Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [HL]

Lord Naseby Excerpts

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 24th January 2018 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Naseby]

4: After Clause 43, in paragraph (6)(a), after “entities” insert “that own or buy property in the United Kingdom”

[Lord Naseby]

My Lords, when I studied the amendment that my noble friend on the Front Bench tabled, I was concerned about the expression “overseas entities”, so I went to the dictionary and looked up “entities”. The Bill does not use the terminology “overseas entities” anywhere, nor do any of the proposed amendments, so it is unclear what it means except in the ordinary meaning of the words; that is, they may apply to structures or arrangements that have legal personality and are not formed in the United Kingdom. My noble friend on the Front Bench made it clear that the Bill does not intend to single out the overseas territories but would apply to all entities registered in all jurisdictions around the world.

I do not believe that it is the United Kingdom Government’s intention to allow the power in proposed new subsection (6)(b) to be infinitely broad. My interpretation is that it is an attempt to refer to entities for which the Government launched a consultation in April 2017. It was called the OCBO register at one point; it has also been called the register of OLEs. This extends to overseas entities that are legal owners of UK real estate or that enter into contracts with UK public authorities. As such, it seems aimed primarily at entities used by certain Middle Eastern investors to purchase London real estate.

However, as I understand it, the Government have yet to respond to that consultation with details as to precisely which activities should or should not be captured. There seems still to be degree of indecision. As a result, I hurriedly put down an amendment, which is why it is starred on the Marshalled List.

There is a concern on my part and, I imagine, that of others, that the Government may be attempting through this amendment to give themselves latitude to decide the precise definition at a later date. I hope that that is not the case, but there seems a possibility as the Bill stands at the moment. Either I will withdraw the amendment if I receive a reassurance from my noble friend or it may be left to the Commons to put down a precise amendment to cover this slight difficulty that I and others foresee. I beg to move.

[Lord Faulks (Con)]

My Lords, I was responsible for putting down the amendment which I think provoked this amendment to the Bill. As many noble Lords may remember, the background was anxiety expressed around the House about the fact that large parts of central London and outside London were being bought up by legal entities and companies, often with money laundered proceeds of crime and corruption—it is an increasing problem. Although the Government had committed to set up a register, they were taking some time about doing it and the attempt was to bring matters forward.

I am glad that my noble friend was able to give reassurance to the House that the register would be coming forward and that a Bill would be drafted, and indeed went further by promising that there would be regular reporting about progress. That, as I understand it, is the purport of proposed new subsection (3).

I am sorry that I have banged on about this issue for some time—throughout the passage of Criminal Finances Act, through Questions and through the course of this Bill—but I remain unrepentant. I was particularly reassured about this when I attended a lecture given by the distinguished author and journalist Misha Glenny on Monday. He has spent 10 years or so studying international crime and money laundering and is the author of the book McMafia, which is now the basis of a successful television series. He outlined for the audience the scale of money laundering throughout the world, principally following the collapse of communism, and how it has spread to all sorts of jurisdictions, the United Kingdom being one in principle. He showed the audience a map of central London showing the extent to which prime London property is now owned by kleptocrats: let us not beat about the bush—that is the position. He said, however, that worldwide there is a feeling that we should be fighting back against this appalling scourge of money laundering. He identified the most effective way this country could do this as being to set up a register to make sure that nobody could hide behind the cloak of anonymity and thus be able to launder the proceeds of crime through central London property. This is why this remains an important procedure.

I am very glad that the Government are committed to doing what they said they will do. I will be keeping the Government up to the mark, as I am sure other noble Lords will. My noble friend Lord Hodgson has one query about the amendment. Subject, of course, to the clarification that my noble friend Lord Naseby seeks, I join others in thanking the Minister and his Bill team for their co-operation on this issue and on all issues. My real sense in dealing with the Bill is that it is not a party political exercise at all; there is a real cross-party endeavour to make sure that this is as effective as possible.

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[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords. I reiterate my thanks to my noble friends Lord Faulks and Lord Hodgson for pressing the Government and holding us to account in this respect and ensuring that we move forward. I am also grateful to my noble friend Lord Naseby, who sought clarification. I have looked carefully at his amendment and I think what the Government have tabled and his amendment have the same intent. However, in the interests of ensuring thoroughness and completeness, I have asked officials to look again to make sure that the intent behind his amendment is achieved.

The Government have committed to the new Bill establishing the register. It will be primary legislation and will pass through your Lordships’ House, so I am sure there will be further discussions and plenty of opportunity to ensure that all issues, particularly those raised by my noble friend, are addressed. I assure him that we feel the intent behind his amendment has been achieved. I will, however, look at this again, and if there is a need to do anything further, we will seek to do that in the other place.

My noble friend Lord Hodgson asked me when Royal Assent might be granted. It is not within my gift as the Minister at the Dispatch Box to confirm that, but we are expecting Royal Assent at the end of this Session. On accountability, I reassure my noble friend that through the additional ministerial Statement laid today, I have sought to provide as much detail as I can at this juncture in the parliamentary timetable. However, as I said to him in our bilateral meetings—I believe this was communicated to him subsequently in other meetings we had—we have worked back, and as the Written Ministerial Statement again confirms, we are looking to have the register operational by 2021. I am sure there will be other opportunities. As for the Government laying a report, I confirm that the 12- month clock—the countdown—will commence as soon as Her Majesty has signed off on the Bill. However, it would be beyond the scope of my responsibilities to give an absolute, cast-iron guarantee as to when Royal Assent will be. I am sure my noble friend appreciates and respects that we have to follow due process. However, the Government are committed to the register being operational in 2021. From the points made by other noble Lords, I appreciate that wherever one is sitting in your Lordships’ House, there is no disagreement on the need to move forward on this and to do so as rapidly as we can.

My noble friend raised another issue, about procurement. Again, to reassure him on that, I draw his attention to the Written Ministerial Statement laid today by my noble friend Lord Henley, which says:

“I am today confirming to Parliament the Government’s timetable for implementation of its policy to achieve greater transparency around foreign entities that own or buy property in the UK or participate in UK Government procurement”.


As the Bill is drafted and pre-legislative scrutiny takes place on it—if that is the process which is agreed—that will allow further discussion to address the very points my noble friend raises in that primary piece of legislation.

