Criminal Finances Bill

Debate between Baroness Butler-Sloss and Lord Faulks

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 25th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I support very much what the noble Lord, Lord Luce, has just said and respectfully associate myself with it. I strongly support Amendment 8. If I may put it this way, I think the Government, and particularly the Minister, have been extremely shrewd in taking the sting out of the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, who has very wisely brought these issues to this House. The Government have picked them up and produced what seems to me to be the right approach to dealing with the overseas territories. The amendment provides a useful nudge to the overseas territories that the Government are looking at what they are doing, without imposing what is unacceptable upon these independent countries with their own constitutions and parliaments.

I do not agree with Amendment 14. I was at the meeting this morning where representatives from a number of overseas territories explained to us what they were doing. We have already heard about Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands, which are doing very good work, and from Anguilla and Montserrat about the efforts they are making. We have heard from the Minister about the Turks and Caicos Islands, which with their new Government are now working to get this through. So the areas contained within Amendment 14 are already on the way, if not ahead of us in some cases, and it is not necessary that they should be referred to specifically in it. I do not want to hold everyone up. I support Amendment 8 and I do not think Amendment 14 is really necessary now.

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 24 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts in this group. It concerns the setting up of a public register of beneficial ownership of UK property by companies and other legal entities registered outside the UK. Those are more or less the words that are the subject of a call for evidence issued by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in April this year. I do not know but I assume that the Home Office did a great deal to bring forward the publication of that report in the light of the debates which took place in Committee about the concern that was generally expressed about corruption and the acquisition of property in central London by overseas companies hiding behind anonymity.

The establishment of a public register was indeed a commitment made by the Government. Why do we need a register of this sort? I can do no better than quote briefly from the call for evidence, which says,

“the government is concerned about the potential for illegal activity to take place through overseas companies investing in the property sector. Some properties are owned through off-shore companies in order to obscure their true owners. This can make it difficult for regulators, legitimate businesses and the general public to know who the true owners are and can make it very difficult for law enforcement agencies to carry out effective investigations … Greater transparency of property ownership will make the job … easier and will discourage criminals and the corrupt from choosing the UK to hide or launder their money”.

It is made quite clear that the Government intend to introduce a register of beneficial owners of overseas companies but, as it is a call for evidence, it does not seek to prescribe the nature of that register but calls for advice and information to assist it in formulating the register. It may well be influenced by what the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, said about verification to make any such register particularly useful.

The amendment in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Hodgson simply asks the Government to do that and make it a part of the Bill. If we do not, there is real feeling that there will not be legislative time even in the Parliament that may start in June. I ask the Minister to reassure us that the register will be set up in short order.

Prisons: Staff Safety

Debate between Baroness Butler-Sloss and Lord Faulks

Monday 11th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

With great respect to the noble Lord, that is a little unfair. The judges will of course determine the length of the sentence by reference to a whole host of factors: the seriousness of the offence, the history of the offender, and the best way both to protect society but also to rehabilitate. I know that judges always consider alternatives and that sentencing prisoners to prison will only be the last resort; very often judges will say, “I will sentence you to the least possible sentence that I am permitted”. Therefore the judges do not, as it were, oversentence.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I happen to know someone who is in prison at the moment, so I will pick up on, as the Minister put it, the frustration of being locked in a cell for 23 hours a day. What will be done about that?

[Lord Faulks]

Clearly, the prison governor at each prison will have to focus his or her attention on that. As the noble and learned Baroness will know, more autonomy will be given to prison governors, and one of the main objectives of that is to ensure that, so far as possible, prisoners have a greater time out of their cell engaged in purposeful activity or on courses or otherwise, not simply locked up in their cell.

Marriage: Humanist Ceremonies

Debate between Baroness Butler-Sloss and Lord Faulks

Thursday 21st January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

I find this very difficult to understand. Why, if it was right to have a review of marriage generally, did we have the same-sex marriage Act but not allow the same for humanists? There is an unacceptable discrepancy there, and I speak as someone who is not a humanist.

[Lord Faulks]

It is not of course, as the noble Baroness would confirm, that we do not allow humanist marriage—a civil marriage can take place followed by a humanist ceremony. The gravamen of the complaint is that they cannot take place simultaneously.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012

Debate between Baroness Butler-Sloss and Lord Faulks

Wednesday 10th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness. I know that this was part of the Liberal Democrat manifesto. It is a matter on which, at the moment, we have no plans to legislate. The Liberal Democrat manifesto contains a number of wise things, including the suggestion that we should,

“develop a strategy that will deliver advice and legal support to help people with everyday problems like personal debt and social welfare issues”.

I entirely agree with that.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, are the Government looking at the way in which exceptional circumstances are being dealt with? There is a lot of criticism that they are not being properly dealt with. Will they look at that, if they are not already doing so?

[Lord Faulks]

I think that the noble and learned Baroness is referring to exceptional funding provisions. There has been less take-up than was originally anticipated, but I am glad to say that the percentage of applications that are granted has greatly increased since April 2013 and is now 25%. That probably reflects the fact that there is a better understanding in the legal profession about exactly what the exceptional funding is supposed to cover, which is a potential breach of convention obligations or EU law. I do not think that I can comment further because the matter is the subject of a judicial review which we are resisting strongly.