Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Debate between Catherine West and Yvette Cooper

2nd reading
Thursday 13th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

There are plenty of aspects of the Bill that we can discuss, but I note that the Home Secretary chose not to deny any of the chaotic things that she has been saying in the papers. This is not stuff that we have made up; these are things that the new Home Secretary has been saying, which undermine her ability, and indeed the country’s ability, to deal with issues relating to national security, economic crime, fraud and migration—all the serious challenges that the country faces.

This Bill, which is long overdue, should constitute an area in which the whole country can come together and in which, across the House, there is broad agreement in the national interest. I welcome the Bill, but I am concerned that it does not go far enough. The Home Secretary will have heard the points made by Members in all parts of the House: extremely detailed work has been done by many Members with great expertise in respect of areas in which the Government need to go further. I hope that the Government will listen and will be able to go further, because the whole House will agree that action on economic crime in the UK is urgently needed.

This is a rough estimate, but the National Crime Agency says that £100 billion of dirty money flows through the UK every year, and that fraud is causing £190 billion-worth of damage. Economic crime is growing. According to the latest PwC global survey, 64% of businesses have experienced fraud, corruption or other economic or financial crime within the past two years, up from 50% just four years ago. Last year, 4.5 million frauds were perpetrated against people across the country, a 25% increase in the last few years. This is hugely damaging to families and communities, to our economy and businesses, to our international reputation, and also to our security.

The organised crime that is facilitated by weak financial systems has a deeply pernicious impact on our communities and our children, drawing young people into crime, gangs and exploitation, and fuelling the most appalling violence on our streets. It undermines our economy. It undermines legitimate businesses and financial organisations, and the thousands of people who work in them, who are standing up for high standards, are also undermined by this kind of crime and exploitation.

As I have said, economic crime is deeply damaging to our international reputation. London’s reputation as the money-laundering capital of the world is a source of national shame. Ours is a country that has long prided itself on the rule of law and on strong economic institutions, which is what traditionally made it a good place in which to invest, but that is being undermined by economic crime. United States allies have expressed frustration at the UK’s failure to tackle fully the problem of the flow of illicit Russian funds through what they have called Londongrad, and exposure to corrupt oligarchs and networks of kleptocracy means that that undermines our national security too.

[Catherine West]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does she agree that it is also necessary for the courts in London to accept that there are limits to how many cases can be held involving libellous action against good authors such as Catherine Belton, who wrote “Putin’s People” with the aim of educating the general population? Are not these false claims which keep coming up in court a complete waste of the courts’ time?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend has made an important point which I hope can be explored further in Committee. There is clearly a problem when those with the deepest pockets, who effectively have endless wealth that they can draw upon, can use and abuse the court system in order to silence people. That issue needs to be addressed further.

We know that this problem has a wide impact on the state of our economy and our national security. We supported the last economic crime Bill and we support this one, although there are deep concerns about how long this process has taken, and also about the gaps. We welcome, in particular, the overhaul of Companies House, which Labour has supported and has pressed the Government to get on with, and which I know has been championed by Members on both sides of the House. It is right to give Companies House powers to check and challenge basic information. When we try to explain this to people, most of them are shocked to learn that it did not already have powers to check the identities of people trying to set up shell companies.

We welcome the measures on cryptoassets. The new technology is outpacing action against economic crime and organised crime. The power to freeze and seize criminal assets cannot just be an analogue one in a digital age. We welcome the measures to encourage information sharing to help spot fraud and money laundering, and we welcome the measures that the Home Secretary has referred to about the ability for the SRA to increase fines.

There are sensible measures in the Bill, but the delays in getting this far have caused a problem, and so do the gaps in the Bill. We are still playing catch-up rather than looking forward, and it should not have taken a war for us to get this far. Transparency International warned about serious problems back in 2015. For years, the National Crime Agency has called internally on the Home Office, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Treasury to do much more. We were promised action in 2016, in 2018 and in 2019, but as of August, fewer than half the recommendations in the Government’s 2019 economic crime plan had been enacted. The shadow Attorney General called for action on serious corporate fraud nine years ago. As shadow Home Secretary, I called 10 years ago for stronger laws and action on economic crime and fraud.

We are very clear about the importance of the matter. The Labour party believes in stronger action to defend our national interest, our economy and our national security from the organised criminals, fraudsters, corrupt oligarchs and kleptocrats. We know that that depends on having robust powers and procedures in place to defend our economy and our financial and economic institutions from fraud and abuse.

Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill

Debate between Catherine West and Yvette Cooper

2nd reading
Monday 7th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I welcome the Bill before us today, at a time when rocket attacks are continuing, when homes, community centres and even kindergartens are being hit, and when families fleeing through the streets of Ukraine are being targeted for attack. The Russian President has launched an illegal war against a democratic state. It is a crime against a brave nation. As we stand united with Ukraine, we know that this is a battle for democracy against despotism.

Our country has to play its part. All of us want to see the strongest economic measures against Russia and against the oligarchs linked to the Russian regime who have made their wealth through corrupt and illicit practices, and against those who made their money not through their own sweat and toil, but through corruption and the concentration of power.

A few years ago, the Intelligence and Security Committee’s Russia report said that the UK has

“offered ideal mechanisms by which illicit finance could be recycled through what has been referred to as the London ‘laundromat’”.

That is damning. It issued this warning nearly three years ago:

“It is not just the oligarchs…the arrival of Russian money has resulted in a growth industry of ‘enablers’”—

individuals and organisations that manage and lobby for the Russian elite. Chatham House has referred to Britain’s “kleptocracy problem”.

The fact that corrupt elites from all over the world can launder their money and their reputations through our capital city is shameful. The fact that an industry of enablers has grown up here to facilitate those corrupt elites, to help them hide their money, evade tax or launder proceeds of crime is deeply damaging to our economy, to our international reputation, to the rule of law and to democracy.

So yes, we welcome the Bill. We welcome the chance of stronger sanctions and measures to make it easier to put pressure now on Russia in the face of this appalling war. We welcome the improvements to unexplained wealth orders, making it easier for the police to use them and harder for those with endless wealth to use their riches to block them, and we welcome the register of overseas entities to get some transparency and to make it harder for corrupt elites to hide their wealth in the UK property market. We will support the Bill today and support the process to get it through Parliament as fast as possible.

Many of these measures should have been introduced some years ago. Some that we need and have long been promised are not yet before us. All of us should accept that some of this action should have taken place earlier, because we had been warned. We had been warned by Transparency International back in 2015; by the evidence from leaked international documents such as the Pandora papers; by the National Crime Agency, which said that unexplained wealth orders were too hard to use; by Members of this House when we confronted the murderous intent and actions by Russian agents on British soil during the Salisbury attack four years ago; and by the damning Russia report. We were promised reforms in many of these areas in 2016. There was a consultation in 2018 and reference to a Bill in the Queen’s speech in 2019. We still do not have the much-needed Companies House reforms before us today.

[Catherine West]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that, had the Government got a move on with this years ago, we would be able to deal with phoenix companies today, which rip off members of our communities day after day? We could have dealt with that, too, in one blow.

[Yvette Cooper]

I agree with my hon. Friend that action should have been taken much earlier to address that, which should mean that there is an even greater imperative on us all now to ensure not only that this Bill passes, but that the subsequent economic crime Bill that we badly need is brought forward as swiftly as possible. That is one of the areas where the Opposition have submitted amendments.