The point about local government is well made. As someone who served 10 years in local government, I am acutely aware of how procurement works. It will reflect the very policies adopted by the UK Government. With those reassurances, I hope my noble friend will be minded to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Naseby]

My Lords, having listened to my noble friend, I am most grateful to him for the patience he has shown and the care he has taken over the Bill and this amendment. In light of the commitment he has made—as he says, if necessary, some amendment could be made in another place—it is my pleasure to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 4 (to Amendment 3) withdrawn.

Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [HL]

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Wednesday 17th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, I very much agreed with the constitutional points made, particularly by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull. More widely, I suggest that this amendment would be counterproductive in its effect. It is interesting to note that law enforcement agencies do not support public registers, particularly in such territories, as they do not improve law enforcement capabilities.

As David Lewis, head of the world’s anti-money laundering standard-setter, the Financial Action Task Force, and formerly of the UK National Crime Agency, said:

“Incomplete, unverified, out of date information in a public register is not as useful as law enforcement agencies being able to access the right information at the point they need it”.


Moreover, the UK’s overseas dependencies have already shown themselves extremely efficient in responding to the requests of policing and other agencies. Interestingly, tax authorities do not support public registers either, as people report less candidly than when information is available only to public authorities. The OECD’s Keeping It Safe states that to,

“comply with their obligations under the law, taxpayers need to have confidence that the often sensitive financial information is not disclosed inappropriately”.

Australia’s chief tax collector opposes public registers. Interestingly, UK intelligence and law enforcement, a key foreign policy asset, is likely to be undermined. UK law enforcement has access to information in the overseas territories’ central platforms. This can be exchanged with other countries to secure reciprocity or other benefits to the UK. Public registers remove this leverage and facilitate identity theft. The Financial Times has reported that directors are twice as likely to be victims of identity theft due to the Companies House public register of directors.

It is pretty clear that international standards do not require public registers but do require verification. That is the key point: you can have effective verification when registers are not public. However, as the, I am afraid, rather disappointing results of what has happened in the UK show, you cannot have verification with an open system. For once, even the EU was correct: it withdrew its proposal for public registers in December 2016 on the grounds that they disproportionately infringe human rights. The EU’s Legal Service stated that introducing public registers was a disproportionate infringement of the right to privacy and the European Data Protection Supervisor stated that it would breach data protection principles.

I think everyone is in favour of the objective; the question is how you achieve it most effectively. I have been a commissioner on the Guernsey Financial Services Commission for a number of years and have had some involvement in what Guernsey has done. Interestingly, Guernsey scores higher than the UK for general regulatory effectiveness and compliance. However, the crucial thing is that the registers are accurate, have been verified and can be used swiftly by the proper authorities that need that information. I am afraid that making them public undoes a lot of the point of them.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I had the privilege of speaking in Committee, when I declared my interests as a vice-chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Cayman Islands, and the fact that I have family working in the Cayman Islands.

I reflected on what the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, said in Committee, particularly the examples she gave of developing countries being fleeced by the operations of the overseas territories—my words, not hers. I did a bit of research and asked the Cayman Islands for information on the type of operations conducted there. I give a case history that I think your Lordships will find interesting. Money does not stay in the Cayman Islands but flows through them to support growth in onshore jurisdictions, including in developing countries. An example of this is the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, which invested more than $400 million through Cayman-based investment vehicles in 2015 alone. The money supported critical development projects in more than 24 developing countries. That is not just a one-off example; there are many others in what I call the leading overseas territories. I will not repeat what the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, said; I am grateful to him for the research that he has done.

I point out that the Cayman Islands had a new constitution in 2009, which was approved at Lancaster House and contained measures on the rule of law and human rights that meet the most stringent international and European standards. Included in their Bill of Rights is the right to privacy and strong laws on data protection.

It has already been made clear that most countries are not adopting public registers. Certainly, for the overseas territories in the Caribbean, the rival centres are the United States, Hong Kong and Singapore. They have all looked at public registers but not one has agreed to it. So if we force the overseas territories to have public registers, the effect will be that business will move away—there will be none of the sort of business that I have just cited, which is increasingly the nature of the business done in the overseas territories. Furthermore, the information Her Majesty’s Government get on money laundering or anything else they require would certainly be weakened greatly because the activities that people are interested in would not be available. My noble friend Lord Flight mentioned the situation in the EU, which takes the view that it would disproportionately infringe on human rights. I do not need to expand on that.

I will finish on a key constitutional point—perhaps, as someone who took the Maastricht treaty through, I had to learn something about constitutional law. I re-emphasise that the overseas territories are self-governing territories, and legislating for them is constitutionally questionable. It is true that Orders in Council have been used to impose legislation on the overseas territories, but only for constitutional or human rights issues. The need to consider the overseas territories’ interests was confirmed by the House of Lords in 2008. To use an Order in Council for financial regulation when the overseas territories have already adopted international standards while the UK has not would expose the UK to legal challenge as potentially irrational and therefore could be overturned on judicial review. It would also be provocative, as my noble friend has indicated, to Scotland and the other devolved Administrations in the United Kingdom. I for one will certainly, with a clear conscience, vote totally against this amendment.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I see the beguiling simplicity of the noble Baroness’s amendment, and after the powerful speech she made in moving it and the graphic examples she gave, I find myself carried along on an emotional tide. But the House needs to be aware of some of the unintended consequences that may flow from this if we are inclined to accept it.

The amendment refers to the Companies House regulatory scheme as being the standard to which we should aspire. Companies House is a recipient of information; its interrogation is pretty limited. Noble Lords may be inclined to look in detail at the amendment and say, “Yes, but this is a higher standard because we are dealing with the section on persons with significant control”. As is shown in the register of your Lordships’ House, I am a person with significant control of a company, and I have never been asked anything at all about my entry. I hope—I intend—that it is accurate, but nobody at Companies House has ever approached me to say, “Is this correct?”; it is just accepted. There is therefore a danger that the seductive idea of a public register means that it is somehow better verified than the situation we now have. That is my first concern about the amendment.

The second relates to a point made by other noble Lords. If you raise the standards or increase exposure and transparency in one area, you merely drive business to another corner of the world. My noble friend Lord Naseby referred to Singapore and Hong Kong but there are other places a great deal less attractive to which business might be driven. As I understand it, each of the overseas territories has already established a proper register of beneficial owners of companies which can be interrogated at all times by our law enforcement agencies. My noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley referred to the fact that the efficacy of that regime is to be tested in a review which will be put before Parliament in the next couple of years. Really, the question at issue is whether there should be public access to that register. Those are the words that make the difference, but in my view in the present situation that will have little practical effect. At present, our law enforcers can interrogate the register. If the public are also able to access it, the result might be that it will drive people to areas of the world where we cannot have even a vestigial chance of enforcing the proper levels of law.

