Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 27th March 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

When my noble friend the Minister replies to this debate, I wonder whether he would consider accepting the amendment in due course with a de minimis size qualification. This would be quite onerous for a large number of private companies, such as family businesses, where ownership changes quite regularly, and small businesses that have enough to do without worrying about perfectly innocent share transfers. For larger companies—public companies in particular—this may not be too onerous. I remind the House of my comments at Second Reading that the Quoted Companies Alliance had calculated that the average public company accounts now comprise 95,000 words—no one is keen to add any more words to that. I would certainly not wish to see this apply to private and SME businesses.

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

My Lords, I support these amendments. I have listened to what the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, has said and will perhaps think about that. I should declare my interest as a director of the London Stock Exchange. At 5% ownership, there are significant things that can be done: if it is a public company, at 5% you can apply to the court to prevent it going private. That is a significant power, and we ought to know that it is applied properly. I guess the court would find out if you were not who you said you were; nevertheless, you might be masquerading as such and could still have influence—you could call general meetings and propose resolutions. These are all events that could have a significant effect on companies of all sizes. I tend to feel, therefore, that other shareholders need to know that things have been properly verified.

I have sympathy for the SME angle and will think about it further. However, just because you are small does not mean that you do not need to know some of these things, including who might have an exercisable right which you know has been verified. I would probably follow suit in the decision on persons with significant control: if you are going to exempt SMEs, they should be exempted for both; if they are going to be included, they should be included in both. I am still veering towards including them, simply because it is a substantial power. There are plenty of private SMEs in which people have significant sums invested, and I do not really see that they should be protected any less from not having full awareness of who really holds these powers to do things or of whether they are sheltering a nominee.

At the moment, my tendency is to support both of these amendments as they stand, with the caveat that I will go away and think a bit about whether this would be too onerous for SMEs. We have to remember, however, that the “M”s of SMEs can be quite big.

[Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)]

I am not wholly convinced that what you would be required to do under this amendment is very onerous. I remember looking at this when we were examining the desirability of transparency in relation to ownership of shares. Presuming bad actors—although this is, I hope, infrequently the case—it is very easy for someone to, as it were, redistribute their shares to smaller packages if they wanted to conceal their identity. I am not saying that that is what people do most of the time, but it would be more difficult if there were an obligation to disclose of the sort contained in this amendment.

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[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)]

My Lords, to add to the point that has been made, if the burden of proof is going to be changed so the defendant has to prove his innocence, it is essential that the clause be carefully drafted to make that clear. Otherwise a judge who is trying to direct a jury really does not know how to do it.

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

I am struggling, as are others, with the wording in subsection (2) about

“every officer of the entity who is in default”

because I do not know what “default” means. In most of these circumstances, this may be something that is filled in by the company secretary and they do not necessarily get the approval of everybody who might end up being in default. I would like to know more about that.

In his introduction, the Minister said this was bringing the Bill into line with what was in the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022. I am afraid I have been rather busy on other Bills so maybe I have not read everything that I should have about this one. I did the last economic crime Bill but I am not sure what is being referenced there, will the Minister elaborate on what this is being brought into line with because I am a bit confused? If what is said here is exactly the same as what has been said in that Act then we also have a mistake there that we need to correct if its wording is as ambiguous as this.

Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th April 2023 Grand Committee

The Government intend to determine via secondary regulations how much of the data collected should be published, and we will settle on a way forward only after comprehensive engagement with business. Companies House and the Department for Business and Trade will continue to consider and engage stakeholders on these risks as secondary legislation develops. There is a broad existing power in Section 468 of the Act that enables changes to be made to Part 15 of the Act through regulations, subject to the affirmative procedure. I therefore ask my noble friend Lord Sarfraz not to oppose this clause.

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

Regarding the position of micro-entities, I spent a great deal of my time as a micro-entity in a partnership. I did not avail myself of limited liability provisions but, when people do avail themselves of the privilege of limited liability, they must recognise that there is an extra public interest requirement upon them because they have been freed from the prospect of personal ruin. Nowadays, we tend to forget about that balance—that bargain—and I just put in a plea that that is not forgotten. There is a bit of a quid pro quo for limited liability when it comes to transparency because you have to protect the public from otherwise unscrupulous people who just willy-nilly go easily bankrupt.

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her intervention. In discussions about the Bill, that philosophy has been raised. I may have mentioned on our previous day in Committee—I certainly mentioned it in private—that, given the very large number of companies registered in this country, one has to ask whether they are all necessary for the function that they purport to perform. Many individuals may be better off as sole traders or in other forms of partnership that do not need to go through these registration processes.

I am also aware of the privileges that limited liability offers, as a result of which there is a fair exchange in terms of the amount of information to be released. I absolutely agree with these principles that we have discussed. However, in this specific instance, it is absolutely right to have a thorough and deep consultation to make sure that through our actions we are not prohibiting people from running legitimate businesses and at the same time compromising their personal privacy or security. That is a sensible debate to have. The point, which is not necessarily specific to this amendment, is about the information that we collect. The Government are absolutely committed to ensuring that we collect the right amount of information so that we can increase fundamental corporate transparency and reduce abuse of the system.

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[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise; I should have dealt with my amendments when I stood up originally. I will deal with the three that I think are relevant now: Amendments 49, 51 and 63.

I want to stress to noble Lords just how broken the system is at the moment. The ACSPs are not being supervised adequately. A 2021 review found that 81% of professional body supervisors were not supervising their members effectively; just to add to the confusion, there are more than 20 supervising bodies. Half of these supervisors were found not to be ensuring that their members take timely action to improve their money laundering procedures. A third of those procedures still do not have an effective separation between advocacy and regulatory functions.

Let me drop into some details here. Essentially, HMRC marks its own homework on this once a year. In its report last year, it owned up to at least six problems. Regulation 58 of the MLR—the money laundering regulations—requires HMRC to carry out fit and proper testing. This year’s assessment revealed HMRC’s failure to keep pace with the requirement to register a business within 45 days, with its performance worsening over the year, down from 78% in 2021 to 70% in 2021-22. In practice, this means that more businesses—in fact, nearly a third of them—are operating outside the scope of the supervision for longer than in previous years.

