Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate and Baroness Stern

Wednesday 17th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stern (CB)]

My Lords, Amendment 73 is tabled in my name and those of the noble Lords, Lord Kirkhope and Lord Collins, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer. I welcome the cross-party support this amendment has attracted. I am grateful to Mrs Kimberly Durrant, the representative of Bermuda in the UK, and Mr Benito Wheatley, director of the British Virgin Islands London office, for the useful briefing they have provided.

The amendment aims to bring transparency to the financial operations in the six British Overseas Territories that have financial centres by creating public registers of beneficial ownership of the companies based in them. One of the six—Montserrat—has already agreed to do this. Noble Lords will be aware that, since 2013, the Government have been working with these territories to develop registers of beneficial ownership that are rapidly accessible to law enforcement agencies. Amendment 73 would require the Government to go further and to give all reasonable help and support to those territories so as to make their registers publicly accessible. If this is not done, the Government should ensure it is done by making Orders in Council.

There is one change in the amendment since Committee, in that it requires the registers to be made public not by January 2019 but by January 2020. In a very useful meeting with the Minister last week—I add my voice to those who have expressed their admiration for him—he made clear that January 2019 was quite impractical for implementation. He is of course right: 2020 is much more realistic and would give a reasonable length of time for the change the amendment proposes to be brought in. When this amendment was discussed in Committee, the Minister very helpfully indicated the progress that had been made. He reported that Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands have central registers of beneficial ownership information, or similarly effective systems, now in place. This is much to be welcomed.

This is the fourth time we have discussed in your Lordships’ House the need for the overseas territories to produce public registers. Each time, the case for ending secrecy becomes stronger as more information emerges about how illicitly obtained money is protected from discovery by anonymity. It is clear that not all those who set up shell companies in offshore locations are doing so because they have something to hide, but for those who do have something to hide—drug barons, arms traders, tax evaders, government Ministers in resource-rich countries stealing money that should go to the good of the people—anonymous shell companies meet their needs very well. They assume they will not be discovered, exposed to the public gaze or prosecuted. They can pursue their criminal activities with impunity.

In the absence of the transparency this amendment calls for, we have had to depend on whistleblowers and hackers to take great personal risks in order to expose this criminality. Thanks to the work of these whistleblowers and hackers, a flow of information has emerged, from the offshore secrets database in 2013, through the Panama papers of 2016 to the Paradise papers last year. It should be noted that more than 100,000 of the accounts revealed in the Panama papers were registered in the British Virgin Islands.

This information has given law enforcement and tax collection agencies a chance to pursue a considerable amount of criminality. For instance, Europol reported at the end of 2016 that it had found in the Panama papers database nearly 3,500 probable matches to organised crime, tax fraud and other criminal activities. The report on the recent work of the Government’s Panama papers task force revealed that in October last year 66 investigations were under way into tax evasion, organised crime and money laundering—and all that is the tip of the iceberg.

In Committee, the Minister explained very helpfully to your Lordships’ House why the Government were resisting the transparency required by this amendment. He argued that, as the overseas territories have their own democratically elected Governments, it is rare for this Government to legislate for them without their consent. Where this has occurred it has related to our international human rights obligations—that is, on the abolition of the death penalty and the decriminalisation of homosexuality. He told the House:

“Financial services are the domestic responsibility of territory Governments”.


He said that to legislate without their consent to require publicly accessible registers of beneficial ownership,

“would create considerable ill-feeling”,—[Official Report, 6/12/17; col. 1117.]

and jeopardise current co-operation. He did not argue, and this is most welcome, that requiring the registers in the British Overseas Territories to be publicly accessible would put the territories at a competitive disadvantage compared with other jurisdictions that provide similar secret financial services.

The Minister quite properly sees that what this amendment asks would be difficult and would require much patient negotiation. He is right. I too see the difficulties, but I also see hospitals and schools unbuilt because the money for them has been siphoned off; women trafficked and drawn into prostitution because there is no other way to feed their family or get healthcare for sick parents; mothers dying in childbirth because there is no money for maternity services; and much more.

The British Overseas Territories are British, and Britain is a global leader in fighting corruption. At the G20 summit in 2013, David Cameron promised that the UK would create a central register of companies’ beneficial ownership information. The UK is now the only country in the G20 to have established such a register. He was a strong advocate of such registers in the British Overseas Territories and elsewhere. The 2016 summit hosted by the UK was a significant event that moved anti-corruption work higher up the global agenda. Furthermore, the UK is at the forefront of providing development aid and promoting human rights internationally.

The Minister has an undoubted commitment to human rights and the rule of law. It has become very clear during the proceedings of the Bill that the levels of fraud, tax evasion and corruption that are causing so much misery in the poorest parts of the world are an abuse of human rights and the rule of law. I therefore urge the Minister to reconsider his view that we can wait until public registers become the global standard and only then require the British Overseas Territories to move to greater transparency. I beg to move.

[Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)]

My Lords, as a co-signatory to the amendment I support the noble Baroness, Lady Stern. I shall speak for only a few moments because we have already heard from her a very good explanation of the amendment.

I speak from the point of view of my support for the initiative that was originally taken by this country at the G20 summit in 2013 by my then right honourable friend David Cameron, and pursued by him very vigorously in the further widely supported summit in 2016, to provide this country with a position as a leader in the area of financial propriety. In my view, that is something that needs to be continued, particularly because this country is entering into a very uncertain future.

Whatever one’s views are about our present negotiations with the EU, and indeed the other negotiations that it will be necessary for us to have with the rest of the world, one of the areas in which this country has an enviable reputation—the noble Baroness referred to this a few moments ago—is the way in which we deal with financial matters. We are not perfect; everyone knows that, and other amendments that we are considering tonight will perhaps suggest that. Nevertheless, we are a country that has shown an example of being open and transparent and having standards. We have extended those things to public life, quality of products, the environment, health and, particularly, our financial conduct. Because of the uncertain future, we need constantly to look at this on the basis of David Cameron’s gold standard, rather than simply following behind global standards.

The Government have made progress, and I pay tribute to my noble friend, who has listened carefully to the concerns of those of us who wish to move in this direction. I also acknowledge that great progress has been made by both the Crown dependencies and the overseas territories in moving towards openness and transparency. However, what I believe to be a reasonable compromise on an ultimate date for the conclusion of public registers open to access will in my view tie in extremely well with this country’s future negotiations and arrangements, and the need for this country to attract more support all over the world from a great number of new investors and others who wish to be part of what we control.

This is a modest measure in many ways, but I am convinced that it gives a clear, positive and attractive measure that the world can see, so that it can continue to have total faith in this country’s integrity.

Criminal Finances Bill

Debate between Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate and Baroness Stern

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 25th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stern (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 14 in my name and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, and the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Kirkhope. This amendment has already been discussed in Committee and is unchanged. Since the debate in Committee, I have been fortunate to have had lengthy and very enlightening discussions with the representatives in the United Kingdom of the British Virgin Islands and Bermuda. I also thank the Chief Minister of the Isle of Man and his colleagues for meeting me. I am grateful to the House of Lords Library for its excellent briefings and to Christian Aid and Transparency International for the additional briefings they provided and the work they do in this area.

The background to this amendment is the growing public understanding of how the lack of transparency in offshore financial centres helps the corrupt to find a haven for their ill-gotten wealth and tax evaders to sleep easily in their beds. Those in poor countries feel the effects of this most because they do not have the resources to pursue the money that has been taken from them. The understanding of this need for transparency was considerably enhanced by the publication of the Panama papers in April 2016.

On 8 November, the Chancellor of the Exchequer made a Written Ministerial Statement to Parliament on the work to date of the cross-agency Panama Papers Taskforce, a group of law enforcers set up to pursue the information that related to the United Kingdom about the illegality revealed. He said in his Statement that since the publication of the papers the task force had: opened civil and criminal investigations into 22 individuals for suspected tax evasion; identified a number of leads relevant to a major insider-trading operation; identified nine potential professional enablers of economic crime, all with links to known criminals; placed 43 high net-worth individuals under special review while their links to Panama were further investigated; identified two new UK properties and a number of companies relevant to a National Crime Agency financial sanctions inquiry; established links to eight active Serious Fraud Office investigations; and identified 26 offshore companies whose beneficial ownership of UK property was previously concealed and whose financial activity had been identified to the National Crime Agency as potentially suspicious. In addition to pursuing those 74 individuals, 26 companies, links to eight Serious Fraud Office investigations and other leads on insider trading and sanctions, a number of individuals had come forward to settle their affairs before the task force partners took action against them.

All the law enforcement activity I list is the result in just six months of bringing transparency to the files of just one legal firm in just one country. It gives an indication of the huge extent of illicit activity and illuminates the rationale behind the measures in this very welcome Bill. In passing, with great respect, I ask those noble Lords who oppose public registers whether they feel it is not worth bringing that number of people to justice, or whether they have a proposal other than transparency for achieving that end.

Undoubtedly, government Amendment 8, to which the Minister just spoke so eloquently, is a step forward in trying to curb the criminal activity, tax evasion and laundering of corruptly gained wealth that is illustrated by the work of the Panama Papers Taskforce. It is very welcome and makes clear that the Government look to the overseas territories and Crown dependencies to keep good and accurate information. Let us remember that half the companies disclosed by the Panama papers—some 140,000 of them—were incorporated in the British Virgin Islands.

However, Amendment 14 goes further than the government amendment. In relation to the overseas territories, it aims to bring transparency to their financial operations by allowing public access to registers of beneficial ownership. I note that Montserrat has already agreed to establish such a public register. This amendment would put a timetable in place for the British Overseas Territories to have public registers. It would require the Government to give all reasonable assistance possible to the overseas territories to help with this. If registers have not been made public by the end of 2019, the amendment requires that public registers should be brought in by an Order in Council.

