Rural Crime: NFU Mutual Report

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of NFU Mutual’s Rural Crime Report 2024, published on 1 August.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

I begin by thanking the National Farmers’ Union Mutual for its report. Rural crime can have a devastating effect on, and consequences for, countryside communities and the agricultural sector. That is why the Government are committed to reducing crime in rural areas. Under our proposed reforms, rural communities will be safeguarded, with tougher measures to clamp down on anti-social behaviour and strengthen neighbourhood policing, as well as stronger measures to prevent farm theft and fly-tipping.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

I thank the Minister for his reply. I was pleased, back in April, to see that Sir Keir Starmer, before he became Prime Minister, announced a rural crime strategy. What we now need is implementation. Would the Minister commit, at local area level, to talk to police and crime commissioners and chief constables to set up dedicated rural crime teams, which forces such as Thames Valley have done very successfully and which are making a real impact? At a national level, will the Government commit to having a cross-departmental approach involving the National Crime Agency, Defra and the Home Office to address the scourge of rural crime?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate for his question. I hope he will be aware that there is a National Rural Crime Unit in place, which has been funded for a three-year period, looking at support and co-ordination of police and crime commissioners and rural forces. We want to look at that to see how I can work with that as a Minister. He is right that the right honourable gentleman the Prime Minister has examined the issue of a rural crime strategy. We need to work with partners such as Defra on issues such as sheep worrying, and ensure that we co-ordinate the Government’s approach. I will certainly do that and will be happy to take advice and support from the right reverend Prelate in due course to help develop and inform that strategy.

Inadmissible Asylum Seekers

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord German, for obtaining this debate on a very important area that, although it has, sadly, become very party political, is somewhere that we need to get real and use everyone’s creative thinking to try to find solutions. This is affecting virtually every country, to a greater or lesser degree, in Europe; it is not going to go away; we are dealing with the lives of vulnerable people; and I hope we can try to think together about the way forward. I have a certain reticence to speak as this is an area where some of the legislation is extremely complex, and I hope I will bring some light rather than more confusion to it.

The passing of the Illegal Migration Act, alongside the Rwanda plan, appears to have created much more confusion and overlapping statuses for asylum seekers. We now have asylum seekers whose applications were made before 28 June 2022 and the Nationality and Borders Act, those whose applications were made from 28 June 2022 to 6 March 2023, the group between 7 March to 19 July, and then those who applied after 20 July 2023. As I understand it, all are affected by slightly different legislation.

This is not my area of expertise, but it seems clear to me—this echoes the concerns certainly of many on these Benches, but I think throughout the House—that a number of applications for asylum will be deemed permanently inadmissible, yet the asylum seekers will remain in the UK as they cannot be removed either back to their own country or to Rwanda, simply because there are not enough spaces. This has already been pointed out with some detailed figures; as I understand, there are nothing like enough places for the numbers who need to be removed. They are stuck here. I thought that the word that the noble Lord, Lord German, used was very significant: they are in a state of limbo, never to be granted leave to remain. This cannot be a sustainable situation not only for their sake, which is the biggest issue, but because of the cost to the taxpayer, as thousands of asylum seekers will remain indefinitely dependent on Home Office accommodation and some sort of support.

There are also questions about the choices left for those trapped in this situation and the fact that thousands of those intended for deportation to Rwanda cannot, at the moment, be located. It indicates that they may be driven underground, where they are at risk of exploitation and destitution.

I would like to raise the particular point not only that hundreds of unaccompanied children housed in Home Office hotels and hostels went missing last year—we do not know whether they have been kidnapped or, as some people say, recruited by criminal gangs—but that recent reports indicate that over 350 children were held in UK detention facilities in France between January 2022 and October 2023. Many of these children would have been left extremely traumatised, yet it appears that the Home Office held no information on the number of officers trained in safeguarding and modern slavery at these facilities. We have a duty of care to these children, who are extremely vulnerable, and these reports are indeed alarming.

I will also take this opportunity to ask the Minister how many asylum-seeking children in the UK are unaccounted for and what the Government are doing about it. What are we doing to ensure that unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, arriving now and in the future, are properly cared for and protected? We urgently need robust safeguards and clarity on where responsibility for these children lies.