There is an issue with recruitment and staff training; I will quote from its report in a minute. There also continue to be delays in publishing sectoral guidance for businesses under supervision. The volume of face-to-face visits in its investigations has collapsed. Yes, we have had Covid, but we are beyond Covid now. There were 1,265 face-to-face visits in 2018-19 but last year, in 2021-22, that was down to 289. Lastly, HMRC has censuring and injunction powers that it is not using. These things just are not happening.

Just read the report that it has written, which I think is a master of the English language. It states:

“The AMLS team largely has effective managers”.


What is that saying? It also states:

“However, it is clear that performance is not consistent across the team, which has made it harder at times to make improvements to supervision”.


Those are its own words. It goes on to announce a case study, which happens to be on TCSPs. It had a concentrated week—one week—in which it suddenly found that it could issue 12 warnings and one penalty. Also, 23 compliant businesses were identified as needing regulation and 14 cases were identified as requiring further investigation—and that is in just one week.

Let us look at who is keeping an eye on HMRC: the Treasury. Every year, it produces a supervision report entitled Anti-money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism. In it, the Treasury says that, despite some improvements, improvement is required in several areas. It stated:

“Many PBSs had not implemented a risk-based approach that effectively prioritised their AML supervisory and enforcement work”


and highlighted

“Gaps and inconsistencies in many PBSs’ approaches to information sharing”

and

“Gaps in most PBSs’ enforcement frameworks”.

It continued by saying that

“the prioritisation of supervisory activity in high-risk areas, such as Trust and Company Service Provider … supervision”

is weak, so on and on we go. I know that my noble friend the Minister will pour balm on my words and say that everything will be all right, but this is a once-in-a-decade opportunity to deal with these things.

The noble Lord, Lord Vaux, touched on some of the bad things coming out of this. I will give a couple of examples. In 2020, TCSPs played a crucial role in something called the FinCEN files. There was one example of a single formation agent setting up 385 companies. An analysis of these companies showed that just nine of them were linked to $4 billion-worth of missing income.

We then come to the Pandora papers, which came out only two years ago. Owners of more than 1,500 UK companies were using 716 offshore firms, including individuals accused of corruption. Offshore companies could be traced to a variety of jurisdictions. Most of these—678 of the 716—were registered in the BVI. All these companies were set up by just 14 offshore TCSPs, five of them owned by Russian citizens.

On and on we go, which is why my amendment tries to say, “Stop. Do not let this legislation take effect until we have cleaned up this sector”. I would be keen to hear from my noble friend the Minister why the Government are taking such a complacent approach to this. It is really not difficult or expensive. As the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, said, we are a laughing stock around the world, being called Londonistan, Londongrad or whatever else anyone chooses to use. We have this huge conduit of these offshore entities, which are feeding all this stuff in because they all want to use English law. We are a wonderful place for them, but they have to play by the rules as well. It is a whole ecosystem and this Bill is the opportunity to clean it up. I beg to move.

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

My Lords, I agree with an awful lot of what the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, said—in fact, with all of it. He laid out in some detail the fact that anyone could be one of these verification agencies, because there are 20 supervisors of all kinds of businesses where there could potentially be money laundering. It might be an accountant, a company formation agent or an estate agent. All kinds of people could become an authorised corporate service provider.

It is then quite important to be able to do the analysis to find out whether some are shadier than others, and whether there is a connection between businesses discovered to be less than spick and span and, perhaps, the precise identity—or maybe just the nature—of the type of verification agent. What on earth is the reason for keeping this secret? Who wants to keep it secret? Maybe it is HMRC, because it does not want us to know how bad it is, following on from the disclosure of the noble Lord, Lord Agnew. That is about the only explanation I can come up with, because it is such a vital piece of information. It makes me suspicious as to why it has to be secret. The other side of that is: who will be privy to the information? Presumably it will be Companies House. Will special checks be going on that it does not want us to know about? It is hard to imagine a reason, so the mood of the Committee on this is quite clear.

Most of the rest follows: I have added my name to some of these amendments but could have added it to them all. I would be curious to know the likelihood of the types of organisations that will be verifying identities getting penalties for when they get it wrong. If landlords get it wrong and rent out to illegal immigrants there are quite severe penalties, so what are the penalties for people who have a quick flick of the passport, think that is okay and register the company? If we do not know who they are, what are the penalties? Do they face penalties similar to those that landlords face, for example, when they have to do checks? It is very important. Most of us have had PEP checks, unfortunately. We have probably been to all kinds of places and had all kinds of documents looked through. I cannot say that it has been really thorough, even within banks. How thorough will this be and what happens when it is got wrong?

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To the question from the noble Lord, Lord Browne, on the consultation, we consulted widely with the ACSPs and numerous stakeholders; I think we had more than 1,000 consultation pieces to consider for this Bill. So we have been closely engaged with them and I am contented to go back and continue engaging with them on this single point. I would be delighted to return to the Committee with any specific reasons that are raised so that we can debate them and decide whether they are legitimate. I hope noble Lords hear the principle on which I am committed.

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

On that same point, following on from what the Minister said about the vast majority of these organisations being good, trustworthy and so on, is it that the risk of one mistake being associated with them, because their name would be available, means that people would not want to do it? I asked this associated question: what is the consequence or penalty for getting an identification verification wrong? I made the parallel with the rental side of things, where landlords are expected to be able to know whether they are looking at forged documents and that kind of thing. Are we trying to protect the reputations of organisations in case they make the odd mistake but it blows them out of the water? I am still grasping for reasons but I wondered whether that was part of the response. It is the inverse of what the Minister was referencing.

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I appreciate the noble Baroness’s intervention. I do not have an answer to the question as to whether there was concern over reputational damage but I personally do not see that as a particularly significant reason to withhold one’s identity. If you are an auditor of a corporate account, your name is public. As I am sure we have found with some auditors relating to some national political parties, their embarrassment will be palpable but at least it will be public for us all to see.

