Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [HL]

Lord Hunt of Wirral Excerpts

Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 21st May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I gladly gave way to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, because I know from long experience that his contributions are always of great help to the Minister at the Dispatch Box, as they were for me for a number of years.

The overseas territories cannot say that they have not been represented in the House this afternoon. There have been passionate speeches, not least by the noble Lord, Lord Naseby. I am not going to be so hypocritical as to advise him that he should not challenge the wisdom of the other place, having only a couple of hours ago extolled to your Lordships the very virtues of this House occasionally challenging the views of the other place.

Following on from the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Judd, this has to be put in context. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger, said that we had no direct interest in this legislation, but when places are called the British Virgin Islands or the British Overseas Territories, we have a reputational responsibility we cannot avoid. If we do, we will damage our reputation. It is therefore right to look at this issue.

I was Minister for the Crown Dependencies—I see the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, nodding—and my noble friend Lord Beith and I worked closely together precisely to avoid the impasse we have now reached. We recognised that we had to work out the problems so that Britain could take on its proper responsibilities for these matters without doing too much damage to the dependencies which were trying to catch up. The way it has worked is one of the reasons why the dependencies qualify so well in the temperature-taking of various international organisations.

However, we have to go beyond the technicalities. Much of the cynicism, particularly among young people, is caused by issues such as the Panama papers and other exposures. Yes, the City of London has to take responsibility for the obscene avoidance of taxes and its co-operation with criminality in moving large amounts of money around in a dark economy. It is that which produces the cynicism that undermines our democracies. Ever since I have been in politics we usually blame the French, but we cannot simply use the argument that if we stop doing it, the French will do it. That is not an excuse for not doing the right thing and trying to set standards. David Cameron was quite right in trying to do this.

It is quite clear, not least from the interventions of the distinguished jurists we have in this House, that there is a problem. The solution was given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown. My opinion of the Minister is boundless—he is going to have a couple of tough years ahead—and it would give him an opportunity to engage with the overseas territories to see whether the full implications of this legislation can be avoided by co-operation and initiatives, rather than the kind of process suggested by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay. We have to see this in the context of a general public who are looking with nausea at what seems to be the ability of this money to find a home outside proper accountability.

I refer the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, to the briefing from 12 highly respected charities, and I understand the passion of the noble Lord, Lord Judd, in defending Oxfam. Although he did not name the Members of the other place, I will do so. In fact, Margaret Hodge and Andrew Mitchell are very well respected for their knowledge of and interest in these areas. We have to realise that the other place has been neither impetuous nor ill-informed in what it wants to do. But within the wider moral context set out by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, I hope that the Minister will find this debate useful in the very difficult diplomatic task that he now faces.

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. I want only to say how much I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, when he paid tribute to my noble friend Lord Naseby for giving us the opportunity to discuss this matter. When the noble Lord, Lord McNally, was in charge of our overseas territories, together with others, he embarked on a very positive consultation with them. What we are now trying to put right are a number of intemperate comments made in the House of Commons during its debate, and here I want to thank my noble friend the Minister for the way in which he opened the debate in this House. He recognised that a number of people in the British Overseas Territories feel outraged about some of those comments. However, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, pointed out, we are in the process of legislating for British Overseas Territories without proper prior consultation with their respective parliaments. I think it was my noble friend the Minister who said that this in effect disenfranchises their elected representatives.

Because of my connections to one of the territories, Bermuda, I am aware of the huge concern about some of the comments which have been made. It is sad that this year Bermuda’s constitution will celebrate 50 years of enactment. Moreover, Bermuda’s Parliament dates back to 1612 and is the third-oldest continuous parliament in the world, with the first assembly meeting in 1620. The Bermudians are very proud of that, and rightly so. When those intemperate comments were made, one person emailed me immediately to say that the Bermudian Mary Prince was the first slave to present an anti-slavery petition to these Houses and the first black woman to write and publish an autobiography in 1831. Her experience of the horrors she endured was the first of its kind to be documented by a slave and her words were instrumental in this House in contributing to the abolition of the slave trade in British colonies in 1838, some 30 years following the abolition of slavery in this country. We have to recognise the huge amount of pride among Bermudians about their history. I think that they have every right to feel insulted, which is the word that several of them have used to me.

Furthermore, under the Bermudian constitution, the application of an Order in Council to the island would be technically illegal, and I hope that my noble friend the Minister will think carefully about the words of my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern, in that there really must be a way through this somewhere. I suppose we ought to put on the record that for some 80 years Bermuda has been a world-leading public authority with a central register of beneficial ownership which long predates those in developed countries, including the United Kingdom. At every stage the island has shared this information upon request with legitimate international authorities. Moreover, Bermuda provides the information within 24 hours or, in extreme cases, two hours. I hope that my colleagues understand that we must have this debate to put on record the case for the overseas territories and what they have done so well for so long.

