Financial Services Bill (Ninth sitting)

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 9th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 1st December 2020 Public Bill Committees

[John Glen]

Clause 28 introduces schedule 11, which amends the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 to put in place a new process so that the FCA can more quickly cancel the authorisation of firms that it believes are no longer continuing regulated activity.

Since the existing grounds and method for cancellations were introduced, the FCA-regulated population has expanded, such that the FCA now regulates approximately 59,000 firms. Under the current cancellation process, it can take considerable time for the FCA to build its evidential case that the firm is no longer carrying out authorised activity, even when it is likely that the firm is no longer doing so. That means that there is a delay between the firms being identified as inactive by the FCA, and the FCA being able to remove or vary their authorisation.

The FCA estimates that at any point in time, the number of firms no longer carrying on FCA-regulated activities but which have not sought cancellation to their authorisation is about 300 to 400. Although that is a small proportion of the 59,000 FCA-regulated population that I mentioned, the Government nevertheless consider that it creates a risk, particularly in regard to the financial services register. Fraudsters can take advantage of inaccuracies in the register to their benefit by cloning inactive firms to scam consumers. That involves impersonating a firm that is on the register to give people the impression that they are dealing with a regulated entity.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

What is the interaction between that register and the Companies House register? If we removed an inactive business from one register, it would make sense to remove it from the other.

[John Glen]

As far as I am aware, the Companies House register is a separate entity run from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. A considerable amount of work is going on at the moment to look at how the data around Companies House registration works, reflecting concerns raised in the December 2018 Financial Action Task Force report. The hon. Lady makes a very reasonable point about the alignment of the two registers, and I will need to come back to her on that matter. Clearly, it would be perverse to remove an FCA-registered entity but not have a forfeit of registration from Companies House. I shall write to the Committee and to the hon. Lady on that matter.

I want to ensure that consumers can take informed financial services decisions. To achieve that, we need to ensure that the financial services register is accurate and that consumers are not exposed to unnecessary risk. This new process will sit alongside the existing process, to allow the FCA to streamline cases in which it suspects that a firm is no longer carrying on an authorised activity, enabling the FCA to more quickly cancel the firm’s authorisation and update the financial services register accordingly. In cases in which the FCA is looking to cancel a firm’s authorisation for another reason, this will continue to pass through the existing process.

I therefore recommend that this clause stand part of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr McFadden]

The clause before us increases the penalty for insider dealing, and I do not think any Opposition members of the Committee will have a problem with that. The obvious point to make is that sentencing is effective only if there is a reasonable chance that someone will get caught, and if there is a proper and effective system of enforcement of the rules, as well as an overall regulatory system that properly polices such activity.

The Financial Times reported last year that the FCA had prosecuted only eight cases of insider dealing, securing just 12 convictions over a five-year period between 2013 and 2018. There is a big contrast between the prosecutions and the investigations, because the same newspaper, reporting on the figures ending in March this year, said that there were a relatively high number of ongoing investigations—more than 600. However, only 15 resulted in financial penalties or fines.

There are few prosecutions and few fines. Why does the Minister think so few of those 600-plus investigations lead to any kind of punishment? Can we conclude that, after all, there is little insider dealing and only a handful of people do it? Alternatively, would the conclusion be that there are flaws in the investigatory process or, perhaps, resource issues that make it difficult to pursue a case to an unquestionable conclusion?

We should acknowledge that the regulator’s task is difficult, because the people doing insider dealing will be clever, and will take every step they can to cover their tracks. For example, they might not trade in their own name. They might trade in a relative’s name. They might set up a company to trade, and register it either here or somewhere else, which would make the paper trail all the more difficult for the regulator to follow. They might try all sorts of things to blow the regulator off the scent.

There is no problem with increasing the sentence from seven to 10 years, but it strikes me the relevant provisions of the Bill might be too narrow in scope for the problem that we are dealing with. It would be a big mistake to think that approving the clause is job done on insider dealing, and we can tick the box, thinking it will make a big difference. The low rate of prosecutions suggests that there is a need for a much deeper look under the bonnet.

Does the Minister accept that general premise, and will he undertake to carry out that deeper look? Will he make sure that the increased sentences are matched by the resources that the regulators need and, probably more importantly, by other changes in their powers or the regulatory system or the legal basis? That will ensure that more cases are brought to some sort of action at the end and that we do not carry on with such a huge contrast between the number of investigations launched and the small number resulting in a fine or prosecution.

[Alison Thewliss]

I want to come in briefly, on the back of what the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East has said. What analysis have the Government done on whether the increase will be any more of a deterrent than the current seven-year maximum? I note that that is a maximum, and relatively speaking not a huge amount of time, given the severity of some of the crimes that may have been committed. What is the average sentence handed out at the moment? Is it closer to seven years, or is it closer to a couple of years and just a slap on the wrists?

As the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, few cases get to that stage anyway. To help increase the number of people who are prosecuted, what additional resourcing will be put into the policing of financial crime? It is clearly an area that needs significant expertise. If we are going to catch people who are looking to circumvent the system, we need to have people at least as good on the other side of the balance sheet to make sure that they are catching up with them. What recruitment schemes are being put in place to attract the kind of people who will be able to investigate, prosecute and see processes through to the end, to make sure that there is a proper deterrent and people feel that they are going to get caught, fined and locked away? There needs to be sufficient expertise to make sure that that really does happen.

