Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th May 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, this is a mixed set of amendments. I do not think that we will debate the philosophy of what a fact is, although we may come back to that in a few minutes. I rise to move Amendment 102 on behalf of my noble friend Lord Wallace and to speak to both an amendment in my name and a series of amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker.

Amendment 102 refers to tier 1 investor visas, otherwise known as golden visas. As I am sure the Minister will jump up and tell me, the scheme was closed relatively recently, but that is not the point of this amendment. We know that the scheme allowed individuals with a high net worth into the UK through the investment of large sums. We also know that, during its operation, it became increasingly clear that there was abuse, or the possibility of abuse. Visa beneficiaries under the scheme largely came from Russia, former USSR states and China, more so than from any other third country. It must have been clear to the Home Office and others that the sources of the wealth of many of these applicants were dubious at best.

The scheme was closed in February 2022. When it closed, the Government promised a review into so-called golden visas, because they were clearly an issue and something that needed to be reviewed so that we could find out what went wrong and ensure that future decisions did not make similar mistakes. It was, therefore, an object of some despair when, instead of publishing the findings of the review in full, the Home Secretary published a Written Statement in January this year with a summary of the review’s findings. The Statement told us what we already knew, in fact, but not much more. The scheme had been used by individuals who were, to quote the Statement,

“at high risk of having obtained wealth through corruption or other illicit financial activity, and/or being engaged in serious and organised crime”.

It also told us that this concerned a

“small minority of individuals”

who had obtained visas under the tier 1 investor route but gave no indication of the actual figures on where a risk had been identified. More than 6,000 visa holders were reviewed. What is a “small minority” of 6,000? How many were at risk?

We also know that 10 oligarchs who had been sanctioned as part of the response to Russian aggression in Ukraine used this scheme. How many more applicants with ties to Putin have been given visas that allowed them to embed themselves in the UK economy and UK society? Are any still in the UK? If so, have they gone through the process of acquiring citizenship? The Statement answered none of these questions.

This amendment would require the findings of the review, where they relate to economic crime, to be published in full. It is a review of a scheme that, according to the Home Office, attracted a disproportionate number of applicants from the countries identified as being particularly relevant to cross-border money-laundering risks faced and posed by the UK. As I said, the scheme benefited Russian and Chinese oligarchs above all. Key questions remain unanswered. Parliament needs to know what went wrong so that we can hold the Government to account in future. We are entitled to know more about what the Home Office conducted in this review and the impetus that it gave to various other elements of what we are seeing now. In other words, has anything learned from the review seen its way into the legislation that we are now talking about? If not, why not?

The refusal to publish either this report or the fuller details of Russian penetration into British politics, which the ISC recommended should be published, makes it difficult not to conclude that the Conservative Government have some significant and embarrassing issues to hide, most probably around donations to the party. If the Minister has nothing to hide, I am sure that he will be able to announce the publication of these reports.

As I said, I also want to speak to Amendment 104 in my name, which has, to some extent, a similar motive to the three amendments proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. Without putting words in the noble Lord’s mouth, I suspect that, like me, he is an enforcement sceptic. He is sceptical not about the need for enforcement but that sufficient enforcement will support the legislation we have spent all this time debating. My amendment is one way of trying to expose the resources and the effect that they are having. I am sure that the Minister will step forward and tell us that the NCA publishes an annual plan but Amendment 104, particularly subsection (3) of its proposed new clause, sets out a rather different set of things that we would need to know but which are not currently included in the annual plan published by the NCA.

I am quite happy to support other ways of doing this, which the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, is probing, but, at the heart of this, Parliament needs to know how effective enforcement is and that the primary agency running the enforcement process has the resources it needs in order to meet the challenges that it faces. Those challenges are getting bigger, harder and more sophisticated every day. This is one way of exposing whether the resources are sufficient and what Parliament needs to worry about in future in terms of delivering support to agencies so that they can actually enforce these things. I beg to move.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I have attached my name to Amendment 102 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire. I begin by quoting the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Weardale, who chairs of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. Speaking in this Room last year, he said that

“we have clearly, as a matter of policy, turned a blind eye to the perpetrators of corruption overseas using London for business or leisure purposes”.—[Official Report, 13/10/22; col. GC 156.]

