Draft Sanctions (Damages Cap) Regulations 2022

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2022 General Committees

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

Like the Opposition, we, too, welcome the measures with a feeling of “not before time”. This should have happened a long time ago and it is unfortunate that it took Putin’s appalling war in Ukraine to get the Government finally to act on the vast Russian finances that have been flooding into London over decades. I agree with the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth that the scope of the measures need to be extended much further than Russia to include all aggressors and human rights abusers, both individuals and regimes. There is so much more that we have to do and must do.

We could start by looking at Companies House. It has been in a mess for years, which has allowed London to become a haven for criminal money. So-called respectable people across this city have grown fabulously wealthy by facilitating that kleptocracy. The Panama papers and others have shown the scale of the problem and I encourage the Government to go much further in closing the loopholes that encourage such widescale criminality. The current system, with the anonymity of shell companies, is an invitation to commit fraud and I urge the Government to look again urgently at the financial system and the regulations that surround it.

We welcome the regulations before the Committee, and will support the Government, but only as a first step to tackling the issues seriously.