholding. This measure will help mitigate the risk of abuse through nominee shareholders. Failure to comply would incur a penalty”.


Last night, I met the Minister, my noble friend Lord Johnson, who indicated to me that the Government were sympathetic to this approach. I do not want to put words into his mouth, as he is not here now, but I suggest to the Minister, my noble friend Lord Sharpe, that he talks to my noble friend Lord Johnson to see whether there is any way that we could look at this; that would deal with the specific concern raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, in relation to freeports.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I was not going to say very much but I have been provoked by what the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, have said.

I very much support the thrust of what the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, said. One wonders why transparency is such a difficult notion for the Government. I suspect that the Minister will send up smoke by saying that we are all in favour of freeports, that they are a great way of generating employment, and so on. It is certainly what I would say if I were him—that freeports are a great thing for creating jobs and that we should not stand in the way of free enterprise, which is developing enterprise zones in some of the most difficult and challenging areas in the country. However, this is not about that—it is about transparency and knowing how this is funded—so I hope that the Minister does not send up smoke. The issue is transparency; the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, was right to point that out.

I will not repeat the list from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, of concessions and allowances made to ensure that businesses can operate—perhaps in an area that they would not operate in—as that is something for the Minister to discuss.

On what the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, said, has the Minister had discussions with the noble Lord, Lord Johnson? Is it right that the Government are considering some concessions? Is that what the Minister is going to tell us—that he is going to go away and talk to the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, about what we have just been informed about? Is there hope for this amendment or will the Minister just reject it? Is it something that we will hear more about as we go to Report? Will we get a government amendment on transparency around this issue, if not from the Minister then from the noble Lord, Lord Johnson?

With those questions, I will listen to the Minister with care.