Sanctions
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(4 months, 1 week ago)
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Anne-Marie Trevelyan
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention and, indeed, for her very kind words towards those who do a huge amount of work behind the scenes to enable us to bring forward a rolling level of sanctions legislation, which has continued to degrade Putin’s ability to fund his war. We believe that sanctions across the piece have taken some £400 billion out of his capabilities. It is a continuum, and today’s legislation continues that. She is absolutely right. The sanctions will continue to be tools that help us in many ways to keep ahead of those who wish us harm and who wish to support Putin in his illegal war in Ukraine, and to continue to hunt them down and to restrict their capacity.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister and I have worked on various things over the years. Those of us in all parties who are passionate about sanctions are still extremely worried about certain significant people in this country. A recent article in The Times suggested that a hereditary peer in the House of Lords is a main channel of Russian money helping certain political factions not only in this country but in the United States. Is it not about time that we did something about the upper House, which seems to have a small group of pro-Putin Members?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
The hon. Gentleman has, as he says, been an incredible champion and supporter of all the work we have been doing cross-party to keep ahead of the sanctions. I know it is frustrating, but as I always say, people should pass evidence of any sort about individuals they consider are supportive of or enabling Putin, his regime or any military activity to the teams in the FCDO, which look day in, day out at being able to bring forward a package of evidence that would withstand judicial review. We stand ready. I will never comment on what we are taking in and what might come next, but the teams are working flat out to look at the evidence wherever they can. That is a continuum. I say that not only to Members of this House but more widely to those out on the frontline or working with businesses; where they see areas in which they believe that is happening, they should bring the information to us.
Mr Sheerman
Will the Minister accept some evidence I have about the Earl of Oxford and Asquith that I think should be urgently considered by all of us careful and worried about sanctions?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
If the hon. Gentleman would like to write to me later today, I will make sure that the team looks at the information as soon as possible.
Hong Kong Security Legislation
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Mr Mitchell
I do not recognise the point that my hon. Friend makes. We have relations with many regimes whose values and views we do not share. That is the nature of international diplomacy and international business. None the less, I can assure him that British Ministers are forthright in their interactions with their Chinese counterparts, as he would expect.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I have some sympathy for the Minister, because I think he shares my sense of shame. I was one of the parliamentary delegations that went to Hong Kong after the one country, two systems deal went through. Our job as parliamentarians was to find out what local people thought of the agreement. I can remember these all-party groups assuring the people of Hong Kong that they would be safe and secure in their democracy and that it would not be challenged. What the Minister says is not very encouraging. This is not just a totalitarian, communist dictatorship, but a ruthless dictatorship. There are sanctions that we could be taking. Some of us in the House have begged the Government to do an audit of the extent of Chinese influence in this country, including how many companies they have taken over. How big is their influence? It is massive. The whole of the electrical distribution in London and the south-east is directly owned by a Chinese company. Surely we can take real sanctions against that country, which has gone back on everything it promised over Hong Kong.
Mr Mitchell
I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his opening sympathy and support, which is always very welcome. In respect of the audit of Chinese involvement, much of that work is effectively done by brilliant British investigative journalists. He will have read, as I have, many of the reports that they have published. It is one of the differences between China and Britain: we have an open, free and democratic system, which enables us to scrutinise and pursue these matters in a way that is not possible in China.
Cyber Interference: UK Democracy
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(10 months ago)
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Leo Docherty
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. This affects us all. It not only affects parliamentarians or those in public life; it affects those in commerce. The National Cyber Security Centre has published guidance and is available to provide guidance to those businesses that need to ensure they have a higher degree of cyber- security and resilience, particularly those involved in, for example, critical national infrastructure.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
This is a refreshing statement, but what action will be taken? This is a very serious challenge to our democracy. Indeed, it is not only a serious challenge to Members of Parliament. I know of a major takeover of a British company by a Chinese entity. The senior executives said that, when they attended meetings, the Chinese knew information about the company, its secrets and its background that they could have known only by illegal means. It is everywhere, and it is particularly coming from Russia, China and perhaps Iran and North Korea. Can we have action? Yes, we need to train our staff and Members of Parliament, but I was brainwashed as a child by the James Bond novels—maybe you were too, Madam Deputy Speaker. We have a wonderful intelligence system, but are our intelligence services up to the job? Do they need more resources?
