Global Anti-Corruption Sanctions Regulations 2021

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I want to be crystal clear: Dominic Raab deserves considerable praise for his actions leading to this statutory instrument, and I have no problems with it at all. Unlike his two predecessor Foreign Secretaries, he actually understood the process and the need for the Magnitsky sanctions, having been a leading MP in the Commons campaigning to get Bill Browder’s suggestions on to the statute book. Indeed, I was present when he received a reward for this work from my noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws.

Bill Browder, a one-man human rights sanctions corporation, has now secured such sanctions around the world; hardly a month goes by without some new country adopting them. As he said earlier today, in an interview on the BBC’s “Today” programme, the need is to go after the officials and oligarchs via their money; it is much more effective than sanctioning a country and its people. I am in total support of this view and this statutory instrument.

There was no problem in finding out about this instrument, by the way, if you googled it. The legal brief from the legal companies in London—experts in this area, on both sides, I regret to say—was majestic in its numbers.

I want to raise one issue that Nick Cohen raised in the Observer on 9 May, in his column. I will not go over it all—it is just one paragraph on the use of London courts by foreign perpetrators campaigning against investigative journalists. He wrote:

“One official, Pavel Karpov, sued Browder for libel in London. Browder won, but Karpov stayed in Moscow and refused to pay Browder’s costs of £600,000. In other words, Russia, an actively hostile foreign power, appeared able to use the English legal system to impose the punishment of a huge fine on one of its most effective critics.”


Furthermore, at the end of his column, he makes the point that the Foreign Policy Centre has described the UK as

“‘the most frequent country of origin’ for foreign legal threats against investigative journalists.”

I give notice that I intend to raise this in an Oral Question on 14 June, so I will not go any further now.

I have a couple of detailed questions about the regulations. Can we be assured that the National Crime Agency has been given the necessary resources, at least in line with the paragraph in the de minimis form, which as I understand it was almost a doubling of the existing funds of almost £300,000 and 4.5 full-time staff up to nearly £500,000 and eight full-time staff? This is expensive, but it has to work, and without resources it will not.

Finally, can I ask for an assurance that the sanctions and regulations cover the UK as a whole? I would like to be certain that it is UK-wide and covers UK people involved in efforts that we would want to sanction in UK waters around the islands—and that the extent of it goes offshore slightly. I want an assurance that there is full co-operation with the Scottish Government, given the different legal arrangements in Scotland. As I say, these are UK-wide; it is a reserved matter, but clearly to be operationally successful they must have the support of the UK Government. Can I have an assurance that that is forthcoming?