Like my noble friend Lord Flight, I absolutely understand the purpose behind the noble Baroness’s amendment, but in my view the best should not be the enemy of the good.

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Moved by

[Lord Naseby]

76: After Clause 41, insert the following new Clause—
“Registration of companies: anti-money laundering checks
(1) The Registrar of Companies must not register a company unless he or she is satisfied that appropriate anti-money laundering checks have taken place. (2) The Companies Act 2006 is amended as follows— (a) in section 9, after subsection (5), insert— “(5ZA) The application must provide satisfactory evidence that anti-money laundering checks have taken place.” (b) after section 13 insert— “13A” Satisfactory evidence of anti-money laundering checks (1) The Registrar is entitled to accept the anti-money laundering registration number of the United Kingdom body that has submitted the application as satisfactory evidence under section 9(5ZA), provided he or she believes that number to be valid. (2) The Secretary of State may by regulations made by statutory instrument specify any other evidence that the Registrar may accept under section 9(5ZA). (3) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.””

[Lord Naseby]

My Lords, this amendment is about closing a major money laundering loophole. Noble Lords will be aware that, last year, 606,000 companies were formed in the UK. Of these, 250,000 were set up through Companies House, but the majority were set up by company formation agents. In the middle of last year, the fourth EU anti-money laundering directive came into force, requiring company formation agents to complete due diligence checks on anyone setting up a company.

However, for reasons that are not clear to me, the Government decided to exclude Companies House from doing such due diligence. For years, Companies House has set up companies and has had to accept documents sent to it in good faith. It is not required to and does not have any statutory powers to verify or validate the information contained in them. It can act only within the parameters of the Companies Act. It certainly has no investigatory powers under that legislation and, therefore, there are no significant checks being done on companies registered through Companies House. In reality, this means that, for just £12, someone can set up a company using entirely false details without having to go through any verification checks on beneficial ownership, and with only limited checks on registered directors. Therefore, individuals who have been involved in money laundering, have convictions or have been debarred as owners in other jurisdictions can gain access to UK companies though Companies House.

Why does this matter? It is because, unfortunately, there are some companies being set up whose principal purpose is one of committing crime or which subsequently lend themselves to being used for that purpose. In extreme cases, incorporation is used entirely as a front to enable fraud to flourish. This leaves British businesses, consumers and taxpayers open to abuse. The evidence is there from an organisation called Transparency International. A couple of months ago, in November, it found that there were hundreds of British shell companies implicated in nearly £80 billion-worth of money laundering. That in itself should set off alarm bells in my judgment. Additionally, this lack of checks harms Britain’s reputation as a leading place to do business and must be addressed in the run-up to Brexit. It is essential to close this loophole to combat fraud, prevent money laundering and boost our country’s reputation.

The solutions seems pretty simple. In Committee, the Government said that they were not prepared to impose a financial burden on Companies House. However, we have to have some detailed checks and by adding a simple automated check of due diligence during the filing process, the Government can close their own loophole at a fractional cost while ensuring that the UK remains a competitive, low-cost place in which to do business. I understand that Her Majesty’s Government have recognised this is a problem and have given due thought to it. I look forward to hearing from my noble friend exactly how they may seek to close this large loophole. I beg to move.

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted]

My Lords, I have added my name to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Naseby. We had a good mini-debate on this issue in Committee. His amendment is a neat solution to the problem that those of us involved in that mini-debate identified—that some sort of check has to be done at the Companies House stage. If money is not put behind that to enable personnel to do that, this proposal seems a neat solution. I would be interested to know whether the Government will take it up or provide something similar.

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[Lord Naseby]

My Lords, I am particularly grateful to the Minister for the work that he has clearly done since Committee. Nevertheless, £80 billion is a huge amount of money and needs to be taken very seriously. I understand and appreciate the evaluation that is being undertaken, which is due to report in a couple of months. I urge the Minister to work with the trade association for the company formation agents. They must have a multitude of information that I have not managed to have the time or the resources to go into.

I also thank the noble Baroness for her support, particularly in Committee, when we spent a considerable amount of time on this matter. I deeply appreciate that, as well as the very generous contribution from the Opposition Front Bench. I also thank the Minister for the assurances that he has given today. I ask quite a lot of Oral Questions, but I will hold back in the hope that the evaluation agency reports and that we then move forward as swiftly as possible to close the £80 billion loophole that exists at the moment. With permission, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 76 withdrawn.

Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [HL]

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 6th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, Amendments 69H, 69J and 69L in this group are in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Bowles, but the group also encompasses Amendment 69K in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Naseby. This cluster of four amendments work extremely well together, and we are very grateful to the noble Lord for bringing in a piece which strengthens this cluster.

Even the unobservant will have noticed that, in a sense, this is about starting to close loopholes. We had a very interesting comment, I think from the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, earlier—he can tell me if I am wrong—talking about the reputation and the failures of the UK to manage money laundering that involves the overseas ownership of property in London. The noble Lord, Lord Naseby, may not have had the opportunity to be here earlier, but we did have Amendment 69 in the name of the noble Lords, Lord Faulks, Lord Rooker and Lord Collins, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, which directly addressed the public register of beneficial ownership of UK property by companies and other legal entities registered outside the UK, in an attempt to speed up the whole process of getting a public register of beneficial ownership.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

I sat through the whole debate on Amendment 69, which took a fair amount of time.

[Baroness Kramer]

I do apologise, but the noble Lord will know then that that issue was addressed at that point in time. The Government gave us an update on the progress they are making towards what we hope will be such a public register. Indeed, I believe the Minister said it was not a question of whether but how there would be a public register. In a sense, that is one of the criticisms of London that hopefully will be closed within a reasonable period of time. We are still waiting on the timetable, but that is indeed what we hope.

However, the noble Lord is absolutely right that whenever issues are raised, particularly when the UK talks of issues around tax havens in other countries, or we on these various Benches talk about trying to get public registers in the overseas territories and Crown dependencies, the answer nearly always comes back, “Clean up your own house first”. Indeed, that is one of the reasons why I and so many in this House support that public register of beneficial ownership of property.

