Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) (High-Risk Countries) Regulations 2021

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Tuesday 27th April 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft, and to agree with her, as I turn to the same subject of Russia. In broad terms I certainly support the order before us today, but Russia is an astounding omission, if I may put it that way. I declare an interest in that I am banned from going to Russia, as of about six years ago, I think because of something somewhat disobliging that I said while I was still a Member of the House of Commons. I am not quite sure what it was, but I may have been a little bit rude about Mr Putin. Anyway, I was surprised to be banned because I thought I was so unimportant; I still think this, but they obviously feel I am a good person to ban. I would have liked to go to Leningrad—that is, St Petersburg—since I have never been there.

The Times reports today that the Foreign Secretary has announced sanctions against 14 Russians involved in massive tax fraud, as was exposed by Sergei Magnitsky who, of course, was tortured to death in prison. If any noble Lord listening has not read Red Alert by Bill Browder, I commend it. It is very readable but also extremely concerning about the behaviour of Putin’s regime. What about money laundering? Well, you do not have to be an aficionado of “McMafia” to know about Russian oligarchs in this country, some of whom I am sure—perhaps all—have made their money legitimately, although that is not what we are told. They have come here and bought up high-end property and much else: football clubs, newspapers, all sorts of things. We need to look at how this money came to be here; frankly, it is extremely concerning.

In the latest edition of the New Statesman, which is not a publication that I often quote, an article about Alexei Navalny says:

“Imagine if Western governments were to show a shred of Navalny’s bravery; by closing loopholes facilitating money laundering… Imagine if Britain dammed the flow of hot money through London’s financial and property markets; if Germany halted the … Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline”.


Of course, that is a journalist writing, but I regret to tell my noble friend the Minister that the UK’s reputation, to which he referred, has been damaged. It is known throughout the world that a huge amount of hot money has been laundered through the UK. This measure is intended to prevent a certain amount of that, but a lot of that hot money has come from Russia.

Putin’s regime is known as—and is—a kleptocracy. He and his cronies have enriched themselves enormously in the last 20 years, and we should be looking at that. This is about money laundering and terrorism. What was the attempted murder of Skripal, and the actual murder of the woman in Salisbury, if not state-sponsored terrorism with money that should not have been available to use? Can the Minister tell us what measures Russia has in place to prevent money laundering? He said that this is the criteria for being on the list. It seems to me that few, if any, such measures are in place. I regret to say that we have allowed a huge amount of Russian money—stolen money—to be laundered in this country.