European Union Referendum Bill

Lord Hunt of Wirral Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

My Lords, I start by congratulating the right reverend Prelate on what was an outstandingly good speech. I have to embarrass him by saying that I agreed with every word—as of course I did with my noble friend the Minister. Having also agreed with most of what the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Ely, said, I caution her about her throwaway line about splits, pointing to this side of the House. I think she needs to look behind her, and to remember that if it had not been for the courage of Roy Jenkins, we would never have been able to enter the European Union in the first place.

Perhaps I had better move away from controversy and back to Edmund Burke. Another reason why I agreed with the right reverend Prelate is that I have always adhered to the basic principle of democracy as brilliantly and famously elucidated and promulgated by Edmund Burke: that it is the responsibility of parliamentarians to use their experience and, above all, their judgment, the better to resolve the policy challenges of the age in which they live. Taken at face value, that principle appears to militate against the use of a referendum, but I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, that although I agree in part with her comments about a referendum, I was persuaded at the time of the Lisbon treaty that it was time to test public opinion again on our relationship with Europe. I can see no other way of drawing a line under the fractious, divisive debate over our relationship with Europe which has threatened to paralyse not only my party but politics and political discourse in this country more generally.

Over my lifetime, I have heard much talk of the sovereignty of Parliament, but sovereignty ultimately belongs not to Parliament, nor to parliamentarians, but to the people. When the union between England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, which I passionately support, is at stake, or when our role in the family of nations of Europe, as embodied by the European Union, which I also passionately support, is at stake, the fundamental question of sovereignty is also at stake. When sovereignty is pooled, shared or invested—whichever term of art we choose—then, sometimes, it is right to put the argument directly to the people; or, to put it another way, it would be wrong not to do so.

We in this House—and even our colleagues in another place, who enjoy a democratic mandate that we do not—can and should claim no ownership over the sovereignty of the people. It is entrusted and leased to us by them, but the freehold does and must always remain with them.

I add that while the prospect of promoting a positive role for the United Kingdom at the heart of Europe was an inspiration to me and played a major part in bringing me into politics and active public life, like many others in this Chamber and elsewhere, I have had more than my fair share of frustration with the European Economic Community and the European Union. I said before that I agreed with every word spoken by the right reverend Prelate. I also agreed with every word spoken by my then leader, Margaret Thatcher—I speak as a former chairman of the Conservative Group for Europe. I was present when our leader launched the yes campaign in 1975, 40 years ago. It was the first occasion on which she appeared on the same platform as Ted Heath. I remind people exactly what our leader said, which was that,

“the Conservative party has been pursuing the European vision almost as long as we have existed as a Party”.

After quoting Disraeli and all our other previous leaders, she made the clear point that:

“We are inextricably part of Europe”.

I so strongly agree.

I must tell the House that when I was Secretary of State for Employment I took a case to the European Court, because sometimes the European Union felt like the bane of my life. I fought tooth and claw to retain the flexibility in the labour market that this nation so desperately needs if it is to compete effectively in the global market against the more collectivist and protectionist instincts of colleagues, even centre-right colleagues, from elsewhere in the EU. I greatly regret the decision of the Blair Government to sign up to the social protocol of the Maastricht treaty, from which Sir John Major as Prime Minister had so skilfully extricated us.

Despite these occasional frustrations, I have never doubted that our great nation is a part of Europe and, in order to retain our extraordinary, hard-earned and benign influence in the world, it must remain part of the European Union. We will hear much in the months ahead about the economic arguments for remaining within the European Union but I hope we will also think very hard about the political arguments about this highly respected nation of ours retaining a place at the top table. All our true friends elsewhere in the world agree with that proposition and virtually every President of the United States has been eager to see us play a full role at the heart of Europe.

In conclusion, this referendum will provide us all with the opportunity, after four decades, to put our distinctive and authoritative stamp once again on the most important decision our nation has taken since the end of hostilities in 1945. I am confident that the Prime Minister will present a deal that is in the best interests of this country and, when he does, I shall relish playing my own part in the campaign to persuade the people to endorse it. To quote Margaret Thatcher in 1990 again:

“We want Britain to play a leading part in Europe and to be part of the further political, economic and monetary development of the European Community”.

How right she was in 1990 and how right we all are to endorse that principle now.