These amendments that I now address follow on that same theme. I remember the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, in particular in the debates on the Criminal Finances Bill, being highly critical, comparing London very badly with Jersey. Although we have a public register for companies, it is not one that has any verification system, and he saw that as a very fundamental flaw in the UK system. That accusation comes again and again, whenever we look at trying to do anything with the overseas territories. Whenever we look at any kind of more global activity, the answer that always comes back is: “You say that you’re well in advance of other countries, but look at your own house—you’ve plenty there to get in order”. I would agree that we have plenty to get in order, so let us do it.

The three amendments that I have tabled with the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, deal with various aspects of this. Amendment 69H deals with an issue that has generally been overlooked. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, for identifying it—as noble Lords can probably tell, she is the expert hand in these amendments and has drafted all three. Amendment 69H proposes that trust or company service providers that do not carry on business in the UK and ensures that they may not incorporate UK companies without oversight from an anti-money laundering supervisor. I will not go through the details of each of its provisions, but essentially it makes sure that anti-money laundering authorities can get a grip on a series of organisations—trust or company service providers—that may have escaped notice up to this point in time. It is one loophole closed.

Amendment 69J takes another tack to close loopholes. It recognises that a company can be tracked if it has a UK bank account, but if the company does not, it is much harder to identify that particular company and make sure that the money laundering authorities can give it due and appropriate attention. In the proposed new clause, if an entity falling under the Companies Act 2006 does not have a UK bank account, it will have to provide a fee. The reason it should provide a fee is that it means that the cost of doing due diligence falls not on the UK taxpayer but on the company. That provides every incentive and every opportunity for the various authorities to pay due attention to that company. That is another loophole closed.

That fits brilliantly with the new clause proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Naseby. I will let him explain that because he will understand it far better than me, but again it highlights the importance of due diligence which flows through the first two amendments that I have described. Due diligence is vital to make sure that those entities that are active in the UK have very limited opportunity—or, preferably, no opportunity—to engage in nefarious activity.

Finally, Amendment 69L directly addresses that issue that was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, and others. As noble Lords know, we have a public register of companies here in the UK, but the Government have never used a verification procedure. I understand why they have not. When a register is public, it is transparent. Journalists, NGOs, and members of the public have the opportunity to trawl that database, and that provides for many additional eyes to look through the material. That is exceedingly important, but perhaps it is not sufficient. At this point in time, issues of tax avoidance, tax evasion and money laundering have become far more significant—and on a far more significant scale. This is the time to turn to the supervisory authorities and give them the power and the wherewithal —the wherewithal probably being the critical element—to do verification and proper due diligence on that register.

That is the purpose of the three new clauses proposed in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles. They are to close the kinds of loopholes which leave the UK open to regular criticism that we talk about cleaning other people’s houses but we have not done what is necessary to clean our own. Read those together with Amendment 69 and you have a package that makes a very fundamental difference—one I am sure ought to be acceptable to the Government. I beg to move.

[Lord Naseby]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 69K, which contains a new clause that I believe would meet a need arising from an apparent money laundering loophole to do with Companies House. Before I get on to it, I thank the Minister and particularly his staff for the consultation periods that were made available to Members of your Lordships’ House; they were extremely well run. I have also had correspondence with his office and I found it extremely helpful, so I put on record my personal thanks.

There are two ways of registering a company in this country, either directly through Companies House or via a company formation agent. Currently, 40% of all companies are incorporated through Companies House. As we probably all know, in July this year the fourth EU anti-money laundering directive came into force. It required considerable change for company formation agents in that they now had to take out enhanced due diligence checks when registering a company. Obviously this increased their workload and indeed the cost considerably, but nevertheless it was to the credit of the industry that it welcomed the changes that came with the directive.

However, under current provisions, fraudsters can still register a business direct with Companies House, either on paper or via the GOV.UK website, and, through that, avoid all the checks now required when company formation agents carry out exactly the same process. My understanding of the rationale behind this is that Companies House is not a business provider, but instead is fulfilling a statutory duty just to register businesses and issue incorporation certificates. Legally, Companies House has to accept in good faith all documents sent to it, and has no statutory power whatever to verify or validate the information contained in them. It can act only within the parameters of the Companies Act, and it has no investigatory powers under that legislation.

In reality, that means that for just £12 someone can set up a company using entirely false details without having to go through any verification checks on beneficial ownership, and with limited checks on registered directors. Individuals who have been involved in money laundering, who have convictions or who have been disbarred as owners in other jurisdictions can therefore gain access to UK companies through Companies House. This loophole cannot be justified; by incorporating at Companies House, fraudsters are able to create the illusion of their company being financially secure and sustainable. That leaves British business, consumers and taxpayers open to abuse through fraud or money laundering.

The organisation Transparency International reports that in the UK last year 251,628 UK companies were created with no checks being made on the person setting up the company or their source of wealth. A further TI report found that there were hundreds of British shell companies implicated, in its judgment, in nearly £80 billion of money laundering. The report goes on to say:

“The fact that a large proportion of firms are incorporated directly through Companies House and undergo no due diligence checks creates a significant money laundering risk to the UK framework”.


That lack of checks and balances harms Britain’s reputation as a leading place to do business, and in my judgment it is essential that that reputation is protected in the lead-up to Brexit. To protect businesses, taxpayers, and the UK’s reputation, it is essential that this loophole is closed.

I do not necessarily expect the Minister to take the precise wording in my amendment. It was written largely by myself with the help of the Public Bill Office, so in a sense it is a probing amendment, but I believe it is one with such depth of information that I would be enormously surprised if Her Majesty’s Government did not respond to it and come back with something similar on Report.

[Lord Davidson of Glen Clova (Lab)]

My Lords, the Opposition are sympathetic to many of the points that have been made, and I single out Amendment 69H. The capacity to carry out UK company formation from outside the UK is a real lacuna in the current money laundering regime. Monitoring within the UK is difficult enough, as is evidenced by the use of, for example, Scottish limited partnerships in Russian and former eastern-bloc bank fraud and money laundering of gigantic proportions. This vulnerability is of course magnified when the company information provider eludes the UK’s money laundering oversight.