Leo Docherty
The hon. Gentleman asks about action. It is a good question, and I can give a good answer: in terms of our domestic legislation, we are now thankfully in a position to ensure that foreign countries with malign intent cannot freely invest in critical national infrastructure without the permission and outside the purview of Ministers. Ministers have taken specific action to ensure that divestment has taken place in certain commercial entities where a national interest is at stake, and that will continue to be the case. The Government posture has altered radically in recent years, and we should all be encouraged by that.
The hon. Gentleman made a welcome reference to James Bond. Of course, it is the Government’s policy never to comment on the security services, but I can ensure the hon. Gentleman that they are up to speed and very well resourced.
Beneficial Ownership Registers: Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(10 months ago)
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Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
As the Father of the House has just intervened and I am the longest-serving Member on the Opposition side of the House, may I say that I am a long-term supporter of what my right hon. Friend has been trying to do? Owing to our time together as undergraduates at the London School of Economics, I know that she is a determined woman. Let us get on with it—let us hold these people to account and change the law.
Dame Margaret Hodge
I thank my hon. Friend for his support—he is probably my oldest friend in the House; we go back many years—and I hope that the Government heard his urging.
Dame Margaret Hodge
I will. The hon. Member will know as well as I do that we are no longer a member of the European Union, so we are not bound by that finding.
Why does all this matter? The epidemic of tax avoidance, tax evasion and economic crime flourishes in an environment of secrecy, and our overseas territories and Crown dependencies facilitate that secrecy. We know from the ever-growing number of leaks of data on financial misdemeanours that their role is central to enabling economic crime. Half the shell companies exposed in the 2016 Panama papers were incorporated in the British Virgin Islands. In 2017, the Paradise papers—a massive tranche of documents leaked from the offshore law firm Appleby—showed that a frightening number of frontline politicians held secret accounts, with the overseas territories appearing prominently as destinations of choice for hiding money. Those included people such as Justin Trudeau’s chief fundraiser, Donald Trump’s Commerce Secretary, Brazil’s Finance Minister, Uganda’s Foreign Minister, and our own Lord Ashcroft, who had—and probably still has—a Bermuda-based trust where he hides some of his wealth.
Some 20% of the files in the FinCEN—Financial Crimes Enforcement Network—leak of 2020 contained clients that listed an address in the British Virgin Islands. The leak also revealed, because it was a leak of documents from an American agency, that the Americans viewed Britain as a higher-risk jurisdiction for its role in money laundering and financial crime. The Pandora papers leak of 2021 involved 12 million files, with data from 14 different law firms and company services providers. Over two thirds of the companies analysed in that batch of leaked documents were registered in the BVI. A World Bank review of 213 corruption cases that were investigated over the 30-year period to 2010 found that 70% involved anonymous shell companies. The UK, its overseas territories and Crown dependencies accounted for the second jurisdiction in terms of the number of corruption cases associated with it.
Mr Sheerman
What I am learning from my right hon. Friend’s excellent speech is that London is the centre of the world for hiding money, because so many professionals in this city know how to do it. Is that correct?
Dame Margaret Hodge
Yes. Sadly, London has become the jurisdiction of choice for too much of our dirty money. The all-party parliamentary group on anti-corruption and responsible tax has been successful—albeit not as much as I would have liked—in achieving changes to economic crime legislation to challenge and start tackling that.
Dame Margaret Hodge
My hon. Friend is right. I have often said that it is not just this Government who have done that; the Labour Government, in their time, also deregulated to such an extent that they allowed London to become the centre of this activity. I do not feel that the Government are doing all that they can to try to turn that around. I await a future Labour Government, and I will watch Labour Ministers with an eagle eye to ensure that they do that.
The debate is not just about the role of the overseas territories and Crown dependencies in facilitating economic crime; their activities as secrecy jurisdictions are a threat to our national security, as the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) said. The Foreign Affairs Committee said as much in a report on the matter, and as recently as November it called on the Government to ensure that the overseas territories fulfil their commitment, adding that
“there should be no further deadline extensions.”