The golden visa scheme was clearly a significant part of that issue, as highlighted by the noble Lord.

I begin by paying great tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, who has been an absolute terrier—no, that sounds too small. A bulldog is better.

[A noble Lord]

A Yorkshire terrier.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

We will not get into that one. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, has been an absolute bulldog in pursuing this issue over a number of years. The reason why I chose to attach my name to this amendment is that I worked with the noble Lord on this issue, during my modest role in what became the Financial Services Act 2021. As the noble Lord, Lord Fox, outlined so clearly, we must be able to diagnose the illness fully if we are to find the medicine we need to deal with it. At the moment, we are not being allowed to see that diagnosis; we are getting a very rough, top-line kind of summary.

As the noble Lord, Lord Fox, said, we know that more than half of the visas issued—some 6,000—were being reviewed in 2022 for possible national security risks. Being told about a small minority does not get us anywhere near where we need to go. We are looking at this particularly in the context of the Russian attack on Ukraine and the current geopolitical situation. More than 200 Russian millionaires bought their way into the UK in the seven years after the scheme was supposedly tightened, before it was finally closed. We have to look at that with respect to security issues as well; we are talking about economic crime here but economic crime and security are surely interrelated. We need to know about those issues.

This amendment deals only with the review relating to economic crime. I am sure that that is because the Bill Office said that anything broader would be out of scope—I have no doubt about that—but it is worth putting on the record that, to learn lessons for the future, we need to assess the impact of the scheme much more broadly. I do not know whether the Home Office report looked at this—I cannot see it—but it would be interesting to see what impact it has had on our current housing crisis and on house prices; surely it has had an impact.

It is also worth highlighting the broader impact of entrenching wealth-based and racialised inequality in the UK. Take the contrast between the 250 family members and dependents of the Russian millionaires who came in versus the fact that so many British people are unable to live in their own country with their foreign spouse or partner because they do not earn enough money to be able to do so. That contrast is really shocking; we should be looking at the impacts of that on our society. These golden visas were a disaster. We can only understand that disaster and seek to deal with its effects if we are open about the Government’s own report.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I support much of what the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the noble Lord, Lord Fox, have said. In speaking to my amendments in this group, I start by welcoming the publication of the fraud strategy last week. I know that the Minister has been pushing for it to be published as speedily as possible; its publication is helpful to the Committee.

The fundamental question behind much of what I am going to say is this: how will the fraud strategy published last week answer some of the problems that have been raised—indeed, that I will raise? My Amendments 106B, 106EA and 106EB are clearly probing amendments but they have at their heart the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Fox: how will the Government bring together all this legislation, statutory instruments, enforcement papers, reforms of Companies House and so on? How is all of that in the landscape of government being brought together, co-ordinated and made effective? It is not an easy question to answer but, looking at all these things, they seem cluttered, to say the least. Even with this Bill, things are cluttered. Some sort of review or report to Parliament to try to do something about that would be helpful. Does the fraud strategy do that? How will the strategy report to Parliament to see whether it has been successful or not?

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[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords, who have made some extremely thought-provoking points in this debate. I will do my best to address them all.

Scrutinising the activity of government is obviously a key function of Parliament, and of course the Government are entirely supportive of it. I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Browne, that this particular part of the government machinery is always grateful for any help that is offered and will receive it in that spirit. However, the amendments in this group are unnecessary, as they are duplicative of existing reporting arrangements and scrutiny structures.

On investor visas, I take my noble friend Lord Leigh’s points. If done in the right way, they are potentially an important engine of economic growth—that should be acknowledged. Of course, we should not forget that they were introduced by a Labour Government and maintained during the coalition years. However, on Amendment 102, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, and moved by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, I am aware that there are concerns about how the now-closed tier 1 investor route operated—in particular, that it was used by those relying on funds that had been illegitimately acquired and those who may have posed a wider risk to the UK’s national security.