Amendment 69J provides, we respectfully suggest, a useful additional hurdle for any prospective money launderer to negotiate. While the provision of the requisite materials for opening a bank account no doubt seems irksome to many, it none the less provides an additional external check on the background of those seeking to operate via a UK company.

The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, offers a clear and useful mechanism for combating money laundering and I share his observation that it would be surprising if the Government did not support this measure with considerable force.

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For these reasons, I therefore ask the noble Baronesses, Lady Bowles and Lady Kramer, and my noble friend Lord Naseby, to withdraw or not press their amendments.

[Lord Naseby]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister, but he is just repeating the problem. I understand what he is saying about the EU directive, although I am not skilled in that area and would not claim to be. However, I am quite skilled in the practicalities of life, and if a quarter of a million companies are being registered and nobody is checking them, that is a huge loophole, and Her Majesty’s Government have to find a way around that. The commercial sector is doing its proper due diligence—yes, it does it for a fee—but the Government have to say, “Right, it shall all be done by the private sector and Companies House will carry on doing the little bit of work it does for £12”, or develop a section at Companies House to do it. I accept that more work may well need to be done, but we cannot have such a situation in this country.

I can even give the Minister a small case history of what could happen. Somebody goes to Companies House, pays their £12 and registers. It is then reported to HMRC that they have registered. They then write in four months later to say that they have ceased trading. That is a wonderful vehicle for money laundering: they are a registered company, and HMRC has forgotten about them because they have told it that they are not trading. If a quarter of a million of them are doing this—I am not saying there are quite as many as that—it is a huge loophole and Her Majesty’s Government have to figure out how to deal with that section of companies that are currently being registered fully through Companies House.

[Lord Bates]

I do not accept that all we are doing is describing a problem. We are of course doing that, but we are also highlighting that we are about to formally establish the office for professional body anti-money laundering supervision, which will be responsible for supervising the very professional body of trust companies to which my noble friend was referring. We will have to keep an eye on and watch out for this issue, but we are certainly not complacent about it; we are aware of it and watching it carefully.

Syria

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I totally concur with the noble Lord’s sentiments. I assure him that he is right: this is not just about Daesh, although I am pleased that at the UN recently we passed a resolution in the Security Council that was all about holding to account those who committed these heinous crimes against humanity and wore the name of Daesh in committing their actions, which bear no resemblance to any humanitarian act. Regarding the Syrian regime, as the noble Lord knows, we are supportive of all resolutions. That is why we also take the strong stance that while the Assad regime is in place there can be no long-term political settlement of the situation. Let us not forget who created the crisis in the first place.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, why do Her Majesty’s Government not recognise that Assad is not going anywhere and that the Syria that he holds is growing back almost to the boundaries it had before? Against that background, does my noble friend really think that British taxpayers want £14 million to be spent on supporting the so-called opposition? Surely it would have been better spent on fuel poverty.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My noble friend perhaps mixes two issues. I think that all these issues are of equal importance. We have just heard from him about the importance of addressing fuel poverty. Equally, I think I speak for many in this House when I say it is right that we stand up for the oppressed of Syria and support the opposition forces because it is they, not Bashar al-Assad, who hold the key to the future development of all communities in Syria, including all minority communities.

Sri Lanka

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Thursday 12th October 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Naseby]

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the progress made by the coalition government of Sri Lanka in meeting the requirements on reconciliation established by the United Nations Human Rights Council.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest: I started the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Sri Lanka in 1975 and am currently its president. I have known Sri Lanka for over 50 years.

I believe the UK has a unique role to play in the future of Sri Lanka, but we need to understand the history behind the current situation. In the 11th century AD Tamil Cholas invaded Sri Lanka and took over the north and north-east. Understandably, the Sinhalese were left with the remainder. Then there was colonisation by the Portuguese, the Dutch and then of course the UK. The British left behind a very good civil service; unfortunately, it was not spread across the two main denominations. It was dominated by the Tamils, who looked after the civil service and indeed the professions. On independence, sadly, this position was somewhat resented by the Sinhalese, and they passed the Sinhalese official language Act.

There remained some smouldering resentment from 1948 right through to around 1973. The Tamil youth have been activated by two people in particular. One is Mr Balasingham, a British citizen after Mr Blair’s Government gave him that, and the other is a man called Prabhakaran, a single-minded ruthless activist. In 1973 Prabhakaran killed the mayor of Jaffna, along with six soldiers whose bodies were brought to Colombo. There was a resentful response from the Sinhalese youth; very sadly it was three days before a curfew was brought in, and well over 1,000 Tamils were killed. From then on it has been a situation of Eelam, the independent state, on one side versus the unitary state of Sri Lanka on the other.

Fast forward to 18 May 2009. The Tamil Tiger terrorists are defeated in a military solution, and after nearly 30 years of war there is peace across the whole island, as there is today. This is followed by a presidential election in January 2015 when President Sirisena is elected to head a coalition Government. The platform of that Government was to achieve reconciliation, ensure a durable peace, promote and protect human rights, uphold the rule of law and strengthen good governance and democracy. Out of that flowed UN Resolution 30/1 of 1 October 2015.

I visited Sri Lanka last February. Eight months on it is quite clear to me, from the context that I have, that the Government are addressing all the issues raised in the UN resolution. It may be taking longer than some would wish but that is life, I think. I shall highlight three. The first is missing persons. A massive amount of time and effort was put into the Paranagama commission, set up by the previous Rajapaksa Government, identifying some 20,000 missing persons and actually following up 10,000 of them. To this can be added the superb work done by the ICRC.

The good news is that a commissioner and a department are now set up, and in passing I pay tribute to the enormous hard work put in by Sir Desmond de Silva and his two colleagues. Sri Lanka must be eternally grateful that men of their wisdom and experience have got this task moving in the first place.

On prevention of terrorism, there is acceptance that a new Act is needed—there was in February. I cannot understand why it is taking quite so long to get it on the statute book. The constitution is being debated—the good news is that the leading Tamil party is actively taking part—and the problem of devolution is being addressed. However, the West needs to understand that the East cannot necessarily produce a mirror image of a western structure.

In passing, I pay considerable tribute to Halo and its Sri Lankan operatives, along with the Indians, Canadians and the Sri Lankan army, for clearing a square metre a day of ground, which makes it possible for families to return to the land.