To answer the noble Baroness’s other point on penalties, just so she is aware, it is an offence falsely to confirm the identity of an individual. I am unable to make comparisons with the private landlord sector but it is very clear that falsely identifying an individual would be a serious offence. That is part of the legislation we are providing for.

On Amendment 50A, I consider that the measures included in and added to the Bill provide a significant amount of transparency. I will come on to discuss that in a moment. To look at the process that allows an individual to become an authorised corporate service provider, they have to be supervised under the money laundering regulations. They are already required under those regulations to take appropriate steps to identify and assess the risk that their customers would have on their business. Although I understand the noble Lord’s intention, I do not think that this is the right place to consider publishing information about risk assessment processes. In our view, it is beyond the role of the registrar to gather and store this information, or to question it.

The right place to consider the quality of risk assessments is through money laundering supervision. Supervisors are already empowered to compel this information and take enforcement action against firms found to be non-compliant. I have well heard the comments around the money laundering process and whether the supervision regime is adequate. A review is being undertaken at the moment, which is raised in one of the amendments we are about to cover. It makes sense to include discussion of how ACSPs are monitored in that review.

I turn to the suggestions from the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, around standard industrial classification, or SIC, codes and the publication of this information. SIC codes allow Companies House to track what a business does and are used primarily to indicate emerging trends and the strength of the UK economy. I support the noble Lord’s intention to have clear information about the activities that companies are undertaking. Through the Bill, the Government are extending the requirement to provide a SIC code to limited partnerships. As my noble friend Lord Leigh rightly pointed out, such provision is already obligatory for companies. Companies House already runs reports on how SIC codes are being used and will be capable of filtering these to show only the SIC codes of companies that were registered by ACSPs, for example. I therefore consider that requiring ACSPs to provide this information as well would be duplicative.

I also consider it disproportionate to require ACSPs to provide annual reports to the registrar on the SIC codes associated with the companies that they have registered. It is possible that thousands of ACSPs will be registered and it would not be possible for these reports to be regularly monitored. This is a concern in terms of the cost and burden to Companies House.

Furthermore—this is a very relevant point for me that has been made; it does not negate the necessity to assess the process of SICs but it is important in the context of this debate—a company’s SIC code can and often does change. There is a great deal of—I do not necessarily know the right word—greyness about how people classify their business activities. In my investment career, I looked at a tank company that was classified as a consumer discretionary and I saw a military defence business that had a lingerie subsidiary. I am still trying to work out whether that was related to distracting the enemy but the point is that, in many cases, it is very difficult to be absolutely certain about the occupation or classification of a business.

On noble Lords’ comments about companies obfuscating their actions, this amendment does not necessarily provide a solution. It is not necessarily the role of ACSPs or Companies House to determine the specific validity of every claim made; that would be extremely difficult, particularly where there are grey areas around activities. That change may or may not be presented by an ACSP; it would be unreasonable to expect an ACSP to be responsible for monitoring this.

I am therefore not clear what benefits this amendment would bring and request that the noble Lord does not press it, but I am happy to have a further discussion about SIC codes if they fall within the Department for Business and Trade, which they probably do. At the same time, I am happy to have further discussions with noble Lords about the review of money laundering processes and the supervision environment.

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[Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 53; I hope to be fairly brief. It is related, in a way, to Amendment 48A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, which we spoke about earlier. In effect, it attacks the issue of unique identifiers from the opposite direction.

Clause 67(3) ensures that the unique identifiers allocated to companies and others, including ACSPs, are not available on the public register. I was rather surprised to find this. My amendment is really a probing amendment to find out the rationale for hiding unique identifiers and discuss whether that is the right thing to do. It seems to me that the unique identifier would be a helpful tool to assist civil society organisations, journalists, analysts and, indeed, AML regulators to discover trends and connections in the information held on companies on the register.

One person can easily have a number of versions of their name—A Jones, Andrew Jones, AJ Jones and so on. It is not necessarily dishonest. I have two names myself: my title and my real name. I hope that that is not dishonest. My amendment would make it much easier to search using the unique identifier and would avoid the problems of potentially having multiple names or versions of names and people being missed off. It would allow an AML regulator quickly to search for all situations where a particular ACSP has acted, or a journalist to identify ACSPs that act regularly for companies in particular industries, and to be sure that they have caught all the instances.

When I met the Minister previously, for which I thank him again, he explained that the unique identifier is used as the login for the relevant entity. If that is the case, I understand why it should not be public, but I strongly question whether that is sensible. Very few organisations would use a number such as a unique identifier for login purposes; it would go against commonly accepted security practices. The Government do not do it in other systems, as far as I am aware. Would it not make more sense for the unique identifier to be public, and therefore useful, to allow the greatest transparency that I have described and to have a more secure method of logging into Companies House accounts? I beg to move.

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

I will speak briefly on this amendment because key to it is: what is the purpose of the unique identifier? Perhaps like the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, I thought that it was like the resource identifier that you use for searching. I know that if you search on my name, you do not find all my directorships. I keep amending my name to try to make sure that they are all the same, but you still cannot find them in Companies House, so I was thinking that it was a better way than names of finding out all the companies that people were involved in, and so on.

I can see that, if it is more of a login approach, that might be different, but that then begs the question: is there not a better way of identifying companies and individuals that works on the searches? If you are searching to see whether somebody is doing something in a different company, or how many directorships they have, simply going by name means that too often there are minor variations, and it will not flag up what you are looking for. Like the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, I am curious about what the purpose of this identifier is, and therefore why it is confidential.

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, for his Amendment 53. Unique identifiers are unique codes allocated on an individual basis. The Bill will allow unique identifiers to support the effective operation of identity verification, such as allowing Companies House to link an individual’s verified identity across multiple roles and companies. I like to look at it as operating as a username. That is important; it is not a public but a private number that the individual will have allocated to them.

