Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon and Lord Patten

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord for moving his amendment. I know that he has spoken before about the powers that are being given to Ministers in this respect. The amendment seeks to remove the ability of the Government to make designations by description which cover groups of people. It would mean that we could designate individual persons only when we knew their names.

Picking up a point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer—I hear what he said—I assure the Committee that we will always seek to designate by name wherever possible. We anticipate that the power to designate by description will be rarely used, for reasons that I will set out shortly. But, as I hope to explain to the Committee, it remains a useful tool for the imposition of sanctions. The noble Lord, Lord Lennie, commented just now that some exceptions might apply. That is exactly the kind of exception for which we want to ensure these powers will allow us to apply sanctions.

It is important that this proposal is seen in its proper context. Sectoral sanctions—those aimed at groups or sectors rather than individuals—remain a vital foreign policy and national security tool. The ability to designate by description also enables us to refer to lists of designated persons produced by others, such as the United Nations. To have a single list to look at will reduce the administrative burden upon business. It will also enable us to target particular entities within a given sector: for example, state-owned banks operating in a particular market. Finally, it will enable us to target groups of persons, such as members of a terrorist group—for example, the Hezbollah military wing.

In some cases—they may be few but there will be exceptions—we will not be able to identify all members of a group by name. But it remains important that those members are subjected to sanctions, to prevent them using their funds and assets to commit terrorist crimes. We are also cognisant of the difficulties that this might cause to banks; the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, raised this issue. We accept that a designation by description will be harder for them to implement, but I hope that I can offer a few reasons why this power should be retained despite the difficulties that have been highlighted.

First, as I have said, we will always seek to designate by name where we can and this power will be used very rarely. Secondly, when we use this power we will provide as much information as possible to assist institutions, such as banks and other businesses, to carry out their obligations under the sanctions. Thirdly, it may sometimes be necessary to impose these types of sanctions to cover groups of persons where, as I have said, not all the names of members are not known. Fourthly, banks and businesses carry out their own customer assessments and are well placed to carry out their obligations under sanctions. They also have their own compliance procedures, which enable them to identify persons subject to sanctions and can be used to assist them to identify members of a group. For example, if we designate a group of persons acting in a geographical area, the compliance systems can then be used to pick up economic activity in that area and trigger a deeper investigation into the relevant account holders.

If this amendment were to be accepted, we would be unable to impose these kinds of measures in the cases that I have illustrated. This provision needs to remain to ensure that sanctions can be used as an effective tool for not just foreign policy but, importantly, national security. Noble Lords have alluded to the difficulties, which I fully acknowledge, but I hope that I have offered some degree of reassurance in the context of how they might be overcome.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, also mentioned the phrase “connected to” and designation by description in primary legislation. The issue remains that the connections and descriptions can be context-specific. For example, what is applied under counterterrorism sanctions may not be applied under Russian sanctions, hence the proposal to include these definitions as regulations. That said, he also referred again to the reports by the two committees. As I alluded to earlier, we are reflecting on the specific points that they have raised, including the one that the noble and learned Lord raised in the context of this debate. I will return to those points and reflect—

[Lord Patten (Con)]

I apologise for not having entered into the debate at an earlier stage but I have been reflecting on what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, said about the importance of legislation being specific. I also reflect on the fact that, working in the financial services as I do, I often see names but we are never quite sure who is behind the names. It may therefore be necessary to have a secondary back-up power to address the groups of unspecified people who one thinks are behind those whose names are specified. Much in the spirit of the noble and learned Lord, I suggest to my noble friend that he may wish to reflect on whether there is some way of specifying in the Bill that these are reserved powers, to be used under particular circumstances. That might well reassure those who feel that they are too overarching.