It was because of those concerns that the Government committed in the first place to the review of the visas issued under the route between 2008 and 2015. As has been acknowledged, the Home Secretary made a Written Ministerial Statement on 12 January setting out the findings of that review. This included that the review had identified a minority of individuals connected to the tier 1 investor visa route who were potentially at high risk of having obtained wealth through corruption or other illicit financial activity or being engaged in serious and organised crime. The Statement of 12 January represents the Government’s substantive response to the commitment to undertake a review and publish its findings, including its findings in respect of economic crime.

Obviously, there was a delay; we are aware that considerable time elapsed between the commissioning of the review and the setting out of those findings. However, delay is regrettable but not unreasonable when issues of national security are at stake. Let me expand on that a little, if I may. It would have been preferable had the review been able to include more information about specific individuals but we have had to act sensibly and responsibly with regard to the UK’s national security; this includes striking the right balance between setting out the review’s broad findings and observing the constraints on disclosing sensitive details, which must be withheld, at the request of our operational partners, to protect our border and the vital work of our law enforcement agencies.

The noble Lord, Lord Fox, raised the subject of party-political donations. Without getting into a slanging match on this subject, I think it is worth restating that UK electoral law already sets out a stringent regime of spending and donation controls that prioritise transparency and safeguard the integrity of our elections. All political parties recognise that third-party campaigners and candidates must record their election spending and report it to either the Electoral Commission or their local returning officer. This information is all publicly available. The measures in the Elections Act 2022 also updated the political finance regulatory framework by increasing transparency and fairness and strengthening the controls against ineligible foreign spending on electoral campaigning. That is a fairly comprehensive transparency regime concerning the funding of political parties.

The House has considered similar amendments to other legislation, most recently during the passage of the National Security Bill. As before, the Government’s view is that this amendment is not necessary. The Government have set out the key findings of the review of the operation of this route and have acted to close it. I therefore ask the noble Lord, Lord Fox, to withdraw the amendment.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the Minister suggested that it was the inability to identify individuals that meant that some aspects of the report could not be released. I think that everyone understands the retraction of names where necessary, but surely that would not prevent the release of absolute figures rather than a summary of the figures.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

As I said, it was also to do with the disclosure of sensitive details related to operational partners—the sorts of things that protect our border and the work of law enforcement agencies.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Fox, for tabling Amendment 104, to which I will now speak. The impact of fraud and economic crime affects the whole of our society. The cost of fraud to the UK runs into the billions and is assessed by the National Crime Agency to be the most common crime type in England and Wales. We take this threat type seriously and have delivered a strengthened approach to reduce its impact. Obviously, as I referenced, the fraud strategy is one part of that; I will come back to it in a moment. The NCA currently leads the national response to serious and organised crime, including economic crime. As predicted, the NCA’s director-general is accountable to the Home Secretary and, through the Home Secretary, to Parliament.

The agency already publishes an annual plan and an annual report. The annual plan sets out how it intends to exercise its functions in co-ordinating the operational response to serious and organised crime, having regard to the Home Secretary’s strategic priorities and the director-general’s operational priorities. The annual report details its performance over the previous financial year, including efforts to tackle economic crime. The NCA also reports annually on the impact of suspicious activity reports in tackling economic crime and, as I set out earlier in response to Amendments 93 and 95 in the previous group, in respect of UWOs. Given this current reporting and the potential for duplication, the Government do not believe that this amendment is required at this time, so I ask the noble Lord, Lord Fox, not to press it.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, for his Amendment 106B. Before I get into the amendment itself, let me say that I take the noble Lord’s points about the diversity of response to the sorts of crime that are being discussed. Of course, that partly reflects the diversity of the crimes being investigated, as he will be aware. The fact is that this is a fast-moving, rapidly evolving space; there is no doubt that the operational response to it reflects that particular set of circumstances.

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[Lord Oates (LD)]

My Lords, on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, who cannot be in the Committee today, I rise to move Amendment 103 in his name, my name and those of the noble Baronesses, Lady Wheatcroft and Lady Altmann. In doing so, I pay tribute to his tireless efforts in exposing corruption, particularly the key role he played in bringing the kleptocracy of former South African president Jacob Zuma to the world’s attention.

