Crown Currency Exchange

Debate between Cathy Jamieson and Tessa Munt

Tuesday 7th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Tessa Munt]

One might just need to get rid of “registered”, because it seems to have absolutely no meaning and to afford no protection—nothing.

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. The presence of so many Members shows the scale of the problem. My constituents believed that “registered” actually meant something in law. Does she agree that that has to be addressed urgently to ensure that no one else loses out?

[Tessa Munt]

I could not agree more. One problem I have discovered is that, although in the registration process the FSA takes receipt of £500, it is an overseer and not in any way, shape or form a regulator. The directors and responsible officers of a company have to declare under registration unspent criminal convictions for financial crimes, terrorist funding, money laundering and fraud, but there are two difficulties with that. First, the punishment for not doing so appears to be no more than three months in jail, and, if one is rocking along with £100 million, that is probably worth it. The other thing is that it appears that the FSA has absolutely no means of checking the information because it has no access to the Criminal Records Bureau. Registration is clearly not effective; we need to look at regulation for all these companies.