What is not on track and needs urgent attention is the war crimes allegations hanging over the country. These flow from the Darusman report, which, on a best-guess basis, two years after the end of the war, stated,

“there is still no reliable figure for civilian deaths”,

but then guessed at 40,000. This figure is bandied about by virtually every human rights organisation and the thousands of Tamil diaspora throughout the world, many of whom were LTTE Tamil Tiger supporters and still are, inflamed by Tamil Net and those ghastly Channel 4 “Killing Fields” films, which so influenced the previous Prime Minister.

I have discovered an unpublished report from the United Nations country team, which stated that from August 2008 up to 13 May 2009, the number of civilians killed was 7,721. The war ended six days later, so it cannot possibly have got up to 40,000. Then I looked at what Gordon Weiss, the former UN spokesman said. He produced an estimate in 2009 of 7,000 civilian deaths. He also made the simple observation that, for the Sri Lankan army, it made no tactical sense to kill civilians. University Teachers for Human Rights is not exactly a right-wing organisation; in fact, it is probably on the far left. It had similar figures, and commented that from what happened it could not say that the purpose of bombing or shelling by government forces was to kill civilians. It also said that ground troops took great trouble not to harm civilians.

The Sri Lankan Government’s census department—a very genuine department—issued an in-depth census leading to the conclusion that 7,000 to 8,000 were missing. US Ambassador Blake stated on 7 April that there were deaths of 4,164 from 20 January to 6 April. Major General Holmes in his expert military report of March 2015 concurs with 7,000 to 8,000. Above all, all the people I have cited state that there was no policy to kill civilians—in fact, the opposite. To these I add the British defence attaché, Lieutenant Colonel Anton Gash, who said to me in January 2009 that he was surprised at the controlled discipline and success of the Sri Lankan army and in particular the care that it was taking to encourage civilians to escape and how well they were looked after, and that certainly there was no policy to kill civilians. There could not be a better military man: he is knowledgeable, independent and would be authoritative about what happened in his reports in his dispatches. So I decided to make a freedom of information submission to the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office concerning those dispatches in the period 1 January to 19 May 2009. The original submission went in on 6 November, but was rejected. Two appeals to higher authorities at the Foreign Office were rejected, so I appealed to the Information Commissioner—with more success. She listened and, as a result of her representations, 26 pages of heavily redacted dispatches were sent me. Obviously, I looked at them with some care. I challenged the lack of dispatches in the last two months. Amazingly, another 12 pages appeared, all redacted.

Still concerned about the lack of dispatches in the past few days, I made a final appeal to the First-tier Tribunal, assisted by my very good friend Amal Abeywardene. We had the sympathy of the judges for the cause, but they accepted the Foreign Office view that if confidential information was given out, nobody in future would give us any more. So I now have the princely sum of 39 pages of heavily redacted dispatches—nevertheless, if you dig deeply, as in life, you find some real gems. For example, on 28 January:

“It is not possible to distinguish civilians from LTTE cadres as few are in uniform”.


Then, from 16 February:

“IDPs being cared for in Trincomalee. Welfare appears to be overriding security considerations”.


Then on 20 January they say,

“no cluster munitions were used”,

and on 26 April,

“civilians killed Feb 1-April 26—6432”.

I hope and pray that, as a result of this debate, the UK will recognise the truth that no one in the Sri Lankan Government ever wanted to kill Tamil civilians. Furthermore, the UK must now get the UN and the UNHCR in Geneva to accept a civilian casualty level of 7,000 to 8,000, not 40,000. On top of that, the UK must recognise that this was a war against terrorism, so the rules of engagement are based on international humanitarian law, not the European Convention on Human Rights. The West, and in particular the US and UK, must remove the threat of war crimes and foreign judges that overhangs and overshadows all Sri Lankans, especially their leaders. We in the UK should reflect on the sacrifices of thousands of young Sri Lankan soldiers who died to create peace in that country. Finally, I reflect that Sri Lanka came to our need in two world wars and had casualties, and it was one of just a handful of countries who supported the UK over the Falklands. Now is the time to offer the hand of friendship and act to lead the international community to recognise what the truth really was.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, for initiating the debate and for his comprehensive introduction. As we have heard from all noble Lords, in 2009, Sri Lanka emerged from a brutal Tamil war of independence after 26 years of fighting and terrorism. Since the adoption of the Human Rights Commission resolution in 2015, the Sri Lankan coalition Government formed that year were expected to fulfil the recommendations of taking specific measures for institutional reform, justice, truth and reparations.

Although I hear the noble Lord’s optimism, I have to also acknowledge the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh. Last month, following a four-day visit, the UN’s special rapporteur, Ben Emmerson, found that the country’s judicial system and tolerance of torture is a,

“stain on the country’s international reputation”.

He warned that if government inertia over reform does not end, the authorities will have created,

“precisely the conditions likely to produce festering grievances, to foster unrest and even to reignite conflict”.

As we have heard, one of the key undertakings in the resolution was security sector reform, including repealing and replacing the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act. I very much support the United Kingdom’s call on the Sri Lankan Government to deliver on their commitments laid out in the UN resolution at the Human Rights Council on 11 September. I welcome our Government’s actions in that respect.

President Sirisena held a meeting with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, on the margins of the recent UN General Assembly. He was told by the commissioner to accelerate the pace of fulfilling all the obligations in the 2015 consensual resolution. However, President Sirisena argued that hastening the process would give an undue advantage to extremists and invited the high commissioner to visit Sri Lanka next year to see progress.

Noble Lords have highlighted the progress made and I do not want to undermine it. The president pointed out that he had signed the gazette notification operationalising the Office on Missing Persons before he left for the US. He also said that the draft Bill on a new constitution was presented to the Parliament—all good progress. The Sri Lankan Government also stated that all lands in the eastern province that were under the custody of the security forces had now been released and a considerable number of lands in the north, too, have already been released. For the rest of the lands, measures are being taken to resolve the administrative problems and these will also be released to people gradually.

But there still is a heavy military presence in the northern part of the country, which is a serious challenge to transitional justice. The largely Sinhalese and Buddhist army engages in everyday commercial activity, for example. It runs shops, restaurants and hotels, leaving local businesses unable to compete. It is common practice for the army to occupy, cultivate and harvest farmlands and sell produce back to the local community. If that continues, it is bound to increase discontent among Tamil communities and lead to a rise in protests. Those are the issues that need to be addressed.

