Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [HL]

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 24th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak exceedingly briefly because so much has been said. In fact, it has all been said, but it has not been said by me—and I refer of course to the thanks. I thank in particular the Minister, who took the view from the beginning that, if we worked together, we could improve the Bill. I appreciate so much that approach to this piece of legislation. It has been reflected in his Bill team, which, I may say, is made up of people of exceptional quality. They understood the issues we raised and recognised that we were not being either party political or pernickety but, rather, that our points touched on fundamental issues. They also understood that changes could be made to the Bill that would meet the requirements not only of the Government but also of those of us who thought that the way the Bill had been drafted achieved a transfer of power from Parliament to the Executive that was not appropriate—and I suspect in this case was probably not intended. Members of the Bill team also responded with very creative language rather than casually accepting our wording. They did not take what we provided and simply print it; they went back and looked closely at the issues, and came forward with very satisfactory language.

Like others in the House, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, for leading the charge on removing the powers for Ministers to create criminal offences—something that is so fundamental to our underlying constitution. I hope that the Minister has taken on board that there seems to have been a slip, so that consequentials have remained in the Bill when they should have slipped out. I hope that it will not be necessary for this House to have to deal with them. When the whole issue of criminal offences is considered in the Commons, I hope that it will be dealt with in the appropriate way and in the spirit in which the Bill has moved forward.

I have one last set of particular thanks. Obviously my noble friend Lady Northover will make formal thanks to everyone later, but a key player in all of this has been my great friend and colleague, my noble friend Lady Bowles. The attention that she has paid to the detail of the Bill, and her assiduity, have unlocked everyone’s thinking by demonstrating that you could use reasonable language and sensible approaches to shape the Bill into something better. It has been an exceptional example of the work that this House does in an extraordinary way. I know that my noble friend is relatively new to the House—although she is not new to politics or to Parliament—and I am grateful to her and I really appreciate the fact that the Minister has recognised the contribution that she has made.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I will save my thanks for later, when we consider the Motion that the Bill do pass. Before then, I want to echo the comments about how this Bill has proceeded in terms of the concerns of noble Lords which, of course, have turned on how we as a Parliament can constrain the Executive when they are seeking powers. Of course, this is the first Brexit Bill that the House has considered, and we heard earlier that we have another Bill on its way here. It is my intention to speak in the debate on Second Reading of that Bill to raise again our concerns about an Executive power grab, in particular when it concerns the important issue that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, raised about powers to create criminal offences.

In one of those debates, the noble and learned Lord—of course, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, also raised these issues—gave us a history lesson about Henry VIII. What struck me was when he said that not even Henry VIII had the nerve to take these powers. Not only have this Government had the nerve, but even when the House spoke overwhelmingly on this subject, we still have errors creeping into the Bill as it has been presented to us today. I hope that this is an error and that, when the Bill goes to the other place, we will not see an attempt to grab power back and that we will get this sorted out in accordance with the wishes of this House.

On the anti-money laundering provisions, as I said, this House, across the board, has done an excellent job of scrutiny, and I think the Minister has done an excellent job of listening to our concerns.

--- Later in debate ---

We still have some work to do in this area. Nevertheless, in concluding my remarks I thank my noble friend very much for what he has done so far. The steps he has taken are in the right direction, but we still have some work to do on looking at government procurement and whether this issue covers local government procurement, as I am not sure we have got it all quite right yet.

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, I want to make a short intervention on this issue. Your Lordships will remember that the amendment, moved with great energy and skill by the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, to extend public registers to overseas territories—by order, if necessary—was defeated in this House by a narrow margin. It was notable in the speeches of those who stood up to support the government position that we should focus on central registers and that public registers would not be part of that agenda. Speaker after speaker—the majority—spoke against public registers of every kind. I noticed a lot of nodding on some Benches because the arguments were around the importance of privacy, non-intrusion and the protection of identity. Anyone listening to that debate would have assumed that this House was taking a stand against public registers. It is crucial that we see urgent action by the Government on this public register, which the noble Lords, Lord Faulks and Lord Hodgson, have so eloquently described as necessary to expose and, presumably, drive out the abuse of property and government contracts in the UK by those who see them as excellent mechanisms for laundering money obtained through corruption or other nefarious activity.

I hope the Government will understand that they need to defend public registers—I was somewhat stunned that the Minister did not do so in his response—and demonstrate to all of us that this is the mechanism that can deal with this problem. I hope that other locations will understand that and will take up the baton, but one of the best ways to make sure that happens is to demonstrate the change it can deliver for us in the UK.

[Lord Collins of Highbury]

I will be very brief. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, on pushing this issue. I do not think he owes anyone an apology for doing so because it is vital that we tackle this. This amendment is about the commitment that was made but has been delayed for a long time. My concern, and that of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, is that the wording of the amendment potentially takes us to 2022 before we see something. I think all noble Lords will be behind the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, in putting pressure on the Government to ensure that they properly meet their commitment.

Still on public registers, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer. I am glad to see that the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, is in her place. She made a powerful case for public registers in overseas territories. The front page of today’s Guardian has an article about Appleby and FBME Bank, which was banned from the US financial system. Appleby is a Cayman Islands-registered holding company. Anyone who reads that article will know that this issue will not go away and we will have to come back to it.