Criminal Finances Bill

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 28th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood]

My Lords, I start with a very pedantic point. If this amendment is to go ahead, it needs to begin with an “or”. As the noble and very clever though not technically learned Lord points out, this is a further alternative to the two already listed in new Section 362B(4). The next point is that of course the property here envisaged, registered in the name of an overseas company in which the respondent has an interest, is not—I repeat, not—the same property as referred to in subsection (1), in respect of which one seeks to have an unexplained wealth order made. It is a different property altogether.

I have great sympathy with the amendment and the policy underlying it. Like the noble Lord, Lord Deben, I deplore the extent to which London properties are in foreign ownership nowadays. But I respectfully wonder how far the amendment would go—if any distance—in actually dealing with that problem and with money laundering. Surely with regard to most of the people who buy and own these London properties—if they are not already PEPs, or politically exposed persons, and we know that a lot of them probably are—nobody questions how much money they have. But would it not then be rather difficult to satisfy the earlier requirement —which, again, has to be satisfied to make one of these orders—in new subsection (3)? Each of the various requirements set out in proposed new subsections (2), (3) and (4) has to be satisfied. First you have to show that they hold property of the relevant value; then, in new subsection (3) you have to be satisfied that,

“there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the known sources of the respondent’s lawfully obtained income would have been insufficient for the purposes of enabling the respondent to obtain the property”.

The property there being referred to is not property in London registered in the name of an overseas company, it is the property in respect of which you are seeking a UWO.

Those points need to be borne in mind before one goes down this particular road. It is not going to be the panacea that some who have contributed to the debate thus far seem to think it is likely to be.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I do not pretend for a moment to have the drafting skills of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, but I associate myself with all the other comments that have been made on the amendment. Rather than repeat the issues that have been so well described, I want to pick up the point that the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, made—that this Bill is a real and rare opportunity to tackle this problem, which, as he will have heard, exercises Members on all sides of the Committee and is essentially a non-partisan series of concerns.

When I had the privilege of sitting where the Minister is sitting, I brought a Bill through this House which was fondly and informally known as the “Dump it in here” Bill. It is perfectly possible, even at this stage, for the Government to come forward with some well-drafted language that would achieve the goals that have been described by various noble Lords today and by others who have been concerned about this issue. The Government have been looking at it for a long time. Given the fact that it will be difficult to get new legislation through in the next couple of years, I urge the Government to look at drafting that language—they have the capacity to do it and would be in a position to do it—that would bring into the Bill the kinds of remedies that would require the public register of beneficial interest for property ownership that presently we do not have in the UK. I met representatives of the British Virgin Islands the other day. The British Virgin Islands actually has such a register and would be delighted to provide mechanisms and recommendations to the British Government if they felt they needed advice in this area.

[Lord Leigh of Hurley]

My Lords, I have touched on this subject already. As president of Westminster North Conservative Association, I have spent many long evenings tramping along the streets of Westminster North, knocking on doors of properties that are clearly unoccupied and turn out to have no registered voters so are probably owned by offshore companies. While I am not convinced that the amendment, placed where it is, achieves the effect that the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, wants, I echo the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, that this might be an opportunity to seek to make progress.

The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, about not wanting to be xenophobic is well taken, not least because of the concerns that some people have that the actual beneficial owner of these overseas companies is in fact a person in the UK who might well allegedly be the tenant. The fact that it is an overseas company does not mean that it has an overseas owner. Noble Lords ask whether their children will be able to afford to live in the house that they live in. Invariably, the answer is no.

