Belarus

Debate between Lord Allan of Hallam and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. Belarus has been the No. 1 supporter of Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and it should be held to account for that. I am certainly happy to raise that with Secretary Blinken when I see him this week.

[Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)]

My Lords, I take the Foreign Secretary back to a previous answer he gave about the property register, which is a very important step forward in understanding whether corrupt individuals from Belarus or elsewhere are buying property in the UK. He may be aware of concerns that people can still hide behind beneficial trusts. As Foreign Secretary, will he work with his colleagues in government to try to get us to the next stage of transparency so that corrupt individuals cannot buy property and hide their ownership?

[Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question, which I am very happy to take away. The Government I led and this Government have made progress on that. As he said, we have the register of property. A number of properties have been taken back from their owners and that money has been returned to the countries from which it was stolen. Added to that, we have the registers of beneficial ownership, including the public registers of beneficial ownership that I announced at the G8 in 2013. We are making huge progress on that globally and with our overseas territories. We need to do the same with our Crown dependencies. All this is essential if we are to fight corruption.