Criminal Finances Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Antoinette Sandbach and Richard Arkless

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 15th November 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Richard Arkless]

Q Do you think that your members are in favour of the Bill’s corporate claim provisions? How do you think your members would react to those provisions being extended beyond tax evasion?

Anthony Browne: As I said in response to the question from Dr Huq, we do not think it is necessary, but we accept it and we have worked very closely with the Government on it. We are doing tax guidance–– 60 pages of guidance for banks to help them comply. In terms of extending it to a general criminal offence in respect of facilitating economic crime more widely, I just make this observation. There are lots of different bits of regulation and legislation on different elements of financial crime. There is tax evasion, counter-terrorism finance, money laundering and bribery. They all operate in a different way, and we would like to see a more coherent view of financial crime more generally. This is a longer term aim and this Bill is part of it. They are all different aspects of financial crime, so we are not opposed to the broad principle of extending it but we would say that it would need very careful consultation. You would need to think through very carefully how it might operate in order to make sure that there are no unintended consequences because there are a lot of very detailed complexities. You need to make sure that it would work effectively in the way that you, Parliament and the Government intend.

[Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)]

Q Back in 2012, Coutts was fined £8.75 million by the FCA for systemic failings that had resulted in an unacceptable risk that it had handled the proceeds of crime. Do you think part 3 of the Bill will effectively address those risks at a banking level? In the not so distant past, we had HSBC Switzerland accounts being used to evade UK tax. Are you confident that the measures in part 3 will address those systemic failings in the banking sector?

Nausicaa Delfas: The Bill’s provisions will certainly help law enforcement to address these issues and, by virtue of that, will also have an impact on the banks themselves.