We know, for example, that between 2008 and 2018, £68 billion flowed out of Russia and into our overseas territories. We are a favourite jurisdiction for receiving Russian-laundered money. We know that individuals who are sanctioned use the overseas territories and Crown dependencies to hide their assets just before sanctioning to prevent those assets from being frozen. Abramovich and Usmanov are two classic examples of that practice.
We know the role of the overseas territories in preventing us from knowing the actual beneficial owner of property in the UK. Over 70% of the properties in the list of those that we know about are owned by companies registered either in the Crown dependencies or the BVI. We still cannot identify the beneficial owners of two thirds of those 70%, because they use trusts to hide their identity, and 85%—more than eight out of 10—of those trust arrangements are based in the three Crown dependencies and the BVI.
Most recently, in the Cyprus papers, which have just been uncovered, we found a direct link between Vladimir Putin and Roman Abramovich, with money going from Abramovich to two men dubbed as “wallets” for Putin—a man whose salary is $100,000, but whose wealth is rumoured to be between $125 billion and $200 billion. The theft of money from the Russian people is facilitated by secrecy jurisdictions such as Cyprus, but also by our own tax havens.
The problem is massive, and the role of our overseas territories and Crown dependencies is central. Baron Cameron of Chipping Norton understood that when he went to Davos in January 2013—over 10 years ago—and warned multinationals to
“wake up and smell the coffee”.
I will give a few more quotes from him. In 2013, he pledged:
“Every one of the Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories are going to have an action plan on beneficial ownership”.
He told the overseas territories to rip aside the “cloak of secrecy” by creating public registers of beneficial ownership. In 2014, he wrote to the overseas territories, saying that public registers were
“vital to meeting the urgent challenges of illicit finance and tax evasion.”
In September 2015, he accused them of
“frankly…not moving anywhere near fast enough…if we want to break the business model of people stealing money and hiding it in places where it can’t be seen: transparency is the answer.”
When Lord Cameron launched our UK register in 2016, he said that
“it’s better for us all to have an open system which everyone has access to, because the more eyes that look at this information the more accurate it will be.”
At the anti-corruption summit in May 2016, he said:
“We’ve talked about the need for every country to ultimately reach what I call the gold standard of having a public register of beneficial ownership. And I am clear that I include all the Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies.”
Lord Cameron is now in a position to act, and I urge the Minister to tell his boss to do so. When even Nigeria, Ukraine, Albania and Morocco have introduced public registers, why can our tax havens not?
Using the European Court of Justice ruling to delay the implementation of public registers is a convenient but lame excuse. It actually has not deterred Gibraltar. While some countries have closed their registers, others have kept them open. Crown dependencies in particular are acting in a completely dishonourable way. Their role in facilitating economic crime and tax avoidance is indisputable, and their protestations to the contrary are simply untrue. Their behaviour in providing public assurances that they will move towards public registers but claiming that the European court ruling prevents them from doing so is, in my view, unforgivable.
Mr Sheerman
My right hon. Friend is being generous in giving way. I absolutely support everything that she is saying, but can we also have more publicity about what is happening with people who do not pay tax in this country? Jim Ratcliffe of INEOS has become very rich and now does not pay tax in this country. I understand that the Daily Mail does not pay any taxes. Could we not have an ad in The Sunday Times rich list about those who actually pay their taxes?
Dame Margaret Hodge
I am left wondering whether The Sunday Times would ever publish that—we shall see.
Let me address the point made by the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill). In April 2019, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield and I sought legal advice about whether it would be constitutionally lawful for the UK Parliament to legislate to compel all Crown dependencies to establish public registers of beneficial ownership. I have the advice here, which concluded:
“It is beyond doubt that the intrusion of criminal funds into the UK economy threatens the interests of the UK. It is also beyond doubt that extensive funds in this category emanate from the Crown dependencies.”
The last sentence states: “The proposed amendment”—we put an amendment to the King’s Counsel to consider whether it was lawful—
“is a constitutionally legitimate and lawful exercise of the UK’s powers to secure its domestic interests by protecting confidence in its financial institutions and the integrity of the commercial life of the nation”.