I know that, many times during the passage of the Rwanda Bill 2024 in this House, my right reverend friend the Bishop of Chelmsford spoke passionately for the case to protect unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. I wish simply to press on the Minister and the Government the importance of protecting these vulnerable children from danger or exploitation while they are here, however long they are here for, regardless of their immigration status.

Rural Crime

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

That is a very good point. We still have to commence the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act, as he knows, and a call for evidence went out last summer seeking views on the secondary legislation, as required. That would be the appropriate place for making these points and discussing this. It has been targeted at agricultural and construction sectors—manufacturers, dealers, retailers and so on. I wait to see what the results of that call for evidence deliver, but I think the noble Lord makes a very good point—and, going back to the story about Kent that I referenced earlier, it was because of a GPS tracker that these people were caught.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, it is recognised that one niche area of rural crime by organised crime groups is laundering money through events such as illegal hare coursing, which is causing a huge problem. We were very grateful for the recent support of the Government in trying to bring an amendment to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, but is the Minister sure that the new police and crime commissioners not only understand the problem but have the right training in place so the law can be implemented?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

First, I commend the right reverend Prelate on his work in introducing the amendment to that particular Bill. It came into force on 1 August 2022 and, without his efforts, I do not think it would have happened. Hare coursing is not a notifiable offence, but the statistics I have are very encouraging. There has been a 60% reduction in the poaching of both hare and deer over the course of the 2022-23 season. The National Rural Crime Unit informs us that there has been an increased use of criminal protection notices when used alongside the new measures, including those involved with hare coursing. I was very pleased to hear about the successful prosecution of two individuals in Lincolnshire last week for hare coursing. So, it would seem to bear out that enough work is being done, but of course I will follow up and, if there is more to say, I will come back to the right reverend Prelate.

Refugees and Asylum Seekers: Safe Routes

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness will be aware that the situation on the ground in Afghanistan is very complicated—I would imagine my noble friend who answered the previous Question would be able to shed more light on exactly how complicated. However, as the noble Baroness will also be aware, we have resettled a vast number—well, not vast, but a large number—of people from Afghanistan. By the end of June 2023, approximately 9,800 people had been granted settled status under the ACRS, including over 4,600 children, and we provide local authorities with substantial funding. Since ARAP opened in April 2021, we have relocated over 12,200 people to the UK, including over 6,100 children. We know there is more to do, particularly with those currently still stuck in Pakistan, but we are working at pace on that.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, in May 2021, recognising the need to speed up the applications for child asylum seekers, the Government set up two dedicated caseworking hubs to try to process these claims more quickly. What assessment, two and half years on, has been made of the success of these dedicated hubs, and what more could be done to speed up the claims of young people as they seek asylum?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, as I understand it, those hubs have worked very well. There were 5,186 asylum applications from unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in the year ending June 2023—a similar number to the year ending June 2022. There were 6,229 initial decisions relating to UASCs in the year ending June 2023, some 78% of which were grants of refugee status or humanitarian protection. The statistics bear out the fact that they are working well.

Illegal Immigration

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Of course, I agree with the noble Baroness. The Supreme Court did acknowledge that the UN has a role to play in this; indeed, it was heavily referenced in the Supreme Court’s judgment. I also accept that a treaty already exists regarding refugees; that is incontestable. As regards what might happen regarding the ECHR, I have already said that that was not part of any of the discussions around this particular decision. This was a domestic court’s decision. I think it is a few steps away to discuss the ECHR, and the noble Baroness is well aware of my views on the subject.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, we on these Benches are quite clear that we cannot have open borders, that we must stop people risking their lives, and that we need to stop the people smugglers. But we are also clear that we cannot export our moral responsibilities towards those seeking sanctuary on to the shores of another country, be it Rwanda or anywhere else. This is such a long-term, complex, worldwide problem that we need a long-term strategy for tackling this refugee crisis, in concert with our global partners, so while the Government are proposing some immediate new laws, what are they doing to address the scale of the problem, to provide long-term certainty? Will the Minister commit to developing and publishing a long-term strategy so that we can all try to engage with this in a much more measured way?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank the right reverend Prelate for those comments. I agree with his point that it is obviously also morally wrong for criminal gangs to profit from this evil trade, and to ship people across the Channel at incredible risk to themselves. In fact, I think we are very close to the anniversary of that particularly unpleasant tragedy that happened in the Channel last year. As regards this problem of illegal migration becoming long-term, the right reverend Prelate is of course right. There are many drivers of this, and it therefore seems likely to me that the world will have to get together to address the various things that are driving these movements of people—what makes people so desperate to leave their homes—and try to do something about it. So far, it seems to have eluded the world, but I sincerely hope the right reverend Prelate is right, and that we can do something about it sooner rather than later.

Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 20th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, for his very helpful and excellent work in his area. With the rapid acceleration of technology and technological capacity, I recognise the need for this Bill to be updated. In this context, I welcome the Government’s sense of urgency in addressing the changing landscape in this area, and seeking to close those gaps that potentially endanger both the security and the safety of our nation. My right reverend friend the Bishop of Leeds had hoped to be here today, as he has taken a particular interest in this area, but he is detained elsewhere. We would both like to express two concerns that we believe must be addressed as this Bill is debated in your Lordships’ House.

First, the proposed amendments give the intelligence services vastly expanded powers not only to investigate individuals but to harvest and exploit vast amounts of personal data—not just of crime or terror suspects but of anyone. The collection of bulk datasets of personal details, including facial images and social media activity, is far reaching and potentially indiscriminate, so we must rightly be concerned about how effective any safeguards might be in controlling the power that such access gives to our intelligence services. The risks, particularly under a regime less ethically aware than those we are used to in this country thus far, are substantial. The weakening of safeguards risks endorsing the need for updating surveillance capacity, at the same time as threatening basic human freedoms.

Secondly, it has become clearer by the day that we are developing technical capacity well ahead of the ethical consideration of risk. Ethical thinking might well be deemed inconvenient by those who wish to forge ahead with greater advances and greater security provision. However, to fail to address ethical considerations now will simply leave us, at best, running fast to catch up later once the train has left the station and is already at full speed away in the far distance—and, at worst, having compromised personal and societal freedoms and having changed the nature of a free society.

The current proposals are likely to lead to a broad and vague definition of “public safety” in which the security and powers of the state in one area reduce essential personal freedoms. To that extent, I believe the helpful comments made by Big Brother Watch should be taken seriously and answered comprehensively if we are to be fully aware of the trade-off between two goods: public safety and personal privacy.

No one would wish to stand in the way of His Majesty’s Government’s intention to tackle terrorism, state threats, serious organised crime such as child sexual exploitation, illegal migration and fraud. These need to be faced head-on. The question is whether the proposed extensions contain sufficient safeguards to ensure that the mass of law-abiding citizens in a free society are not caught up in a form of mass surveillance in which they cannot trust that justice and privacy will be upheld.

When the Bill was first passed in 2016, the then Home Secretary said

“it is … right that these powers are subject to strict safeguards and rigorous oversight”.

It is essential that the Bill meets those conditions, but I worry that it does not do so in all places in its current form. We look forward to interrogating the Bill as we take it through its later stages.

Policing of Marches and Demonstrations

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a very good point. The Home Secretary has reserve powers and some legislative tools that enable intervention and direction, but those powers may be used only in line with statutory tests and public law principles and in very exceptional circumstances. The Metropolitan Police has not asked for that sort of intervention. He is quite right that the Government have been in regular contact with the police over the use of their powers to manage protests. Where we identify gaps in the legislation, we will seek to address them. As was widely reported this morning, that is still under review.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, any violence and threat is to be deplored, wherever it comes from. I congratulate the police, who did a superb job in very difficult circumstances. Of course there will be groups of people pushing the boundaries and acting unacceptably. The danger of the media is that it gives the impression that the only game in town is the marches and demos, but many on these Benches and other Members of this House have been meeting leading Israelis and Palestinians in our local communities and finding that there are people desperately trying to reach out to others and thinking about how we can take this forward. What are His Majesty’s Government doing at the moment to mobilise some of our leading Israelis and Palestinians to try to enable talks about how we might find a more positive narrative as we go forward?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The right reverend Prelate makes an extremely good point. I commend his activities and those of his colleagues and other faith leaders in trying to find civilised solutions to this problem. I am afraid I do not know what His Majesty’s Government are doing to try to encourage the sort of interactions he mentioned, but it deserves to be mentioned, on proportionality, that the organisers of the pro-Palestinian marches have a responsibility. Peter Tatchell, whom many in the House will know, was blocked from marching with the pro-Palestinians for carrying a sign that said:

“End Israel’s occupation! End Hamas’s sexist, homophobic, anti-human rights dictatorship!”