In Committee, the Minister made it clear that she could not accept the amendment. However, in doing so she did not use the argument raised so frequently in discussions on this matter, that requiring the overseas territories to have public registers while other offshore financial centres maintain their secrecy puts them at a competitive disadvantage so that, in the evocative words of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson,

“the malfeasant … will drift away to still murkier regimes”.—[Official Report, 3/4/17; cols. 898-899.]

I welcome very much the noble Baroness’s rejection of that line of argument. She said:

“The overseas territories may face competitive disadvantage in the short term, but in the long term, the transparent and open way in which the territories intend to work, and we with them, will be to their advantage”.—[Official Report, 3/4/17; col. 911.]


In Committee, her main reason for rejecting the amendment was that there would be a constitutional problem in accepting it. She repeated that today. Yet since Committee, I have been sent many documents on this subject, which I studied carefully. They make it clear that ultimately the UK Parliament could legislate for the overseas territories if it so wished but I understand completely why the Government would prefer to proceed with consent. So would I and I am sure there is wide agreement on that.

I remind the Minister of what she said in Committee: for the purposes of international law, the overseas territories are British. That Britishness is significant. In my various discussions, it has become clear to me that the attraction of the financial services in the overseas territories is primarily related to British identity and language, access to a common-law legal system, final recourse to the Privy Council and the appeal, as it is seen, of the Union Jack. It is worth repeating the words of the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, in Committee. He said:

“It is fair to ask those jurisdictions that while their economy and defence depend on the stability and integrity of the UK, they should also be expected to follow the same rules of business and investment that we follow here”.—[Official Report, 3/4/17; col. 888.]


We in the United Kingdom have a public register. It might not be perfect—I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, would agree with me on that—but it is our policy. We have one because we believe it is right and that it helps to prevent serious crime. I hope that by tabling this amendment we have made it clear that we in the United Kingdom understand the huge impact that secret offshore financial services can have on the poor countries of the world, good governance, democracy and security. We understand that the overseas territories are a United Kingdom responsibility and we hope very much that transparency of their financial operations will come sooner rather than later.

Finally, I thank the Minister for the way she has carried this hugely important Bill through the House, and for her support and helpfulness at all times.

[Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)]

My Lords, as one of the signatories to Amendment 14—and its predecessor, which we looked at in Committee—I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, and congratulate her on her amazing vigour and courage and, indeed, her intuition in pursuing this matter, which is so important.

When I spoke in Committee, I made it very clear from the beginning that, first of all—and this is important still—the Government deserve enormous praise for the work they have done both here in the UK and internationally to tackle corruption and tax evasion and avoidance. I credit that also to the previous Government because one of the reasons I have been interested in this matter is that I followed the right honourable David Cameron’s lead when he put this issue very much at the top of the agenda at the 2013 G8 summit and subsequently, as was referred to in an earlier discussion, at the anti-corruption summit in May last year.

Of course, Mr Cameron and others did not refer just to global standards. Indeed, one of my noble friend the Minister’s responses in Committee was to talk about awaiting global standards before any further pressure was placed on overseas territories to comply with the public register or the enhanced register. But the truth is, of course, that the former Prime Minister referred to the gold standard, which the United Kingdom itself was very much in the vanguard of. This was accepted and understood, and it left this country, as it is now, in an enormously advantageous position in dealing with other countries as we go forward.

For my sins, I was one of those involved in the drafting of the fourth anti-money laundering directive. My friends always introduce me as an expert on money laundering. I do not like that description but undoubtedly we are looking in this enormously important piece of legislation at how we respond to the requirements under that fourth money laundering directive as well.

I maintain that the amendment I have co-signed is the best way forward but I also pay tribute to the Minister for the way she has listened to the concerns of those who hold our views. She listened very carefully in Committee—and not just listened. Often I think our Ministers listen but that is about it. She has in fact acted. Therefore, I will refer quickly to government Amendment 8, which is an enormous stride forward. It also gives us the ability, which is so important, to review the situation actively in two years’ time, when we can have reports to see how the overseas territories are getting on with the introduction of public registers. She has also given us good news this evening about developments even since Committee. We should welcome that and thank the Government for their interest in proceeding in that manner.

I am still of the belief that we need a level playing field and we need an agreement with our overseas territories that is at least compatible with and equivalent to the requirements that we place in the domestic setting. It makes no sense not to have that. I recognise the Government’s position on this and I realise they wish to proceed by consent. Of course, we all agree that consent is always better than enforcement. I wish the Government great success with this. As we proceed, I hope we will be getting regular updates and then, in due course, when the reports come in, we will have the opportunity, if necessary, to return to this matter. But this is a very important Bill in so many other regards as well. I certainly wish us to pass the Bill and allow it to proceed from here.