Finally—I recognise that we are running out of time— I want to touch on the compromise that I think the Minister is seeking to secure in his negotiations with our tax havens. The compromise is that in order to have access, a member of the public needs to have a legitimate interest, a term that was introduced in the European Union’s sixth anti-money laundering directive. We already have that proviso in relation to the register of overseas properties, and I draw to the Minister’s attention the fact that Transparency International has put in inquiries in six cases to get information, has waited for four to six months, and has then seen those requests for information turned down by His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. All of those requests were in relation to trusts listed as the beneficial owners of overseas companies that hold property here in the UK, and we would have expected them to be on that register and for the information to be provided.
Gaza: Humanitarian Situation
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(10 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Leo Docherty
The international dimension is critical, and what is not in doubt is our ability and our intent to use our international diplomatic network and our connections across the region—because the regional approach is hugely important in this context. We will endeavour to use our connections throughout the Gulf states and the rest of the middle east, and internationally, to seek a just and long-term solution.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Stop killing children, stop killing civilians: that is what I want, what my constituents want, and what the whole country wants. We do not know who is the best person or group of people to do that, but for God’s sake, someone stop this killing of children.
Oral Answers to Questions
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Anne-Marie Trevelyan
We welcomed Thailand’s strong show of support for democracy through the huge turnout in the May election, and we look forward to working with the new Administration. We continue to work closely, through our teams in Thailand, to support those who will make up the next parliamentary group.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I was pleased to hear the Minister talk about democracy in the Indo-Pacific area, but at present Prime Minister Modi seems to be a very popular man in countries around the world, including the United States and this country. Should we not look, laser-like, at his real record—for instance, his systematic persecution of Christians in India, and his takeover of press freedom and other civil liberties?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
We have a close and enduring relationship with India. We talk of a living bridge between our countries, and we are working closely with India on our 2030 road map. However, as with all our international partners with which we have close links, we are happy to raise concerns, and we do so privately on a regular basis.
Hong Kong Pro-democracy Activists
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
I would be pleased to catch up with my hon. Friend after this urgent question to discuss that matter more fully. Absolutely, I will take it up with urgency.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
There is a clear and present danger from the Chinese Government not just to the citizens of Hong Kong, but to citizens here in the United Kingdom. Is it not about time that we realised the pernicious influence of China on this country and Europe? With China having so many investments and so much influence in this country, is it not about time that we took sanctions against it—really rugged ones—because that is the only thing they will listen to. When will the Government act?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
As colleagues know, we do not discuss potential future sanctions, as that could reduce their ability to have the impact we wish them to.
Ukraine Recovery Conference
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(1 year, 3 months ago)
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Leo Docherty
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for those remarks, and for his sustained interest and personal experience of Ukraine. He makes a very relevant point: Ukrainian grain exports are hugely important to global supply. They drive all sorts of consequences, from global inflation to terrible deprivation, poverty and attendant conflict in the African continent, so these are hugely important issues. We have put a huge amount of diplomatic energy into the UN Black sea deal, which we think is a good platform, but of course I would be very pleased to meet him to discuss what more we might do in that area.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I am grateful to the Minister for his statement, but we have an expression in Yorkshire: “Warm words butter no parsnips.” This is the most dreadful war in our European history for many years, and this House will not be sitting for some weeks. How will this House be kept informed about whether the promises and commitments will be delivered on, and about our defence? How will we keep alive the flame and spirit of morale in Ukraine when we are not sitting? Can we not do some symbolic things and tighten the restrictions on Russians living here? Lord Lebedev, appointed to the House of Lords by a former Prime Minister, calls himself Lord Lebedev of Richmond and Siberia. Why has that not been looked into? Why are we not looking at all the Russians coming in and out of Harrods? Why are we not stopping Russians coming in on private jets and helicopters? Let us tighten the sanctions and show that we mean business in supporting the brave people of Ukraine.
Leo Docherty
I think the last two days, and our actions over the last couple of years, show that we do not just speak warm words; we provide lethal aid and global capital. That effort will continue despite the fact that the House will not be sitting, as will our global presence in diplomacy and military support, but of course we will keep Members updated.