I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles of Berkhamsted, and the noble Lord, Lord Vaux of Harrowden, that this amendment is not necessary to achieve the objectives that they have described—although I am concerned about the noble Baroness’s difficulty in tracing herself in the records of Companies House. This will be a good test as to whether the systems work. Companies House will be making changes to how members of the public view the register so that, although the unique identifiers themselves will not be public, it will be possible to see accurately connections between individuals and entities. That is the central point of the reforms being made to Companies House. This includes how many companies for which an individual is a director or person with significant control.

From my own experience of using the Companies House database, I come up under the various different forms of my name: D Johnson, Dominic Johnson, DRA Johnson or whatever it may be. It works in that instance, but it is absolutely right for noble Lords to be concerned about whether the system will work. We have undertaken to make sure that it does. It is the cornerstone of our activities and everything that the Bill points towards.

Regulations made under Section 1082 will govern the use of unique identifiers. We intend to prevent individuals from having more than one unique identifier, as the name denotes, and anyone submitting a statement with an incorrect unique identifier will commit a false filing offence. Furthermore, the primary purpose of a unique identifier is to allow its owner to communicate securely and privately with Companies House; as I said, it should be looked upon as a username. Unique identifiers can be considered personal data so making them public could expose the registrar to data protection breach risks, in the same way that it would be inappropriate to publish individuals’ national insurance numbers.

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[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, have put my name to my noble friend’s Amendment 72. He is quite right: in business, what gets measured gets done. That is also true of politics: one has only to set down a requirement and have it followed up and measured to see an improvement in the performance of a government department or a public authority such as Companies House. I entirely agree with the thoughts put forward by my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, in support of this amendment, and by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, in addressing his amendment.

For my own part, I do not necessarily think that we need to see the terms of these amendments set out in legislation, but we do need a public recognition that the elements that the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and my noble friend Lord Agnew spoke about are publicly recognised as goals and things that will be measured and reported on annually.

Nowadays, annual reports are made not only by company chairmen. The Lord Chief Justice makes an annual report, as do various other public figures dotted about our constitution, so we should not run shy of requiring that. Indeed, Clause 187 makes clear that the Secretary of State will make a report. The main thing to do is to get the information out there regularly and publicly so that the public know what is being done in their name.

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

My Lords, I support what others have said. If we take these amendments as essentially saying that Clause 187 needs to be amplified, I, like the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, do not see the reason for sunsetting in 2030. It is not that far away given that, although this might commence immediately on Royal Assent, there are quite a lot of regulations and other things—and I do not know what the timescale of those will be—before everything is up and running.

As I see it, Clause 187 is about monitoring progress, getting everything up and running and seeing that it is okay, then just saying “that is fine”, but I think there is a case for ongoing monitoring to see what is changing and whether there is a need for any further update. The annual report seems to be a vehicle for that and, like others, I say that that is a good reason for it to continue, rather than being sunsetted, and if need be, perhaps to list a few more things that it will cover. Clause 187 could stay silent on that as it is quite broad, talking about

“the implementation and operation of Parts 1 to 3”.

If you took away the sunset clause, I could probably be quite satisfied.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

I briefly thank my noble friend for Clause 187. It is a valid attempt to achieve some of the aims of these amendments, although I wholeheartedly agree that the sunset clause is puzzling. I ask my noble friend to bear in mind that the expertise being offered by this Committee and Amendment 65 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, as well as the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Agnew, are attempting to assist the Government in achieving the objectives that we all wish to see by injecting the difference between theory and practice. The Government want these measures to succeed. The Committee is trying to suggest that there are, in practice, a number of measures identified in each of these amendments—which, of course, could be combined—to guide those overseeing or producing the reports about what the important elements will be if we want to make this work well.

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[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

As always, I offer my thanks to noble Lords for their participation and to the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Ponsonby, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, for their Amendment 64. I also thank my noble friend Lord Agnew, my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier and the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, as well as the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, for their Amendment 72—if I have got that correct. These amendments address reporting requirements in similar ways and are very relevant and important.

I agree that it is important that Parliament is informed about the implementation and delivery of these reforms. That is why the other place agreed to add an amendment to this effect on Report, which noble Lords have discussed. Companies House already reports on many of the items set out in these new amendments and, in many cases, actually goes much further, either through its annual report or via quarterly and annual statistical releases. Legislating to duplicate this, given the new reporting duty at Clause 187, seems unnecessary.

It is important that any report is holistic and of use to Parliament and the wider public. It should provide the necessary context to facilitate an informed view of performance, which would be difficult based solely on the raw data that these amendments propose. However, I agree that some of the new items of data identified in these amendments could be of interest. The noble Lord, Lord Vaux, raised some specific points, which I believe are already covered in part in some of the quarterly filings. In any event, if they are not, they are certainly worthy of discussion. I am happy to explore with Companies House officials how they might incorporate these into their reporting without the need for this statutory requirement.

It may be worth returning to some of the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, to cover some of the key points raised. Under Amendment 72, each report must

“provide annual data on … the number of cases referred by the registrar to law enforcement bodies and anti-money-laundering supervisors”.

As I understand it, this is already enabled via the Commons amendment and is expected to be included. Also in Amendment 72, each report must provide annual data on

“the total number of company incorporations to the registrar, and the number of company incorporations by authorised corporate service providers to the registrar”.

These incorporations are published quarterly via the statistical release. The amendment says that each report must

“detail all instances in which exemption powers have been used by the Secretary of State”—

which is also covered by the government amendment—and

“confirm that the registrar has sufficient financial resources to meet its objectives”.

The registrar’s resources will continue to come from fees, which will be set according to how much activity Ministers want to be undertaken. Also, each report must

“provide annual data on … the number of companies that have been struck off by the registrar”

and

“the number and value of fines”.

Removals from the register are already reported on quarterly. The number and value of late-filing penalties are published in annual management information tables.

That just gives the Committee reassurance that there is already a great deal of detail published, and we will be looking to publish more. I look forward to a discussion with noble Lords on specific areas that we can cover; I am sure that my officials are looking forward to those discussions. This is all about the sort of data we provide that allows us to run an effective and transparent company system in this country. But I am very reluctant to legislate specifically, according to these amendments, given what I have said and our commitment to making sure that we are publishing useful information.