That is pretty disgraceful. Everybody needs to exercise proportionality in this.

Climate Change: Migration

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I thank the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, for securing this debate, for his excellent and comprehensive introduction and particularly for setting out so clearly some of the work undertaken by international bodies. I will not repeat any of that, because he spelt that out very clearly for us. As he noted, the climate crisis is at the heart of famines, conflicts and food insecurity across the globe today. We have already seen the disastrous effects of climate change in many parts of the developing world.

I want to focus on a few thoughts, particularly on the Horn of Africa, where we see this perhaps most clearly at the moment. Indeed, a terrible natural humanitarian disaster is unfolding before our very eyes, with thousands now fleeing the region in search of food security and water. It is vital to develop an effective strategy to mitigate the impacts of climate change in the developing world. The Horn of Africa is currently facing a climate-induced drought and a serious food crisis affecting more than 36 million people, more than half of whom are children. UNICEF estimates that up to 5.7 million children need urgent treatment for acute malnutrition.

I have spoken repeatedly in your Lordships’ House of the need for a decisive emergency response to this crisis. As a country, our current pledge is £143 million to that region. Yet back in 2017 we were investing £861 million a year, as we were responding both to the immediate crisis and to long-term development. While I continue to urge His Majesty’s Government to scale up their short-term response, this debate is more centred on our long-term climate strategies. As well as the immediate need for emergency aid, it is vital that wherever possible we think creatively about the money we are investing to increase trade. We need these economies to get a much higher level of resilience so that, wherever possible, they are able to deal with the problems of internal displacement themselves.

Therefore, the focus of what we are doing, which in the long run will benefit the wider world—and indeed may benefit us indirectly—needs to be on how we are attending not only to those great trade deals with some of the wealthier countries in the world but to parts of Africa. Let us be quite clear: many other major players—some with what one might say are more dubious motives—are now investing hugely in parts of Africa. We need to see this as an absolute priority, both for the sake of the people there and as we seek to build long-term peace across the world. Africa has now become the scene and centre of the most extraordinary battle for hearts and minds. So this is really in our own interests, as well as helping those in desperate need.

The approach from the UN and the various NGOs has shifted focus towards promoting climate adaptation and the creation of economies and societies that are more resilient to climate impacts. Such adaptation includes building more resilient infrastructure, large-scale planting of trees, trying to stop erosion and problems with the environment, helping and training farmers, and providing resources to switch to more drought-resilient crops. This is all key.

Getting it right early on will not only save lives and cut costs but lessen the impact of climate migration down the line. Therefore, although we know that some international organisations are now looking at long-term strategies for climate adaptation, can the Minister tell us His Majesty’s Government’s plans for us to adopt a similar long-term strategy based and rooted here in the UK? The only sensible course of action for us, based on present trends, is to anticipate a significant rise in climate-related migration. It is, in the modern world, a relatively new phenomenon—hundreds of years ago it was quite common—but it poses some associated challenges and questions that we must address urgently.

I want to mention one further area, which is the importance of family. Earlier this year the Justice and Home Affairs Committee released a report, All Families Matter: An Inquiry Into Family Migration. It opened with Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

“The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State”.


It is terrible to think that in some cases Governments are breaking up families because of some of the laws on migration. Families are the foundation of a good society and a building block of community. Here in this country we need to invest, as always, in how we support family life, which is the basic place where values are nurtured and where people are brought up and provided for.

The report speaks of how bespoke routes created to address emerging crises are often inconsistent on which family members are allowed and helped in migration and on what terms that takes place. With climate migrants potentially being one of the greatest challenges that we are going to face, it is important that we try to get this right and ensure a fair and consistent approach to family migration rules. We have witnessed the catastrophic effects that climate change can have on the developing world, and we can expect it only to get worse, so our immediate focus needs to be on providing climate-vulnerable countries with the tools necessary for adaptation and resilience. This will, as the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, said, require international co-operation. Surely, with our honourable tradition of seeking to be a leader in our world when such crises emerge, this is now the time for us to step up and take a leading role. I hope the Minister will be able to set out His Majesty’s Government’s approach to this important area as we seek to work on the role that we can play in trying to solve or ameliorate the worst effects of the crisis emerging in front of us now.

Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 11th May 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

Good afternoon, everyone. I want to make just a few remarks on my Amendment 106D, which is obviously a probing amendment seeking some information on the Government’s thinking with respect to compensation for victims of economic crime. The proposed new clause to be inserted by this amendment would require the Government to prepare and publish a wide-ranging strategy on efforts to ensure that the necessary financial compensation is made available to victims of economic crime, wherever they may be. This could and should be applied to victims of international crimes, of which the war in Ukraine is without doubt an example, but it could also be applied more broadly as a means of providing a measure of justice to the victims of any other kleptocratic regime around the world. As I say, the proposed new clause would provide a mechanism for compensating victims of economic crime in the UK, including thousands of British victims of online scams every year. That briefly sets out the purpose of my Amendment 106D.

I thought it might also be helpful to the Committee for me to read into the record from the Government’s Fraud Strategy. As the Minister will know, it is dated May 2023; it does not state the day so I do not know whether there is a later version but that is where we are. I want to do so in case the Committee has not had an opportunity to read the report. I have not read all of it—I have just dipped into it for the purposes of this amendment—but it is quite staggering when you read the statistics. I will quote the report; I hope that the Committee will bear with me because it is important for those who read our proceedings, as many people do, to see the facts as laid out by the Government.

The report—the Government’s own words—states:

“In the year ending December 2022, 1 in 15 adults were victims of fraud. 18% of those victimised became victims more than once. The sums of money involved are staggering. The total cost to society of fraud against individuals in England and Wales was estimated to be at least £6.8 billion in 2019-20. This includes the money lost by victims, the cost of caring for victims, and the costs of recovery, investigation and prosecution of fraudsters”.


It continues:

“In the year ending March 2021, Action Fraud received victim reports totalling a loss of £2.35 billion … There is also considerable cost to business and enterprise. UK Finance, the trade body for the banking and finance industry, reported that in 2021 its members lost over £1.3 billion to fraud”.


The figures just go on. Clearly, this is a huge problem, as all of us recognise.

Can the Minister outline something for us? Among all the points made in the strategy, I could not find anything concrete and specific with regard to compensation. It would be helpful if the Minister could spell out the current arrangements on compensation for victims of fraud. Given the scale of the problem, which the Government have helpfully just published in their Fraud Strategy, what are their proposals in respect of compensating individuals? I know from speaking to Members of the Committee here and many people, including friends and family, that the cost to individuals is immense. It is not just a financial cost but an emotional one; I know that the Minister understands that. It is important for us to know the answers to these questions.

The other point is what the current rules on compensation are, how much someone could expect to get back, what the Government propose to improve that situation, and the perennial question we keep coming back to: how that will be made real.

I found paragraph 7, on page 4 of the strategy, particularly interesting. The Government say:

“We will ensure victims of fraud are reimbursed and supported”.


Again, we go back to previous questions: does that mean under the current reimbursement regime, or are the Government proposing a new one? How will people be “supported”?

I think the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, will be particularly interested in the next sentence, the first part of which says:

“We will … Change the law so that more victims of fraud will get their money back”.


Where in the Bill before us is this change to the law so that more victims of fraud will get their money back? It may well be in here. I am not trying to trip anyone up; I just could not find it myself. It would be helpful if the Minister could point out where it is. If it is not in the Bill, where will that change in the law be put, when is it coming and what change do the Government propose?

The second part says that the Government will:

“Overhaul and streamline fraud communications so that people know how to protect themselves from fraud and how to report it”.


Again, how will the Government “overhaul” and “streamline” those communications? Added to that, how do people know what their rights are and—a question we keep coming back to—how does an individual citizen take on a bank, financial institution or whoever to assert the rights that the Government say they will give them to get compensation back for the money they have lost through fraud? Those are really important questions.