This amendment would require the UK Government to begin negotiations for the establishment of an international anti-corruption court, or IACC, within six months of the passing of this Bill. International corruption is estimated to cost $2 trillion, or 5% of global GDP, every year. In a 2021 report, the UN High-level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity calculated that as much as 2.7% of global GDP is laundered by criminals through illicit global financial flows. While these opaque transactions occur in all countries, they have a much heavier impact on low and middle-income countries. The Washington-based organisation Global Financial Integrity found in its most recent report that from 2004 to 2013 developing and emerging economies lost $7.8 trillion in illicit financial flows—around 10 times more than the entire sum of foreign aid, including aid from the UK, that they received over the same period. Illicit outflows are increasing rapidly at an average rate of 6.5% per year, nearly twice as fast as global GDP.

A substantial proportion of that corruption comprises theft by a nation’s leaders of state funds for their own use—in other words, kleptocracy. Putting an end to that kleptocracy and recovering assets stolen by corrupt leaders would enable millions of the poorest in our world to be adequately housed, clothed and fed by helping prevent national treasuries being looted to line the pockets of corrupt politicians and their business cronies.

That so many kleptocrats succeed is not because of a lack of domestic laws; there are 189 parties to the UN Convention against Corruption. Most of them have complied with their obligations under the convention to have appropriate domestic anti-corruption legislation, but to facilitate their criminal activities kleptocrats have gutted their domestic criminal justice systems and taken control of the prosecuting authorities, police and, frequently, courts. There is no better current illustration than President Putin, who with his oligarch accomplices has looted the country.

Another prime example, whom I have mentioned already, is former South African President Jacob Zuma, who with his business cronies the Gupta brothers looted on an industrial scale and deliberately disabled police and prosecutors, so much so that the country was estimated to have lost fully one-fifth of its GDP during his infamous state-captured decade. Across the border in Zimbabwe, the ZANU-PF regime is mired in corruption, which has robbed the Zimbabwean people of what should be a bright economic future. Instead of serving the people, regime leaders, aided by corrupt businesspeople and a prosecutorial and judicial system entirely captured by the ruling party, loot the country at will. Just last week, opposition politician Jacob Ngarivhume was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment simply for calling for peaceful protests against corruption in July 2020.

Few of these kleptocrats keep their ill-gotten gains at home. Billions of dollars of stolen assets are laundered in a number of countries, including China, Hong Kong, Dubai, Singapore, Monaco, Switzerland, some states of the United States, UK overseas territories and, shamefully, London. Recently, the Al Jazeera documentary “Gold Mafia” secretly filmed Zimbabwe officials and business contacts conspiring to launder illicit funds. Those filmed included at least three British citizens—Uebert Angel, Rikki Doolan and Kamlesh Pattni—who made clear on camera their willingness to act corruptly. I know that the Minister cannot comment on those individual cases, but I hope that the National Crime Agency is investigating the activities of these individuals and others named in the documentary and the sources of their wealth, and that the authorities will not hesitate to freeze their funds while these investigations are being pursued.

However, while British authorities can act on crimes committed under UK jurisdiction, there is no international mechanism to prosecute kleptocrats and to seize and return their illicit funds. This gaping vacuum can be filled only by establishing an international anti-corruption court that can hold corrupt leaders and their co-conspirators accountable.

If some of the countries where laundered funds are held would join such a court, the stolen assets could be frozen and then, through orders of restitution, be repatriated to the countries from which they were stolen. If the risk of those funds being misused if returned to a corrupted state are too high, they could be repurposed and repatriated only at a time when they would reach the real victims: the millions in need in those countries.

The envisioned court would have jurisdiction over crimes committed by nationals of an IACC member state and crimes committed on the territory of an IACC member state. It would enforce existing national anti-corruption legislation and would be a complementary new international counterpart to these laws against kleptocrats and their collaborators.

