Criminal Finances Bill

Debate between Lord Leigh of Hurley and Lord Sharkey

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 28th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharkey]

If it were absolutely clear that you cannot obtain an unexplained wealth order without satisfying that condition, I would be happy, but I am not entirely sure that it is, and I would welcome the Minister’s confirmation that the noble Lord is correct.

Amendments 22 to 25 will allow the Minister to point out—if other noble Lords do not do so beforehand—where I have entirely missed the point. They refer to page 7 and subsections (2), (3) and (4) of new Section 362H. These subsections allow rules of court to provide for the practice and procedure to be followed relating to unexplained wealth orders before the High Court in Northern Ireland. There are similar but not identical subsections later in the Bill dealing with the same matter in Scotland. However, the Bill seems to be silent on how these matters are to be dealt with in the English and Welsh courts. I am sure I have missed something obvious here and would be grateful for enlightenment from the Minister.

There is another apparent anomaly in the sections dealing with the variation or discharge of an unexplained wealth order. I notice that the provision in Scotland is significantly different from that in Northern Ireland. On page 18, line 43, to line 1 on page 19, the Bill allows applications for variation or discharge to be made by “Scottish Ministers” or by,

“any person affected by the order”.

That is not the case for Northern Ireland, where application can be made only by the enforcement authorities or the respondent. Why is there this difference between Scotland and Northern Ireland? My Amendment 24 makes the process in Northern Ireland the same as in Scotland but, again, what about England and Wales? I look to the Minister to put me right on all this.

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the legislation on UWOs. I have a number of declarations of interest, and I own residential and commercial property in the UK. I do not think that I have any unexplained wealth, but I have some experience—admittedly, some 30 years ago—of working as a tax adviser. It was quite common in those days for the Inland Revenue, as it was then, to demand explanations of what it thought was unexplained wealth from various taxpayers. That was quite common practice, so the concept of the state seeking an explanation of wealth is not new in practice.

We have a situation where, certainly in central London, a shocking number of multimillion pound properties lie dormant and are owned by overseas parties. To the extent that this goes some way to change that situation, it must be very welcome. It would also be quite welcome if the Government were to take a more holistic approach, perhaps using this Bill to address that problem as well as considering other solutions, outwith this legislation, including penal rates for dormant properties owned by overseas people. None the less, the UWOs are likely to make a significant change in helping our law enforcement agencies to investigate money laundering in the London property market and, in particular, recovering proceeds of crime.