I will cover the comments from some of your Lordships relating to the supposed sunsetting of requirements to report. As I understand it—I may have misunderstood, but I hope I have not—the purpose of the clauses on six-month and annual reporting relates to the implementation of changes in Companies House that will bring it up to the standards at which we wish to see it operating. At that point, the reports will be included in annual and/or regular reports. It is not that reporting ends, but that it becomes commonplace to report on the data rather than necessarily on the changes that we are instigating to Companies House. I am happy to clarify that further, if my description was not accurate enough.

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

Clause 187 says

“on the implementation and operation”.

Therefore, I hoped there would be ongoing commentary and reporting on the operation. I accept that the sunset clause implies that it is about transient stuff, but if the operation—it must be the ongoing operation because it might break down; we do not know—is included in other reports, I would be satisfied. If it is not, I suggest that we need to keep Clause 187 going.

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[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I believe we will have further discussions on that point, yes.

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

When the Minister replied to me he used the word “data” rather than “operation”. There is a difference between data and operation. This might not be something that he can instantly resolve, but the ongoing concern is about not just the data but the operation of Companies House. Those are two different things.

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that point. There are two separate components to that, one of which is the data and/or requirements tabled in these amendments, which are relevant to understanding the activities of Companies House and ensuring that we have a comprehensive assessment of what they are. The second point is that there is the assumption that, over the next six or seven years, Companies House will have reached its operational capability to deliver on providing the relevant data, so we have a good deal of time to assess whether that has been achieved. There is a potential for Companies House to achieve its ambitions before 2030, at which point it would settle into business as usual reporting.

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I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Browne, who mentioned the Prime Minister’s five objectives. I am delighted when a Member of the Opposition refers to the Prime Minister in such complimentary terms. There are four objectives in this Bill, in Clause 1. Let us get them right. Let us fund them and ensure that the way in which we create and enact this Bill enables Companies House and our law enforcement authorities to do a real job—and do it properly and quickly.

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

My Lords, I signed the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Agnew. I am generally in favour of what has been said already regarding the need to increase the funding for Companies House. I was a member of the fraud committee. When we were looking at Companies House, we were astonished that we still had this ridiculously small registration fee. We thought that Companies House needed more to upgrade in the way now envisaged in this Bill; we did recommend an increase.

We were also taken to some extent with the notion of hypothecation of funds. One might say that nobody likes that idea because they think that they are getting perverse incentives and things are going wrong from that perspective, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, elaborated. However, the fact is that our prosecutors are underresourced. When recommending these hypothecations, some us may feel that it is a last resort. Well, that is what it is; there is no other way to get the sort of money that will allow adequate prosecutions into the system.

From my point of view, it does not matter how you get the money in. We have to accept that we need better-funded regulators and better-funded prosecutors in general. It is no coincidence that, whenever there is any kind of scandal, as happens a lot in financial services—about which I know rather more—it is always in the United States that they manage to prosecute them. That is because they have this hypothecation of fines, they have lots of money and they can pin them down. We cannot do that for all kinds of reasons. We cannot keep on being the poor, weak cousins where you will never be for the high jump, you will never be prosecuted and we are still the financial laundromat.

Hypothecation may not be ideal; the Treasury would lose the money, of course, so it would still come from the public purse. Well, why not put it there adequately from the public purse in the first place? I do not see the raising of Companies House fees to £100 as money for legal enforcement; I see it as raising money so that Companies House can be much better and much more advanced and do all the things it needs to do, perhaps more quickly, because a lot of expenditure will be required on technology. It is ridiculous to have this £10; it could be £100, and we could deal with the issue of getting decent enforcement separately.

[Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, to take up the noble Baroness’s final point on technology, in the very helpful session we had yesterday—unfortunately the Minister could not be there—we were provided with some written information about the use of technology that was going to develop. I asked about artificial intelligence. Either in the course of answering these amendments or generally, could the Minister assist us as to how, with this increasing amount of information that Companies House will now have, artificial intelligence will allow it and the prosecuting authorities to have a great deal more information to put two and two together, which will assist with this legislation’s overall objectives?

Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency

Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 27th April 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

I find some of these amendments tricky, really. Clearly, we are all keen to prevent fraud but I frequently wear the hat of the SME company. I should make the further declaration that I am the director of a number of SMEs and an investor in many more—not many successful ones but, none the less, I put my money in and hope. I have read the Law Commission’s options paper and the briefing papers from the APPG on Anti-Corruption and Responsible Tax, and I have had the pleasure of innumerable discussions with the very persuasive Margaret Hodge and her extremely capable team. Congratulations to them; they have got the Government to move to the much-promised amendments from the other place, the debate on which I read carefully. Clearly, we all want to beef up failure to prevent and the amendments go a long way to doing that.

I broadly support the principle of excluding small companies and I shall explain a bit more about why. However, I agree that the terms here are a bit odd. Needless to say, I am a bit worried about a company with 250 employees turning over only £36 million—it is more bust than small. I suspect, however, that these are EU figures, translated from the euro; I do not how they were arrived at but they may need some polish. They are definitely more “M” than “S”, and thought might be given to restricting ourselves to “S” rather than “M”. Needless to say, one looks at one’s business to see whether one is within scope —and, of course, I was reminded that the problem is with the balance sheet qualification. Ordinarily, I never thought that it would apply but, as fellow members of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales will recall, the recent brilliant accounting standards brought in require one to capitalise leases in the balance sheet, meaning that companies’ assets are, frankly, grossly inflated. This definition refers only to gross assets, not net assets, so you will capture many more companies than you thought you might if you stick to that definition. I urge another look at the actual definition, if this route is taken.