Turkey and Syria Earthquake
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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James Cleverly
On the right hon. Member’s last point, I will certainly look at that and ask my officials to liaise on raising a specific appeal. What future assistance we give will be very much guided by the requests of the Turkish authorities and the feedback of the initial wave of experts that we have provided.
I realise that I failed to fully answer the question from the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) about heavy lifting equipment and the fuel for it. Again, we will listen carefully to the requests from the Turkish authorities about that. One of the reasons our USAR team is so valuable is that we have state-of-the-art search and rescue equipment that co-ordinates closely with other equipment that is easier to get on to the ground for those partners who are physically closer to the incident.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Foreign Secretary has been really helpful this afternoon, as has our Front-Bench spokesman and everyone. We are not experts, but when I see these pictures on television and hear the voices of children calling for help, the crisis is now. Can we get people, heavy lifting equipment and the right expertise there now—in planes, getting there now—so we can rescue these little children and their families?
James Cleverly
The hon. Gentleman’s desire to help and help quickly is completely understandable, and I can assure him that it is shared by everyone across the House and across Government. As I say, first thing yesterday morning, I had an exchange of communications with my Turkish counterpart. Our urban search and rescue team were mobilised and convened yesterday, and the assessment is that they will be on the ground and operational by today. This is a very swift response. I recognise, however, that the challenge will be enduring. Of course, the feedback from them about what else we can do, and do quickly, will be incredibly important, and we will do that in close co-ordination with our international friends and partners.
Draft Inter-American Investment Corporation (Immunities and Privileges) Order 2022
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Fabian Hamilton
Thank you for that guidance, Mr Gray. I suppose the reason I believe they do bear relevance, and obviously I will be guided by you in the Chair, is that IDB Invest will have a substantial impact on the economic development and the resolution of the crises of many of the affected countries, which will be able to borrow from the bank and are able to receive from it. I can cut the rest of my speech out, if you wish, Mr Gray, and just ask the questions.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
While my hon. Friend is thinking about that, and I am sorry that I was slightly late because I was talking to some constituents outside, could we know where the sources of the money for the investment comes from? I have done a lot of work with the World Bank and the World Health Organisation, and what always worries me is that they do not actually have any money. They have to get money from elsewhere.
Fabian Hamilton
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. As the Minister has said, it is a multilateral organisation, and we are part of it. The SI is really designed to approve IDB Invest and of course the immunities and privileges granted to the British citizens who work for it. Without further analysis or research, I cannot answer my hon. Friend’s question directly, but I know that many countries are involved in raising the finance necessary. And that finance is necessary.
I was going to mention, and I will just gloss over it if the Chair will permit me, the effect on the Bahamas of Hurricane Dorian, which struck at the end of August and during the first half of September in 2019. I spoke to people from there just last Thursday, and those effects have been devastating. The bank and its investment branch will have the ability to invest in the economy of the Bahamas to bring it back into credit, because at the moment its debt burden is 105% of its GDP, which of course is unsustainable. I hope that what we are doing today will ensure that development and inward investment can be given to the Bahamas by that essential organisation.
The explanatory memorandum to the SI states:
“The IIC currently provides around $6 bn of annual finance to businesses within Latin America, with a focus on small-and-medium-sized enterprises. Once the UK becomes a member of IIC we will be able to work with other shareholders and the Bank to influence the allocation of this finance to align with UK priorities, with a policy goal of facilitating development finance and bolstering sustainable growth.”
With the issues that I have described in mind, could the Minister tell us what are the specific priorities of the Government in Latin America and the Caribbean and whether there are any plans to update or review the Debt Relief (Developing Countries) Act 2010?
Finally, I should like to raise the growing influence of China in the region, but if you feel that is not necessary, Mr Gray, obviously I will not.
Mr Sheerman
I always come religiously to SI Committees. Some people find them a little irritating sometimes but I always enjoy them. I also always make sure that I say something because why would a politician come to a meeting and not say anything on the record?
I have done a lot of international work, so could we dig deeper on what the proposed immunities and privileges will deliver? We know of appalling things that have happened when international people have worked for international organisations, and they have been known to have predatory and sexual relationships and so on with local people. What are the privileges and immunities that will work in this case? If someone got into trouble for harassing a citizen in a particular country, would they be unable to be charged with any offence or punished?