I will stop there. I could go on and on repeating the same thing in different words, but I think the Minister gets the nub of what I am saying, and I think the Committee would be interested to hear the Government’s views, as well as those of other Members of the Committee. With that, I beg to move Amendment 106D.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

I am sorry I have been unable to engage more fully and consistently with this Bill, but this amendment prompted me to come here when I had a few minutes. I was recently speaking to someone I met at a social gathering. In the course of the evening, we were talking about a whole range of things, and he was talking about the fact that he had been defrauded of some money and how it is now materially affecting his retirement. His comment was: “I feel so embarrassed, because I’ve always tended to think it was simple people who didn’t understand financial matters who were likely to lose money. I’m highly literate, I’ve done all the right things, but I’ve been defrauded”. This is having a big effect.

Also, as we are becoming increasingly cashless and more and more transactions are online—it looks like that will be the trajectory for quite some while—there is far more potential for these sorts of frauds. For example, I note that fraud on lost and stolen cards had increased by 30% by 2022 and card ID theft, where a criminal opens or takes over a card account, had almost doubled in the previous year. In other words, this crime is getting worse.

It is in everybody’s interests that we encourage people to use what is, for most of us, a great convenience being able to pay with our cards—but we need to make sure that people have confidence. The statistic that the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, gave us—that one in 15 adults has been a victim—is particularly interesting. In other words, it is now widely assumed among groups of ordinary people chatting that this is a very real problem. There is a good side to that—hopefully, we are being far more cautious and savvy—but, nevertheless, that will not encourage people to invest and use some of the financial services that we might hope they will as they plan their retirements.

I just want to add my words of encouragement and ask the Government whether they can give us some idea about whether this amendment, or something similar, might be a way forward. It would give people confidence if they knew that there was clear and simple way to find redress when they were a victim of fraud. Also, could this be built on in some way, not least because the proceeds of property recovered under this future Act could then be directed towards compensation?

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans for their words. I am not going to try to add to the issue of individuals; instead, I note that we should remember that this also involves businesses. The Home Office survey said that one-fifth of businesses have been hit by fraud. Such fraud can be existential to those businesses—at the very least, it is a tax on growth because money that is stolen is not reinvested in that business—so this matters.

In earlier debates, we have talked about the other side of this: stemming the cause of fraud. We have talked about the failure to report as well as the facilitation issue. The Government seem much more interested in picking up on the failure to report side than on the facilitation side. I ask the Minister to go back and find a middle way between what was being proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, and her committee and what we have now, which is nothing—that is, to find some sort of code of conduct with teeth that starts to address the facilitation issue. It is through facilitation that this fraud is happening, in many cases. At the same time as addressing questions about compensation, we must go back and find effective ways of preventing this happening.

With noble Lords’ indulgence, I will slightly broaden the scope of my speech because, over the course of the last day or so—since we debated this issue—the United States has repatriated seized assets to Ukraine. Can the Minister ask his officials to have a look at how that was achieved? Which international laws were used to facilitate that repatriation? In previous Committee debates, we have discussed freezing and seizing, so it would be very useful for your Lordships to know more about this before we get to Report; it is an issue that we remained concerned about. Although I realise that the United States is a different legal domain, it sits in the same international climate of law. Therefore, it would very much help our deliberations if the Minister was able to talk to the department’s officials and get some sort of readback as to how this seizure and repatriation to Ukraine was achieved.

Otherwise, Amendment 106D is a good way of trying to find out where the Government sit on compensation, although I would open it up to include business compensation as well. Perhaps there are also issues around the insurance industry that the Government should be thinking about.

Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th May 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 92, so ably and powerfully moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer. I have added my name to it because, as I have personally seen, this issue is potentially beneficial yet in practice harmful in the financial services sector. It is very often a career-ending move if somebody decides to blow the whistle on fraudulent practice or wrongdoing in their place of work. I had a friend in the City who ended up blowing the whistle but only because she had already decided she was going to retire. She knew that it would be the end of her career and she did not wish to go to the expense of a tribunal, but it was the early warning that the authorities needed to discover that wrongdoing was going on. The problem we have is that those who are inside are best placed to identify the wrongdoing before it becomes more widely known and before more people are perhaps damaged by whatever the wrongdoing is, yet, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, described, there is inadequate protection to recognise the benefits of having a canary in the coal mine being able to identify directly that something is amiss.