It is certainly possible for large companies to develop procedures and systems, but smaller ones are, frankly, stretched with other matters, such as, essentially, how to pay the next payroll and survive. It is not reasonable to expect many of them to stop working, sit down and have a cup of tea and dream up preventive procedures. Of course, business owners do not want to see fraud because, at the end of the day, they will be the main losers. However, I can see lawyers advising on the purchase of massive amounts of belts and braces, given the penalties, which could be a massive distraction from the incredibly challenging job of trying to run a business and make a profit, which is difficult enough. I suggest that we see how large companies cope with the Bill, what it means in practice, what “preventive measures” —the guidance is yet to come—actually means, and then give ourselves the power to bring in small companies if we feel it is appropriate at a later stage, once we see what happens in practice.

I also have some concerns about Amendment 101, on the senior manager responsibilities. Of course, I strongly support measures which are likely to reduce economic crime. However, I note that an assessment produced by the Law Commission on individual criminal liability concluded that

“in principle, directors etc, should not be personally criminally liable on the basis of neglect if the offence is one which requires proof of a particular mental state. Liability for directors on the basis of neglect should be restricted to offences of strict liability or negligence”.

We have some way to go to make me feel comfortable that those are right.

There are other outstanding issues concerning senior manager liability, specifically how this would be monitored and enforced. The legal obligations on senior managers at the moment affect the UK’s competitiveness, particularly when trying to recruit talent at senior levels. So I would be reticent to encourage the introduction of significant legislative change without a broad assessment, which I would welcome, of the likely impact. That means consulting with industry and an official impact assessment that considers international comparisons of the effect, particularly on recruiting senior staff. Therefore, I would welcome some more consultation and consideration of the consequences of this reform.

On the proposed changes to the “identification doctrine”, clearly, amending it is essential to tackle the most egregious intentional behaviour; I get that. Here, of course, it is easier to see that in a small company—the Victorian brothers example—the directors could be guilty of this behaviour and, in an overzealous environment of trying to score wins, they could be prosecuted first, quickly and more easily. However, where you have a company consisting of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people, can we be certain that the act of a few rogue managers or even one manager a long way down the reporting structure should rightly lead to the sort of punishments suggested in some of these amendments?

That does not sit easily with me, and again, I still want to be convinced that we are in sync with our major international competitors. Let us not forget that while FDI into the UK has historically been very high, it is not now. The UK stock market is out of fashion, and countries all around the world are seeking to attract our businesses to set up offshore. Any legislation we bring in has to be very mindful of that.

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

My Lords, I think it falls to me to start the winding-up speeches, but noble Lords will be pleased to know that I will not try to repeat everything that everybody else has said. I declare my interest as a director of both a large company and small companies; I set up my own first business in 1981, so I have spent most of my life as a business owner.

In this group I support the amendments mainly led by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier. I hate to break with the gentle congratulations that have been given to the Government for at least doing something, but having such a weak amendment could well be counterproductive. The Government could think that they have done something when, as has already been exposed by many colleagues, it does very little. It will exempt most companies and it probably will not touch where action is needed most.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted]

91: After Clause 185, insert the following new Clause—
“Regulatory failure to prevent economic crime and failure to prevent facilitation of economic crime
(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations—(a) confer on any supervisory or regulatory bodies a duty to prevent economic crime and to prevent facilitation of economic crime within their supervisory or regulatory scope;(b) establish an offence of—(i) regulatory failure to prevent economic crime; and(ii) regulatory failure to prevent the facilitation of economic crime.(2) Regulations must be made within 18 months of the day on which this Act is passed conferring duties under subsection (1)(a) and creating offences under subsection (1)(b) in respect of—(a) OFCOM and other regulators of communication platforms including telecommunications;(b) financial services regulators;(c) the Financial Reporting Council in respect of auditors;(d) the Solicitors Regulation Authority and other relevant regulators of legal representatives;(e) the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and other relevant regulators of accountants.(3) Regulations must be made in respect of any other regulator that notifies the Secretary of State that they wish to be bound by such duties, within 18 months of such notification.(4) Regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group were inspired by the work of what we call in shorthand the Fraud Act review committee, chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan. Several members of the Committee were also on that Select Committee. At Second Reading, several of us spoke ahead of the noble Baroness and stole her thunder, so I am going to—

[Lord Fox (LD)]

Do the same again.

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

In order not to do the same again, I will concentrate mainly on the mechanics of this first amendment, which is a regulatory failure to prevent amendment. Both amendments in the group are targeted at the same issue—that is, enablers or suppliers of services where the perpetrators, the fraudsters, as has already been explained in the earlier group by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, are not associated with the company. Largely, they will be customers, so they fall outside many of the provisions of the failure to prevent regime, as has already been discussed.

In the Select Committee, as well as recommending a failure to prevent criminal regime, we saw the benefit of regulators having powers to intervene, and we broadly favoured there being a comparable regulatory failure to prevent regime. We did not actually say that it was a recommendation because, at that stage, from the evidence that we had heard, we were led to believe—I think this is clear in the report—that the Online Safety Bill might provide a similar result. It is now clear that that is not the case, certainly not with regard to the telecoms operators, so I have tabled this amendment. My amendment has been put in what I call a “sunrise” form where the detail comes from the statutory instruments, which would enable the Government to do the right kind of consultation and specifically tailor the regimes. It could also be done in the light of deferring to whatever happens in all the relevant Bills presently going through, because there are aspects covered in the Financial Services and Markets Bill and the Online Safety Bill as well as this one.

The issue that we are aiming to cover is where the services provided by others are used for fraud, not in active participation by the service provider but in the passive sense, and they are not intervening even when they know that their services are being abused. Email, phone and text scams are the notable examples. While banks have been on the front line of defending against scams and are paying compensation where people have been tricked into transferring money—which is also now being legislated for—it is fair to say that we on the Select Committee were shocked by the complacency of the telecoms companies in particular. We were not convinced that enough, or indeed anything, was really being done. It seemed to be deliberate negligence; there is no other way to explain it.