The IACC would be a court of last instance, meaning that it would acquire jurisdiction only in cases in which the appropriate domestic authorities are unable or unwilling to investigate or prosecute the corruption. For the IACC to succeed, it would not be necessary for the countries governed by kleptocrats to join the court—it goes without saying that they would not. The IACC could be established by treaty and quickly become effective if it consisted initially of even a relatively small number of representative states, so long as they included some financial centres and other attractive destinations where kleptocrats frequently launder, hide and spend their stolen assets.

In this way, the IACC would have the potential to prosecute, punish and recover illicit assets from kleptocrats who rule or are very powerful in the countries that might not initially join the court. Most importantly, the threat of criminal prosecution at the IACC would deter other potential crimes of grand corruption by leaders who may otherwise be tempted to emulate the example of the kleptocrats.

The cost of the IACC would constitute a small fraction of the amount of illicit assets that it could seize and return to their originally intended purpose for the public good. In addition to orders of restitution, it could levy funds on those found guilty, which could be used to defray some of the cost of its prosecutions and proceedings.

If the court demonstrates during its early years that it can work effectively and efficiently, many other countries are likely to join it. In the aftermath of kleptocratic government, some developing countries may not have the human and financial resources to fight kleptocracy, so could approach the IACC to come to their assistance. A senior United States federal judge, Mark Wolf, is leading a campaign to establish such a court. Together with others, including the renowned South African jurist Richard Goldstone, he launched a civil society called Integrity Initiatives International. Its main project is to establish the IACC, and it has convened a number of the world’s top international lawyers to begin drafting a treaty for the court. None of its supporters see the court as a panacea that will end the kleptocracy any more than the International Criminal Court has ended illegal or genocidal activity by political leaders. However, it would be one of many tools, domestic and international, that are absolutely essential to combat and, I hope, ultimately defeat kleptocracy.

Almost 300 leading figures from across the world, including 45 former presidents and Prime Ministers and 32 Nobel laureates, have signed a declaration calling for the creation of the IACC. Three Governments—the Netherlands, Canada and Ecuador—have made the establishment of the court an element in their official foreign policy. In January this year, Nigeria became the fourth country to publicly state its commitment to working with other states towards the establishment of the court. Recently, the President of Moldova, Maia Sandu, also committed to joining the emerging coalition of states for the IACC. Additional countries from each region of the world have also expressed their interest in the idea.

The United Kingdom and our legal profession have always led in establishing and participating in international courts of last resort. This started with the ground-breaking Nuremberg trials and went on to include the International Court of Justice and, of course, the International Criminal Court.

The Government’s Integrated Review Refresh, published earlier this year, committed the UK to championing global efforts to ensure that revenues and assets lost to illicit finance are identified and recovered so that low and middle-income countries can self-finance their own development. This commitment was reiterated by the Minister for Development and Africa in his Chatham House speech on 27 April when he said that

“we will bear down on money-laundering and the flows of dirty money which deprive countries of their legitimate tax receipts and represent money stolen particularly from Africa and African people”.

We must live up to these commitments. I therefore urge the Government to accept our amendment and ensure that the UK becomes one of the early and leading supporters of the establishment of the IACC, lending the UK’s weight and expertise to finding the fastest route to the creation of the court and the most effective framework for its operation.

I beg to move.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise with great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Oates, who made a powerful, persuasive and rich speech. I echo him in paying to the noble Lord, Lord Hain, for all the work he has done in this area.

The noble Lord, Lord Oates, rightly acknowledged that the international anti-corruption court, which I absolutely back—backing for it is clearly growing by the day—is one of many tools that we need to tackle economic crime. My Amendment 106A seeks to put another tool in the toolkit. At the moment, it is perhaps in a prototype stage and is earlier in development than the international anti-corruption court, but it is growing fast and has significant international backing.

I am proposing that the Government should provide leadership in supporting UN General Assembly Resolution 77/244, which was passed on 30 December last year with leadership from Nigeria and the Africa group. It calls on the Secretary-General to prepare a report on how

“to strengthen the inclusiveness and effectiveness of international tax co-operation”.