Therefore, I hope that we would be able to accept that having an independent office that can oversee and provide a safe space for individuals to notify their concerns, presumably having raised them internally first, could be very helpful in fighting economic crime and fraud. Normally, you would suggest that somebody raises a concern internally, but they might feel that that could be detrimental—there have been threats to people’s lives when they have blown the whistle, so it is not just a financial matter.

I warmly welcome my noble friend to his place. I look forward to hearing his answer and thank him for his engagement with me so far. I look forward to speaking to him on this issue and perhaps others as we proceed with the Bill. I hope that he will be able to accept that there are reasons why the Public Interest Disclosure Act is inadequate and why putting an amendment of this nature in this Bill makes enormous sense. I hope that we will therefore be better able to uncover criminal offences, fraud and deliberate cover-ups that it is in the public interest to expose rather than waiting for after-the-fact things to emerge having caused much more damage.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I think I can be quite brief thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, as I have been able to ditch most of what I was going to say because she has already made it so clear. I was persuaded to put my name to this amendment simply because I met a woman in one of my churches on a Sunday after worship who is currently in precisely this situation, and her whole life has basically fallen apart.

She came across something that it was clear to her was wrongdoing; she agonised for weeks and tried to take advice, which was difficult to get because of confidentiality. Eventually she decided that she needed to blow a whistle. She was immediately suspended, taken through a disciplinary process and dismissed. She is now trying to decide whether she can afford to take this through the courts. Her view is that she would probably have to sell her house to do so. It really is a David and Goliath situation.

As has been said, often the best people to spot what is going on are not necessarily the auditors—they try their best, but it is difficult for them; we see constantly how they do not always manage to spot what is going on and get an accurate picture—but those on the inside. Since the whole of our financial services sector, which is one of our great achievements and a fantastic part of our life, relies ultimately on trust—our greatest currency in this country—the integrity issue absolutely kicks in. In a world in which trust is at a low ebb, this is terribly important.

The reason people give for not wanting to be a whistleblower is the cost. A public consultation conducted by the European Commission revealed that the most common reason for not wanting to come forward with allegations of wrongdoing was simply the fear of legal consequences, which 80% of individual respondents reported as their primary reason. After that came fear of financial consequences at 78% and fear of what it would do to your reputation at 45%. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, said, an informal blackballing goes on behind the scenes. The woman I mentioned is now fairly clear that, even if she wins this case, it is very unlikely that she will ever get another job in the financial sector. These are legitimate fears. A 2021 survey conducted by the charity Protect found that over 60% of whistleblowers reported experiencing negative consequences such as being dismissed, victimised or subject to harassment or bullying.

I hope that His Majesty’s Government will look closely at this or at somehow strengthening how we can support whistleblowers, for the long-term prospering of financial services in this country. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to this amendment.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

I support Amendment 92 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer. I have for a long time supported the better treatment of whistleblowers, who are treated appallingly badly. It is a difficult task, because many organisations—no matter how big their policy on whistleblowing—immediately close ranks against the whistleblower, who often starts out as someone trying to help and not even feeling that they are a whistleblower.

I will illustrate this briefly with two points. When I asked an Oral Question on whistleblowing some time ago, one of our esteemed colleagues, who is no longer with us, was sitting near me and said, “What are you asking about? Whistleblowers? Do you mean snitches?” In my Question, I was going to name someone in the financial services world whose solicitor contacted me minutes before I stood up to say that they had changed their mind and asked me not to name them, because they were so frightened of what would happen to them as a result. That makes a strong case—as do the powerful speeches that we have heard—for having a body such as an office for whistleblowers.

I was on an interesting call a little while ago with people interested in whistleblowing in America. It struck me how interested the investors were. One of them said, “I’ve put several million into this company; I want to hear from whistleblowers and know what’s going on with my money”. You do not hear that often enough. Investors have a direct interest in whistle- blowers delivering proper information about what is going on.

To help bolster even further my emphatic support for this amendment, I have a couple of questions for the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer. First, how would the office do what it is required to under subsections (4)(a) and (4)(b) of the proposed new clause? Secondly, can she clarify—the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, touched on this—when the office for whistleblowers would come into play? Is it from the beginning or at the end, as a last recourse? How would it interact with the employer? I am not quite clear about how that would work. Fear not: I am entirely in support, but it would help me to have some clarity on those points.