My amendments would enable the Government to confer on regulators a duty and a power relating to failure to prevent and failure to prevent facilitation of fraud. I am sure that the Minister will say that regulators generally have powers concerning fraud in their sectors already; the Law Commission’s report referenced the case of sewage discharges and Southern Water. However, fraud is not generally stated in regulators’ headline duties. For example, it does not appear in the objectives or principles of the Financial Conduct Authority, which claimed in the instances of fraud around the RBS Global Restructuring Group to be powerless to intervene, although fraud was pretty clear, because business lending was outside the scope of the regulatory envelope.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

My Lords, I thank everybody who has spoken in this debate. I will not attempt to summate what everybody has said and will concentrate on responding to the Minister.

I have to say that I am not reassured. I do not believe that anything powerful is going on that will address the hole that has been elaborated on at great length in the report by the committee, never mind by what other noble Lords and I have said today. All we seem to have are amendments from the Government which do not catch this and do not catch a lot else either, so they do not matter. We do not have anything that deals with third-party use other than, if I heard correctly—like the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, I will have to read through everything the Minister said in Hansard—the fact that the Government are speaking to the telecoms companies and trying to come up with some kind of voluntary agreements. Well, good luck; we found them less than enthusiastic. There are things they can do to stop spoofing; they can update their systems and some of their codes sooner rather than later, but they think they can get away with it by waving their hands and saying, “It’s technically difficult”. There are some people, myself included, who have technical degrees and can see through the rot. Frankly, the Government should not put up with back-pedalling. Yes, it will cost them money, but they have to spend that money to help protect the 40 million-plus people who are not just being sent a text, a scam, a spoof or a phish every now and then but are incessantly getting them. It needs technical intervention to help. Until there is a stick as well as the carrot of discussions, that will not happen.

I will of course withdraw my amendment for now, but we must return to this subject on Report, as well as to the inadequacies of the other “failure to prevent” offences. They should be the central theme of what we are doing now; we cannot just put up with a fig leaf and say, “It’s been done”. We need a lot more than a fig leaf. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 91 withdrawn.

Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th May 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, added my name to this amendment, which is supported by these Benches. This issue gets us back to David versus Goliath, which we have mentioned in previous groups. Unfortunately, the culprits are Goliath, and our prosecutors are left having to face culprits with far deeper pockets than theirs. There are alternatives, such as creating larger budgets for prosecutors, that have already been dismissed.

Maybe within asset recovery there is some glimmer of attracting a better recompense, but that is not a perverse incentive because if the prosecuting authorities took actions improperly and overreached themselves, the safeguarding clause in this amendment would come into operation. In the way the amendment is drafted, there are not perverse incentives but good incentives to bring more actions that are presently not brought simply because they are unaffordable. It makes us a bit of a laughing stock that we have very strong laws in parts but cannot enforce them.

Everything else has been said. I commend this amendment and await with interest to see what excuses the Government come up with not to accept it when the precedent and the need are there and the amendment contains a safeguard and therefore it could be put into operation very effectively and swiftly.

[Lord Trevethin and Oaksey (CB)]

My Lords, I will say a few brief words in support of this amendment and place it in its proper legal context. When it was mentioned at Second Reading, the Government’s response was simply to say that the principle that the loser pays the costs of unsuccessful litigation or an unsuccessful application was regarded as a valuable principle and that they did not see sufficient reason to move away from it in this field. It is a salutary principle and it operates in civil litigation for the most part, but there are exceptions. There are already statutory precedents for a regime of the type that this amendment seeks to create, namely a regime in which the enforcement agency will not invariably have to pay the costs if an application is unsuccessful.

I will say a few words about a different, but quite closely related, area of law in which a regime of the type that this amendment contemplates has been created by the judges. In the field of professional discipline and professional regulation, there has been for some time a well-established principle that the regulator will not automatically have to pay costs merely because the application or prosecution that it has commenced has proved to be unsuccessful. It is known as the Baxendale-Walker principle and works perfectly well in practice.

I shall explain shortly how it works in practice. The proceedings are initiated and the respondent, being a professional person, is expected to engage properly and conscientiously with the regulator and to respond candidly, or with a reasonable degree of candour, to the points being made against him or it. If the regulator then continues unreasonably with the prosecution or disciplinary action and fails, it will be made to pay the costs of the matter. However, if the regulator at all times acts reasonably, the presumption will be that it will not be made to pay the costs of the matter.

The reason why the law has created that regime is precisely the reason that is contemplated by this amendment—namely, that it is strongly in the public interest that regulators and enforcement agencies should not be deterred from bringing proper proceedings by the risk of paying exorbitant costs bills to respondents who manage to successfully resist the application in question.

I think I have said enough to convey the point. I really do not understand why the Government are so reluctant to consider introducing a regime of this sort more widely across the field of economic crime. It already exists in relation to certain types of economic crime, and it works well in the field that I have mentioned. I would be very interested to hear the Minister’s response.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Agnew for tabling this amendment and all noble Lords for the points they have raised in this debate. Again, I reassure the Committee that the Government take economic crime very seriously and are taking the necessary steps to ensure that enforcement agencies can tackle illicit financial activities while upholding the fundamental principles that govern our entire civil justice system.

In civil legal proceedings the loser generally pays the legal costs of the winning party, as has been acknowledged. The “loser pays” principle is a fundamental pillar on which the whole basis of civil litigation operates. It helps to ensure that only stronger cases are brought and that the winning party is able to recover reasonable costs of vindicating their case, save for in exceptional circumstances, to ensure access to justice for individuals with very limited resources. While important, civil recovery proceedings brought by enforcement agencies are not so exceptional as to warrant undermining the “loser pays” principle.

Several noble Lords have raised with me, and during this debate, the changes made to the unexplained wealth order regime by the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022. These amended provisions in the Proceeds of Crime Act—POCA—introduce “costs protection” for enforcement agencies in cases of UWOs, unless they act unreasonably. This aimed to remove barriers to the use of UWO powers by relevant law enforcement teams. This was done on the basis that they were exceptional and likely to be low in volume in comparison to other types of civil recovery and, furthermore, that the relevant cost rules would be positioned as a novel and unique proposal, thereby maintaining the overall integrity of the “loser pays” principle in all other civil recovery proceedings. In the last five years, agencies with civil recovery powers—the Crown Prosecution Service, the National Crime Agency, the Serious Fraud Office, the Financial Conduct Authority and HM Revenue and Customs—have not paid any adverse costs for civil recovery proceedings.

