Money Laundering: UK Parliamentarians

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Tuesday 14th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deighton]

The thing to remember is that although the intention behind this approach is to catch potentially corrupt public officials around the world, defining someone as a PEP is not an end in itself—it is merely a trigger point at which an assessment should be made of the individual’s business and whether it is high risk. It is that assessment of whether it is high risk that is not working well enough at the moment.

[Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)]

My Lords, is it not clear that the House is struggling with two concepts: on the one side, that the Minister might be right; and on the other, that something good might come out of Europe? On this occasion, both things obtain.

[Lord Deighton]

I am not sure that there is a particular answer to that. I think that I have been extremely clear about what we are trying to accomplish. I accept where the challenges are and I accept that we need to do a lot of work with the banks on the implementation of the rules to make sure that they are proportionate.