Relations with Europe

Baroness Hodge of Barking Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hodge of Barking (Lab) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, it is with humility, pleasure and a little disbelief that I deliver my maiden speech. My heartfelt thanks go to you all for your warm welcome. Your Lordships have confirmed this as an environment rich in civility and kindness, where Members work together to improve legislation based on their knowledge and expertise. I give special thanks to my noble friends Lady Blackstone and Lord Kennedy of Southwark who introduced me, and my thanks to the officers of the House for their help.

I have been privileged to work with many noble Lords down the years, but I still got lost when I arrived as a Member. I could not even find the ladies’ toilets. As an immigrant, who came to Britain aged four, escaping the fear of persecution, and whose parents were forced to flee two countries, I never imagined in my wildest dreams that I might become a Member of the House of Lords.

When my elderly and sick Jewish grandfather arrived from Vienna in 1939, he was classified an enemy alien and imprisoned in an internment camp outside Liverpool with no mattress and a straw-filled pillow. Worst of all, he was imprisoned alongside German Nazis. My family arrived in 1949, stateless. Five years later we applied for citizenship. My older brother and sister were away. My mother had died, and my father was at work. An immigration inspector came to tea with me, aged 10, and my sister, aged seven. My father insisted on cucumber sandwiches and dried fruitcake, though I hated both. We were questioned about the books we read, the games we played and the friends we had. We passed the cricket test, but both then and today we still have much to learn about welcoming immigrants and celebrating their contribution.

I chose to speak today because of my determination that we should tackle dirty money, with £350 billion lost each year through economic crime—twice the nation’s health budget. Britain has become a jurisdiction of choice for every kleptocrat and criminal. Our secretive overseas territories and Crown dependencies play a central role in facilitating tax avoidance, tax evasion, money laundering and sanctions evasion. Secrecy enables kleptocracy to flourish and kleptocracy breeds conflict. Allowing bad actors to use Britain to launder and hide their stolen wealth is a major security threat.

In 2018, Parliament legislated for public registers of beneficial ownership in our overseas territories. Tragically, the previous Government did not enforce the legislation. The tax havens pray in aid the European Court of Justice’s judgment that public registers are unlawful because they undermine fundamental privacy rights. I urge the Minister to raise this issue with our European colleagues, seeking new regulations so that public registers can operate while safeguarding privacy rights. This really matters for our security; £68 billion flowed from Russia to our overseas territories between 2008 and 2018. Russian kleptocrats, including Usmanov and Abramovich, use secrecy and tax havens to evade sanctions.

The UK and its network of overseas territories and Crown dependencies are responsible for 35% of tax losses suffered across the world. I urge the Government to raise the issue of economic crime and the importance of transparency in Europe, use our legislation to guarantee public registers in British jurisdictions and, please, place economic crime and its threat to security high on our new agenda with our European colleagues.