There is also no guarantee that the introduction of further costs protection would lead to enforcement agencies pursuing more cases, as they report that each case must be assessed on its own merits considering numerous factors independent of costs liability, including gathering sufficient evidence to pursue a case and internal resourcing capability.

It is also worth bearing in mind that the Civil Procedure Rules, which guide the courts in procedural matters—I think this goes some way to answering the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Oates—

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

As I interpret what the Minister has said, if the regulator is taking the costs risk into account, that means it will take into account the question: am I up against a really wealthy opponent? Therefore, we will not have equal justice. You are saying that if the person from whom you are trying to recover the asset is particularly wealthy, they will be able to string out the process and do more appeals. That increases your costs risk and, therefore, the wealthy will not be pursued as much as the less wealthy. That is a very bad precedent and another reason why the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, is surely needed.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes an interesting point. I was talking about unexplained wealth orders in respect of the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022. To go over that again, it aimed to remove barriers to the use of UWO powers by relevant law enforcement teams, but it was done on the basis that these were exceptional and likely to be very low in volume in comparison to other types of civil recovery. I do not think that is inconsistent with the argument about this amendment.

Going back to the procedural rules, which guide the courts in procedural matters, these enable judges to use their discretion to limit legal costs in certain circumstances. In appropriate cases, they may be used by agencies when pursuing asset recovery cases and are therefore a more suitable way of limiting costs liability in the few circumstances where this may be needed rather than through wholesale reform of the loser pays principle in civil recovery.

The amendment would overturn the very basis on which the entirety of civil costs and funding is built. It would negatively affect every other category of civil litigation, all for minimal, if any, financial savings in a very limited number of cases—

Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 27th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to this group. I thank my noble friend the Minister for the steps that the Government have taken in relation to the failure to prevent fraud offence and the identification doctrine. These are significant steps, and he is right to say that they will obviously be followed up in future Bills.

It is worth remembering the scale of fraud in England and Wales in particular. Some 40% of crime is fraud against individuals, and clearly the scale of the cases against small, medium-sized and large businesses is also devastating. On Friday, we will debate the wider issues relating to fraud looked at by the committee on digital fraud, which I was privileged to chair. I am grateful that, from that committee and the work with my noble friend, the Fraud Strategy was published in early May.

I support my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier’s Amendment 110 and the associated Amendment 121, and have added my name to them. He and the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, set out clearly why these amendments are necessary. There is no SME exemption in the Bribery Act or in relation to tax evasion.

I want to take on one of the points raised by my noble friend Lord Leigh. He talked about the survival of SMEs, and he is of course right to do so. I have not set up a small business but I have set up a small charity, and many of the issues are similar. If that small business or small charity were the victim of fraud, it would be absolutely devastating. One of the arguments here is the burden on small businesses of having to set up fraud-prevention measures, but they have to do it anyway these days because they have to be very cautious about anyone attempting invoice fraud or utility fraud. If they have an employee, they have to make sure that they are making best use and correct use of the corporate credit card, for example.

Noble Lords rightly referred to Clause 192 and the guidance that the Government will publish. We already have an example of it, as the Government have published the outline of how it would look. If this amendment is passed, it would be perfectly within the rights of the Government to set out clearly how that guidance should be interpreted by small and medium-sized enterprises, which are quite used to reading extensive amounts of guidance. If we want to have a broader debate about red tape and regulation, that is perhaps for another day, but they are used to dealing with much guidance. If they are likely to be victims of fraud, they will take that guidance very seriously.

I support these amendments and I support my noble and learned friend’s Amendment 125A on expanding the failure to prevent offence to money laundering. If we are going to introduce the failure to prevent offence, which I thoroughly welcome, we might as well do it properly and expand it to money laundering, which is also a huge a problem and one that the Bill seeks to tackle as well.

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

My Lords, my name is on several amendments relating to failure to prevent fraud, and I support what has been said already and what was said extensively in Grand Committee on both failure to prevent fraud and the identification doctrine. If the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, moves his Amendments 110 and 125A, we on these Benches will support them.

I retabled my amendment on regulatory failure to prevent, which was well supported in Committee. I do not intend to move it but I have tabled it as a reminder that we have not yet covered the enablers, as the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, spoke about. This is probably the best route to do so, with regulators being perhaps best able to understand where actions could or could not have been taken. This recommendation was encompassed within the Fraud Act report.

We have, I suppose, gone a long way, and the Government have gone a long way within the remit covered by the Law Commission, which unfortunately included the harm aspect. As a lot of the crime that has come about through this enabling channel has been since that report was commissioned, this is unfinished business; we will necessarily have to come to this again. For now, we should strengthen the government proposals through Amendments 110 and 125A.

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

My Lords, I start by acknowledging the great progress that has been made on the failure to prevent process through the debates in the House of Commons. There was significant movement there, which we of course welcome.

I say at the outset that if the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, is minded to divide the House on Amendments 110 and 125A, he will have the support of these Benches. There are very good reasons for that, as have been outlined in the debate today. The statistics, particularly the 0.5% figure, are startling. Surely, we all need to take this incredibly seriously if, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, said, we are serious about tackling the wider fraud issues, which seem to be growing daily. The numbers of people we all know personally who are affected by this shows the sheer extent of the problem.

I will make the very strong point that the issue of costs and burdens on SMEs has been overemphasised. If these processes are tightened in the way proposed, those very businesses will themselves be protected by the action taken on other companies. In particular, I completely support the extension to the money laundering provision in Amendment 125A.

We have had a really good debate throughout our proceedings on these measures. It would be so disappointing if, at this final stage, we did not go the full distance we can at this point, recognising, as we know, that more will need to be done in the future. We have the opportunity now and we should seize it.