[Lord Naseby]

As I said, I went there in February and I saw the shops being closed. I was told that there was no trading activity anymore and I checked with the traders who confirmed that. The noble Lord is right that trading was happening extensively, but it now seems to have ceased—or at any rate at least 95% ceased.

[Lord Collins of Highbury]

My Lords, I think that the difference between us is about the pace of progress. I acknowledge that things are happening—I said that in my opening remarks. But if we do not speed up the pace of reform, there is certainly the prospect of continuing discontent. What ongoing discussions are the Government having with the Sri Lankan Government to encourage this demilitarisation of the north and expedite the full return of land by the military to the owners?

As we have been reminded in this debate—by the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, in particular—the last session of the UN Human Rights Council on 29 September heard allegations of genocide, systematic discrimination, torture, extrajudicial killings and militarisation levelled against Sri Lanka. That is beside the call by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for the second time in two sessions for universal jurisdiction to be exercised. Of course, universal jurisdiction is the principle etched in law that every country has an interest in and responsibility to bring to justice perpetrators of the most abhorrent crimes, enforcing international legal norms. That is absolutely fundamental to protecting human rights and supporting peace and stability. They must be a priority for the international community. Does the Minister agree that all nations must reject impunity, embrace the principle of universal jurisdiction and clearly state that the alleged perpetrators will be arrested if they cross international borders?

Accountability for atrocities committed in Sri Lanka can offer the country a chance to heal the divisions of the past. That is the process that all noble Lords have been referring to. What effort is the FCO making to constructively engage with Sri Lanka and advance its commitments to reconciliation? Security sector reform, including repealing and replacing the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act, must be a key feature of that. As Ben Emmerson concluded, the use of torture has been and remains today endemic and routine for those arrested and detained on national security grounds. Since the authorities use that legislation disproportionately against members of the Tamil community, that community has borne the brunt of the state’s well-oiled torture apparatus. What representations have the UK Government made to Sri Lanka on the conclusions reached by Ben Emmerson, which confirmed similar findings to those of Human Rights Watch and other organisations?

The noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, referred to the events of two weeks ago in Sri Lanka when a mob led by Buddhist monks filmed a UN safe house sheltering Rohingya refugees. I, too, welcome both the condemnation from the Sri Lankan Government and the actions to be taken against the perpetrators of that crime. I ask the Minister whether the Government have urged the Sri Lankan people to ensure the perpetrators are properly held to account. There is, and remains, widespread concern that they will not be, and it is important that we keep up the pressure.

I join in the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, for sharing best practice, particularly in terms of extending freedom of religious belief, but human rights is a broad band of principles. One of the things that concerns me, to which I want the Minister to respond, is that earlier this year, after a vote in their Parliament, the Sri Lankan Government decided to keep their law making homosexuality illegal. Despite that decision, Cabinet members agreed to update their human rights action plan with an addendum that bans discrimination against someone based on their sexual orientation. Although that is a step in the right direction for the Sri Lankan LGBT community, it fears it will not stop facing abuse while the law telling people homosexuality is wrong exists. Many of the LGBT citizens polled by Human Rights Watch revealed they had been sexually or physically abused by local police, and at one point over half of them said they had been detained by police without reason. There was also a recent hate crime where a trans woman and HIV advocate was murdered. Can the Minister assure us that adequate time, not only for freedom of religious belief and other human rights issues, will be given at the Commonwealth Summit for these issues to be fully aired and considered at all the fora—including, most importantly, at the Heads of Government Meeting?

Hurricane Irma: Disaster Relief

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Naseby]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to undertake an urgent review of the anticipation, preparation, speed of response and chain of command for the United Kingdom’s disaster relief operations in the Caribbean, in the light of the United Kingdom’s response to Hurricane Irma; and if so, whether they will publish the results and any recommendations for change.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest in that I have family living in the Caymans.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

My Lords, we are conducting an internal review to identify the lessons learned from the Government’s response to Hurricane Irma, as indeed we do in response to all crisis situations. These findings will of course be incorporated into future crisis responses. The timing of this review will be considered alongside the ongoing recovery efforts in the Caribbean, including the overseas territories. Meanwhile, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will continue to co-ordinate a cross-government response to any new crisis which may arise.

[Lord Naseby]

The Minister’s Answer is very welcome, but in this review will he go back to the review after the tsunami in 2005, when it was clearly stated that the most vital part was for help to arrive in the first 24 hours, or, if that is not absolutely possible, in the first 36 hours? Against that background, will he make sure that the review looks at the date at which the FCO crisis committee met, on 5 September, and say why it did not meet in the previous week? Will that review look at the situation regarding the movement of aircraft from Brize Norton and say why they did not get into the air immediately after the hurricane had left the British Virgin Islands, instead going two days later? Finally, will the review look at why HMS “Ocean” was not moved at least a week earlier to somewhere nearer this side of the Atlantic rather than the middle of the Mediterranean, even though, sadly, it broke down en route in any case?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My noble friend raises a series of questions; in the interest of allowing more questions to be asked, I will write to him specifically to answer them. However, I will pick up on one or two of his points. The UK Government responded within 24 hours. My noble friend may well be aware that RFA “Mounts Bay” arrived within 24 hours of the storm’s impact and restored power supplies at Anguilla’s hospital, rebuilt the emergency operations centres and, importantly, cleared the runway to allow planes that were waiting to arrive at the airports to come in. It then followed on and delivered a similar response to BVI. However, I will respond to the issues my noble friend raised in his other questions.

Hurricane Irma

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord speaks from great experience but the RFA “Mounts Bay” was dispatched two months ago. I acknowledge his point that this has been an ongoing deployment through different ships and different vessels but, equally, I am sure he will acknowledge that this is done exactly for the reason that the hurricane season in the Caribbean is not a new phenomenon. What was different was the force of Hurricane Irma, a category 5. The deployment ensured that we had immediate assistance on board the RFA “Mounts Bay”, which was already in the region. It acted on that and she was able to visit both Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands. Today she has returned to Anguilla to help in providing basic reconstruction material.

The noble Lord made a point about the consular support we have made available for the population and for evacuation. Consular support is, in a general sense, exactly that. It establishes who needs what. I said earlier that, for anyone who needs to leave any of the affected territories, we are working with the appropriate authorities to make that happen. He mentioned St Martin specifically. The US, Germans and the Dutch are sending in flights today and we are liaising directly with them to ensure that those Brits who want to leave that territory are able to do so. They are prioritising according to need.