This has been seen as a step towards a UN convention on the issue and the establishment of international bodies to enforce it. I hope that some noble Lords who are taking part in this debate or who read Hansard later will be interested in joining me in pushing this forward as an issue on which Britain can and should be a leader. Due to the limited scope of the Bill, I have had to cut down somewhat what the General Assembly resolution says, but there are still steps that we can take forward here; I will be very interested to hear the Government’s response to this UN General Assembly resolution.

Following on from what the noble Lord, Lord Oates, said, it is clear that chasing economic crime money, particularly tax evasion, is what is known in the jargon as a wicked problem. The aims of the evaders are simple; their reach is global and the ability to act is measured in seconds. Money can be shifted in less than a click of my fingers. However, national states have very complex goals in development, rights and the rule of law, and their powers are individually restricted within their own borders. Their legal framework is limited in resources, as we discussed in our debate on the previous group, and frequently takes a lot of time to move into action.

It is worth looking at what Attiya Waris, the UN independent expert on the effects of foreign debt, told the UN General Assembly last year:

“The shortcomings of the international and national tax systems require international cooperation and assistance. They cannot be addressed unilaterally”.


The idea of a UN convention got virtually no coverage or attention in the UK but, internationally, there is a great deal of work going on. That was reflected in a letter sent in March to the UN Secretary-General by scores of civil society organisations—including some that will be familiar to noble Lords, such as Action Aid, the Tax Justice Network and World Economy, Ecology and Development.

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[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for their amendments in this group. I also thank all noble Lords for speaking in this debate.

I turn first to Amendment 103, which was tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hain, but spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Oates. If I may, I associate myself with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby: the noble Lord, Lord Oates, made an incredibly powerful and eloquent case in moving this amendment 103, which also spoken to by the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Wheatcroft. Ensuring that those who are responsible for the most egregious acts of corruption are held to account is obviously vital. There should be no tolerance towards those who steal from the public to satisfy personal greed. The Government wholeheartedly endorse the premise that this amendment seeks to advance. The international community can and must do more to deter and punish acts of corruption.

The Government are taking robust action to ensure that the UK leads by example. That is why, in March, we published the second public-private economic crime plan, to which I referred in our debate on the previous group of amendments, which outlines ambitious actions to prevent the UK’s open economy being exploited by criminals and corrupt actors. The Government are also developing a new UK anti-corruption strategy to build on the progress made by the previous strategy and outline a refreshed approach to tackling corruption and illicit finance both in the UK and internationally.

The recently published fraud strategy also sets out the Government’s commitment to raise the priority of fraud on the international stage. We will drive forward global action through developing stronger relationships with international partners, culminating in a global fraud summit chaired by the Home Secretary and held in the UK next year. The summit will bring together leaders from Governments, law enforcement and the private sector to announce the ambition to deliver a comprehensive and co-ordinated approach to tackling fraud over the next five years.

The Government have consistently invested in efforts to bring those responsible for corruption to justice. The international corruption unit in the National Crime Agency is a specialist capability that investigates corruption cases with UK links.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

On the summit, the problem with ideas such as that put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, about a transatlantic council or similar, is that it would be focused on global north countries. Can the Minister assure me that there will be full representation of global south countries at the summit he just outlined and that the UK will provide resources to ensure that some of the least developed countries, which are some of the biggest victims of this, are also able to participate in that summit?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I cannot provide that reassurance; I do not know who will be involved, but I will endeavour to find out and will write.

I shall return to where I was in my speech. In addition, the UK leads and hosts the International Anti-Corruption Coordination Centre—the IACCC—which brings together specialist law enforcement officers from multiple agencies around the world to tackle allegations of corruption. The IACCC has helped to secure convictions in high-profile money laundering cases, including in Malaysia and Angola. In 2022 alone, the IACCC identified more than £380 million of stolen and hidden assets.

I forgot to mention part of my previous paragraph. Since 2006, 30 people and companies have been convicted of corruption offences and more than £1.1 billion of stolen assets have been frozen, confiscated or returned to developing countries. That is in relation to the international corruption unit in the NCA.