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Moved by

[Baroness Kramer]

71: After Clause 11, insert the following new Clause—
“Whistleblowing
(1) The Secretary of State must by regulations made by statutory instrument establish an Office of the Whistleblower.(2) The functions of the Office shall be the administration of arrangements to facilitate whistleblowing in respect of corrupt or suspected corrupt practices in systematically important financial institutions including in particular with regard to fraud, tax evasion, money laundering or miss-selling. (3) The Office shall have powers—(a) to give directions as to the records kept by each institution and to check compliance with its directions including by audit;(b) to award financial compensation to any person voluntarily providing information to—(i) the Financial Conduct Authority;(ii) the Prudential Regulation Committee of the Bank of England;(iii) the Serious Fraud Office; or(iv) any other organisation designated by the Secretary of State;leading to enforcement action against the institution sanctioned by way of penalty of not less than £500,000; and(c) to set the level of compensation awarded in each case between 10% and 30% of the total collected.(4) The Secretary of State must by regulations made by statutory instrument make provision with regard to retaliatory action against whistleblowers.(5) For the purposes of this section a “systematically important financial institution is an institution” designated by the Bank of England in consultation with the Financial Stability Board and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.”

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, this amendment is designed to strengthen the protection for whistleblowers but also to provide for mandatory compensation for them following the example of the United States in this area, most recently under Dodd-Frank. It also proposes an office of the whistleblower, both to enshrine the importance of whistleblowing and to provide the necessary oversight of the broader regime. It is a probing amendment and I hope that the Minister will not waste her time in discussing drafting issues, when the core issue of whistleblowing and how we support it is so critical to making the financial system clean and fair and to rebuilding public trust.

Being realistic, so much money swirls though the financial system that the potential for ill-gotten gains from misbehaviour is huge. My amendment mentions fraud, tax evasion, money laundering and mis-selling, but ingenuity in this area is boundless, as evidenced by the fixing of the LIBOR benchmark rate, which involved many banks over several years distorting billions of dollars of transactions, for which very few have paid the price, and those who have are primarily junior staff. With money on this scale, no regulator or enforcement agency can begin to tackle these issues without inside information. That means a positive culture of whistleblowing, which in itself then becomes a deterrent.

We do this notoriously badly. The recent RBS GRG scandal is an example. I have spoken to only two of the whistleblowers but they have both been treated atrociously by RBS and the regulators and face an end to their careers and personal disaster. This is despite endless warm words from the banking industry, individual banks, the regulators and the Government on how important the whistleblower is and promises of protection. It is why I am calling on the Government in subsection (4) of the proposed new clause to act much more directly to stop retaliatory action.

I was a member of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards. Among our work, we looked at the whistleblowing regime and recommended some enhancements. To be fair, those have, for the most part, been adopted, but they were modest changes: for deposit takers, PRA-designated firms and insurers a non-executive director or senior manager is required to be named as responsible for whistleblowing under the senior managers regime; a system to protect employees is required to be in place in each institution; the rules are to be disseminated; and employment tribunals are meant to provide protection. The banking industry is very satisfied with this approach. Indeed, it has always been satisfied with its approach and, in the evidence and testament we took, it was very satisfied with the prior approach, even though rarely was whistleblowing taking place even under the most egregious circumstances, and whistleblowers were receiving little, if any, protection. It is clear the industry was shocked that, with all of its whistleblowing measures in place, no one came forward to tell the authorities about money laundering, LIBOR or mis-selling.

The revised system appears to be fraught with problems. In an email from the charity WhistleblowersUK, I heard that a few days ago a staff member called to speak to the whistleblowing champion at a major bank only to be told that they did not exist. When the caller persisted by providing the name from a letter, the bank told them that that person did not exist. Whistleblowers themselves complain that the regulators provide them with advice and then renege, and that they have no comeback against the regulators, whom no one can compel to respond to FOIs or subject data access requests.

In March this year the Financial Conduct Authority confirmed that the number of whistleblowing reports has fallen for the second year in a row, down to 866, of which just over 100 were of “significant value”. That is not a successful system. In the United States, by contrast, whistleblowers are far more appreciated. They are a core tool for exposing wrongdoing, whereas in the UK they are merely incidental. The key difference is reflected in compensation, which underscores the complete cultural difference in the attitude towards whistleblowers. In my amendment I have essentially lifted the simple principles of compensation available under Dodd-Frank and drafted them into UK law. Compensation is mandatory for those providing original information leading to a sanction, and the compensation is a hefty 10% to 30% of the sanction paid. This is a recognition that for most people whistleblowing puts a career, lifestyle and family at risk.