We are currently also working on this across other capitals in Europe, including Paris and The Hague. As I indicated earlier, we have had great assistance from the Cayman Islands and Barbados.

I emphasise again that this is about co-ordination with those in the region. The noble Lord mentioned the US and, yes, we are working directly with it. I indicated in the Statement how we are working collectively with the US. We have had no pushback from the other countries, nor in our support have we resisted others. When crises hit we come together collaboratively in our humanitarian efforts, and that has been reflected in this crisis.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

I declare an interest as having family on the Cayman Islands.

Is my noble friend clear that forward planning was missing? The Government have available remote sensing and satellite technology, which give a wonderful forward look into today’s world. That technology indicated that this was not an ordinary hurricane but the largest and most damaging that nature has seen. It therefore does not take a genius to work out that there will be devastation.

I can say as a former RAF pilot that I am surprised that RAF Brize Norton was not immediately on standby, with its aircraft loaded, so that the minute the hurricane struck the islands that have been mentioned they would take off. It takes the best part of 10 hours to get out there so, by the time they got there, there would have definitely been places to land. Why were they not ready? That is the key question.

Sixteen minutes ago, I believe, the Premier of the Cayman Islands, along with a number of medical teams, back-up facilities and medical facilities, arrived on their own Boeing-345 or 347. As far as I can see, they are providing considerably more medical back-up than we in the UK have provided so far.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

On my noble friend’s final point, I was aware of that and, of course, that has been co-ordinated with the visit of the Foreign Secretary to the islands. I have already acknowledged that the support from the Cayman Islands has been greatly appreciated. Returning to a point made earlier by the noble Lord, Lord West, who is not in his place at the moment, I say that we are co-ordinating with our partners and all countries across the region to ensure that aid is provided in the quickest way along the quickest route possible.

On the issue of the state of preparedness, the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, is right about satellite technology but, equally, as he will know from his own experience—and as we have seen with the path of Hurricane Irma—tracking a hurricane is not scientific in itself because it can change direction. That said, of course there are always things that can be learned from any experience and a full assessment will be made in the medium term. However, as I am sure my noble friend appreciates, the immediate need is about ensuring that the priorities required in the overseas territories and the wider Caribbean are met. I can assure him that we are responding accordingly across the board.

Syria

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, and support her views. I start by asking my noble friend: when will Her Majesty’s Government recognise the reality of the situation after six years of war? Assad, his Government and his people dominate all the cities, towns and most of the countryside. They are, of course, assisted by their long-term ally, Russia, and by Iran and Hezbollah, because they are Shia Muslims. Our Government have failed from the start to understand and recognise that this was, frankly, no more than the fourth Shia-Sunni war in that troubled country.

On top of this is the policy of the Arab spring, which we all know and recognise. In my judgment, the failure of that policy in Libya, Egypt, the Maldives and now Syria shows that we should never have interfered in the first place. Do Her Majesty’s Government recognise that France, our closest ally on so many issues, now has an embassy in Damascus? The information I have is that it is not just one man and a dog but a full technical support team. Is it ready for the rebuilding of Syria? From what I can see, we appear to be sitting on our hands, thinking of war crimes and worrying about what our allies in the Arab world would think of us. Are we going to go back to Damascus? If not, the whole of the United Kingdom’s Brexit approach in the Arab world will be somewhat undermined. If our policy is to deal with Daesh—my colleague on the other Benches clearly raised this issue—surely we have to have the Syrian armed forces alongside, at least working or communicating with us. Are we once again waiting for somebody to say something? Are we waiting for President Trump to give his views on what we should do? Surely we have enough experience of the Arab world to decide for ourselves.

We all know that peace is coming. We all know Assad is staying and, yes, we all want to see elections. Above all, we also want to see Syria rebuilt again. Frankly, Her Majesty’s Government should take the initiative and look for the equivalent of the Marshall plan, as in Europe after the Second World War. That way, we can bring back these poor refugees from the Middle East who are sitting in the cold and get them out of the camps and back into their own country. If we do not, Syria will be a living hell, just like Libya is today. Surely, we should let the Syrians themselves settle their own structure and we in the West should stop interfering, but we should give some generous aid in rebuilding and have that presence in Damascus—on the ground—so that at last, for once, our English and United Kingdom firms will also benefit from any Marshall plan equivalent.

Companies: Overseas Territories Registration

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Wednesday 20th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, I am going to sit down and I suggest that somebody gives way.

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, clearly, there is progress to be made on that very point. My right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer wrote to the G20 members last week with regard to the G5 initiative on the automatic exchange of beneficial ownership information, exactly in line with what the noble Lord proposes. The initiative is still very new, but we are going to start discussion with the overseas territories and Crown dependencies shortly and I hope that our EU partners will take note.

[Lord Naseby]

Since it is an international conference and we are in the chair, will the UK Government be pressing the US to explain and to rectify the situation where the states of Delaware, Nevada and Wyoming allow no transparency of information on any subject, to the detriment of our overseas territories? Undoubtedly, if that continues, we will see a loss of business from our overseas territories to those three US states.

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, we will be pressing all those who attend the conference to pursue greater transparency. We have made it clear that the global gold standard ought to be public, central registers of beneficial ownership. We will say that to our great friends and to those who are not perhaps such close friends but will be there and will, I hope, be our close friends by the end.

Safeguarding Children: British Overseas Territories

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

In this case, too, the noble Baroness raises an important issue of ensuring that those who are abused—the children—have a voice but that those who are the abusers are also able to seek information and be persuaded that that is not the behaviour which they should perpetrate. I know that a number of overseas territories have expressed a desire to establish a private and confidential counselling service for vulnerable children and young people, along the ChildLine model that the noble Baroness explained. With regard to working with adults, we can do that work through our support to NGOs and CSOs and also through DfID, in the support that we give to promoting education about the way to change adults’ attitude towards social norms.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that Her Majesty’s Government are to be congratulated on the relationship between the overseas territories and the relevant departments here in the UK? I speak from first-hand experience of the Cayman Islands, where I declare an interest—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Naseby]

I declare an interest in having a member of my family working there. In the Cayman Islands, with its population of just over 60,000, is it not correct that the Governor has a relationship with local government? Is it not also correct that the charity work there is really extensive? As far as I can see, there are fewer problems of child exploitation in the Cayman Islands per capita than in the United Kingdom.