[Ms Eagle]

My concerns mirror the comments that were made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East and by the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Glasgow Central. Financial crime and fraud are areas of crime that have been under-played and under-resourced for enforcement in recent years. We know about the effects of Action Fraud and its almost minuscule levels of successful prosecutions over the years. It is one of the areas that I feel most worried about as a constituency MP. When constituents come to me with issues of fraud, they have often been given the run-around for many years and I know that, realistically, justice for them is often very far away.

Financial crime is somehow regarded as less worrisome than other forms of crime. It seems always to be at the back of the queue in terms of enforcement resources. It is almost as if some people think, “If you can get away with it, more power to your elbow.” That introduces attitudes and approaches to the rules, regulations and law that are, at the very least, unfortunate and, probably more accurately, dangerous. It is particularly worrisome given the size of our financial services sector and the number of jobs associated with that sector, and the impact if it were to be destabilised by that kind of attitude getting a grip. It is extremely important that, as a jurisdiction, we clamp down on these crimes.

Is the Minister as worried as I am? Is he satisfied that this form of levy approach is the right one? It makes it look like the state does not worry so much about financial crime—that it does not worry enough to finance the prosecution and policing of it, and that the industry has to somehow pay for its own policing and prosecution. That is an issue.

We would all welcome the increase in sentencing from seven to 10 years that clause 30 contains, but is not the real deterrence to be found in much more rigorous enforcement and financing of enforcement, rather than simply increasing the likely sentences if someone is caught? If people feel that there is not much of a chance that they are going to be caught, an increase in sentencing from seven to 10 years is not really much of a deterrent to bad behaviour. The other thing that worries me is that the risks to those individuals who might be tempted are quite small, when we consider the number of prosecutions, but the rewards, should they get away with it, can be huge. Such a risk-reward assessment does not exactly imply the sort of the deterrence that we all want to protect the integrity of our markets.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Glen]

This amendment to the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 ensures that the Government have the power to change, and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has the power to enforce, elements of our anti-money laundering regime relating to extraterritorial trusts. Enacting this amendment will cement HMRC’s power to access information on who really owns and benefits from overseas trusts with links to the UK. This is part of our wider reform efforts to improve beneficial ownership transparency.

It is important to stress that this merely ensures the continuation of existing powers. After the end of the transition period, the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act will take over from the European Communities Act 1972 as the statutory framework for implementing sanctions and anti-money laundering policy in the UK. Changes introduced by the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 provide for the expansion of the HMRC trust registration service. Some non-UK express trusts with a connection to the UK, including those buying UK land or property, will need for the first time to register with HMRC’s trust registration service. The number of registered trusts is expected to increase from 120,000 to an estimated 3 to 6 million as a result of those changes made by the money laundering regulations.

The amendment made by the clause will confirm the Government’s ability, after the end of the EU exit transition period, to make regulations applying to trustees of overseas trusts with links to the UK, even where they are non-resident. It also confirms HMRC’s ability to take enforcement action against those trustees. I therefore recommend that the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Alison Thewliss]

New clauses 30 and 35 are the result of long-standing concerns that I and my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South have about money laundering in the UK. That was accentuated by what the Minister said about increasing the number of trusts. It goes some way to reflect the evidence we took during prelegislative scrutiny of the draft Registration of Overseas Entities Bill, where a witness suggested that if he were going to hide some money, trusts are pretty much where he would go to do so. The Government should be doing an awful lot more on this, because with this increase in trusts and the Government’s response, it feels as though the Government are pursuing a Whac-a-Mole strategy. However, Whac-a-Mole is not a mole-eradication strategy; it just makes them pop up somewhere else. The Government need to be wiser to that.

Our new clauses would require the Treasury to review the effects on money laundering of the provisions in clause 31, and in particular on the use of overseas trusts for the purposes of money laundering by owners and employees of Scottish limited partnerships. The Minister will be fed up with me talking about Scottish limited partnerships, because I and the colleagues who preceded me have never shut up about them, but they remain a problem. The number of people fined for misuse of SLPs remains pretty much at zero, as far I am aware. The Government need to do a huge amount more.

It beggars belief that the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act left an oligarch loophole, allowing money laundering by overseas trusts to buy UK property with impunity. That Act contains the framework that the UK will use to implement sanctions and anti-money laundering policy after leaving the European Union single market. However, as the Government have observed, it is not clear that under the current drafting anti-money laundering regulations can be made in relation to non-UK trustees of trusts based outside the UK. Even though a trust may be based outside the UK, and the trustee may be a non-UK corporate or individual, the trust may have links to the UK—for example, because it owns UK property. We start to see the very complexity of the web that exists here, and the difficulty in dealing with it and finding who is really in control. New clause 31 would amend schedule 2 to the 2018 Act to ensure that regulations can be made in respect of trustees with links. Without this, any powers HMRC sought to exercise to access information about such trusts are at risk of being held invalid under legal challenge.

The Government, for their part, believe that the change will reaffirm the UK’s global leadership in the use of public registers of beneficial ownership, as identified by the Financial Action Task Force mutual evaluation of the UK in 2018. They will further support public and private sectors sufficiently and effectively target resources towards potential criminal activity using trusts, maintaining the resilience of the UK’s defences against economic crime. That is quite a joke; it really is not good enough. Trusts are the largest gaping loophole that we have. We want the Government to accept our amendments and come clean on how little impact this measure, as with many others previously, has had on money laundering.

In June 2019, HMRC published revised estimates that put the tax gap at £35 billion for 2017-18, representing 5.6% of total tax liabilities. While welcome action has been taken and that gap has had some impact, no Government have yet created a comprehensive anti-avoidance rule, because at the moment people are allowed to move around in different ways and find different loopholes and different mechanisms to avoid paying their tax.