Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords]

Debate between Bob Seely and Catherine West

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 1st May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West]

Indeed. And I hope that the challenge will be met to reduce inequality in housing in Scotland, because I know that a very small number of people own rather a lot of properties.

On the role of other facilitators of tax evasion and avoidance and the big four accountancy firms, many Members feel it is time that they were brought to book. My right hon. Friend the Member for Barking has done a lot of work on that. The next stage is to try to clean up the City of London more effectively and to see the closure of certain poor practices, such as Mossack Fonseca and others. Yes, it was a one hit wonder, but we did see the closure of a number of underperforming legal practices. The next step of this campaign is how to allow the pin-striped enforcers of tax evasion and avoidance to have a more honest and equal way of practising their profession.

That is all I want to say. It is so good to see consensus in the House today.

[Mr Seely]

It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West).

I believe that the fight to improve the integrity of our financial system and to do what we can to reduce money laundering is critical in the fight against not only corruption but the malign influence of authoritarian states. I very much welcome the work done by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) and the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge). I felt very proud to agree to rebel against the Government— I am quite glad I did not have to—but nevertheless, I thank them for that amendment.

On the point about corruption and the malign influence of others, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw), my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Adam Holloway) and I have been shown documents that we believe relate to our national security and money laundering. They originate from Monaco’s Sûreté Publique, the police department that manages security and foreign residents in that area. They are based on the Sûreté Publique’s own information and on information provided by the French Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire—the DST—which at the time, was the French equivalent of MI5.

These documents are brief, terse, factual files, listing activities, associations and judicial actions. They have been authenticated by senior French intelligence sources and by British and American counterparts familiar with their contents. The documents link a noted individual in this country with Russian intelligence. These files are dated from 2005 and cover the period from the mid-1990s. The documents concern Christopher Chandler and his brother—Christopher Chandler is a public figure, owing to the Legatum Institute. In citing this evidence, I note the words of the right hon. Member for Exeter, who in November 2017 called for the House’s Intelligence and Security Committee to examine Mr Chandler.

According to the French security services, as recorded by their colleagues in Monaco—and clearly, I am confident that these documents are genuine—Mr Chandler is described as having been

“an object of interest to the DST since 2002 on suspicion of…working for the Russian intelligence services.”

I repeat:

“an object of interest to the DST since 2002 on suspicion of…working for the Russian intelligence services.”