Money Laundering Regulations: Politically Exposed Persons

Lord Macpherson of Earl's Court Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, the standards for our anti-money laundering regulations come from the FATF, which defines an international approach. My noble friend is right that we have the opportunity, having left the EU, to adapt the anti-money laundering regulations to make them more proportionate and more effective. We have already done that in a number of areas, and the piece of work we are going to do, looking at the evidence around the risk of domestic PEPs, is a further area in which we can do some work.

[Lord Macpherson of Earl’s Court (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of Hoare’s bank. To pick up on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, it is now several years since we left the European Union. The Treasury has regulatory powers to change the relevant legislation, and the Government are determined to prove the benefits of Brexit. Surely it is time to use those powers to make progress on this issue.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord that we should make use of the new powers we have. As I said to the House previously, we have already made a series of amendments to the money laundering regulations to reduce unnecessary burdens—for example, scrapping the requirement for the creation of a bank account portal, which was seen as disproportionate. There is more work to do in this area, and that work is under way. We published the review of our anti-money laundering regulations in June, and we are committed to consulting on broader changes to our approach. The main focus of that is on the supervisory bodies for anti-money laundering regulations, but this issue is also being looked at as part of that work.