Money Laundering
Debate between Ben Wallace and Liz Kendall(6 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Wallace
Yes. As I said at the beginning, one of the challenges of taking on people with deep pockets or large corporations is that they have no qualms about setting off to the Supreme Court or the High Court to challenge us. We are keen to ensure that we support the NCA with unexplained wealth orders, because some of the people to whom they serve them have a brass neck and are happy to challenge us. That is why we put in blockbuster funding for the SFO, which means that when there is a case of significant scale, it can access funding directly from the Treasury to ensure that money is not a barrier to taking on some of those very bad people.
Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)
The Minister has just talked about blockbuster funding for the crime enforcement agencies, but how many criminal cases have been opened in the UK in response to the Magnitsky case?
Mr Wallace
That is a matter for the NCA—[Hon. Members: “Zero!”] No, no. The NCA has appeared before many parliamentary Committees and been asked those questions. They are a matter for operational partners. It is not for Ministers to come to the House to talk about potential ongoing operations, which could expose our police officers or our methods to the risk of people getting away with it.