Let me quote the evidence of Erika Kelton, a US lawyer dealing with whistleblowing cases, describing the impact of US whistleblowing incentives schemes to the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards. She said:

“Tens of billions of dollars otherwise lost to illegal practices that cheat the public fisc have been recovered as a direct result of whistleblower information. But the impact and importance of whistleblower matters goes far beyond the large dollar amounts recovered for US taxpayers. Whistleblowers have exposed grave wrongdoing, leading to changes that promote integrity and transparency in financial markets. Whistleblowers have helped stop massive mortgage frauds, gross mischarging practices, commodity price manipulation, and sophisticated money laundering schemes, among other misdeeds”.


She argued that,

“meaningful, non-discretionary financial incentives are critical to establishing robust and successful whistleblower programs”.

In the UK, the objection of the regulator to such incentives is one of “moral hazard”—that whistleblowing is simply somebody doing his or her job and deserves no special reward. I simply look at the lack of whistleblowing and the situation for whistleblowers in the UK and disagree. The Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards directly called on the FCA to research the impact of financial incentives in the US in encouraging whistleblowing. I have yet to hear any substantive report on that issue; perhaps somehow I have missed it and the Minister has seen it.

I fully accept that issues around whistleblowing extend beyond financial services and impact many other business sectors and areas of our lives. But we could start here with financial services. We need action that is game-changing, not tinkering around the edges. It is vital that we use every reasonable tool to increase our chances of keeping the financial sector clean, protect the public and restore trust in an industry that is key to the functioning of our economy. I beg to move.

[Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers]

My Lords, I support this amendment. I suggest that whistleblowers need to be both protected and rewarded in order to encourage them. The Mauritian legislation of which I spoke earlier makes provision for rewards to be paid to whistleblowers whose information leads to the confiscation of unexplained wealth. Indeed, the board that I chair has the function of making such awards. In my view this is a salutary provision as one of the weapons in the fight against crime and corruption. Therefore, I support in principle this amendment, but as a starting point because I suggest that it is a principle that should be applied much more widely in the case of action taken that leads to the recovery of the proceeds of crime.

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The Government are never complacent in any area of law they introduce; I would never say that everything is perfect.

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, obviously I am going to withdraw the amendment, but I want first to make a couple of points. I am not going to give up on this issue. Let me point out that a moment ago the Minister talked about an office for money laundering to be set up within the FCA. As far as I am concerned, that is an ideal pattern to follow. The notion that this proposal would create an extraordinary and hefty bureaucracy is not credible because, frankly, the entire bureaucracy would probably be paid for by one whistleblower revealing one scandal on the scale that we have seen in recent years. I reject the idea that this is onerous. There are plenty of templates to follow that would allow us to do this sensibly.

On the financial incentive, I do not believe for a moment that whistleblowers do it for the money. The money is a recognition that they have destroyed their future. There may be some protection within the company they work for which ensures that they are not dismissed, but neither I nor anyone else can be persuaded that people do not look at whistleblowers and decide that they are not quite right for this promotion, that project or opportunity. If they try to change companies they go with what is almost a black spot on their hand, marking them out as someone it is perhaps better not to take a risk on. That is a reality which the Government have never faced up to.

When dealing with detriment, I would recommend the Minister and others who are interested to connect with the charity Whistleblower.co.uk, which would be delighted to provide them with a great deal of detail. I hesitate to mention individuals without their specific permission, but all the protections have turned out to be completely useless for them. People’s lives have been wrecked. Frankly, even the regulator would agree that despite all the systems that are in place, people’s lives have been wrecked, and there has only been some tinkering at the edges. Nothing has happened to bring about fundamental change. All this comes together in the poor statistics that I set out when moving the amendment. Very few people are coming forward and blowing the whistle on substantive issues that can affect our absolutely massive financial services sector. This allows the industry to be rather complacent, and that is exceedingly dangerous.

I hope that the Minister will recognise that while I will withdraw the amendment, we are nowhere near coming to the end of this issue.

Amendment 71 withdrawn.