Ukrainian Holodomor

Debate between Charles Walker and Pauline Latham

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Latham]

I am disappointed, to say the least—I am sure that the Minister recognises this—that we will not recognise the holodomor as a genocide. We recognised the holocaust as a genocide retrospectively, so surely we should do the same for the holodomor, given the wealth of evidence out there. I hope that the Minister will refer my thoughts to the Minister for Europe and the Americas, who is unable to be with us today.

I am really very disappointed—I cannot express how disappointed I am—that although this is the second debate that I have initiated in the House on this subject, we have not moved anywhere. I am also slightly disappointed that the Minister did not answer my four questions. Perhaps he or his Department will write to me with guidance about how the Ukrainian people can progress this matter, and in which courts, and on the best route forward. I thank the hon. Members for Ealing North (Stephen Pound), for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan), and for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood), for participating in this debate. The more people who speak about this issue, the wider the awareness will be among people in this country, who will recognise it.

Finally, lots of books have been written about this genocide, but I recommend the latest one by Anne Applebaum, “Red Famine: Stalin’s war on Ukraine”. One has only to look at the photographs of the people in that book, or any photographs from that period, to recognise that those people starved to death. We must never forget that.

I thank the Minister for responding to the debate; I am delighted that he was able to, as I know it was a bit of a push. I also thank other Members, including the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who had to rush to catch a plane home. I thank Members for participating; we must not forget this issue.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

I thank the Minister for indicating to the Chair that he will be writing to the hon. Lady.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the Ukrainian Holodomor.

Domestic Politically Exposed Persons: Money Laundering Rules

Debate between Charles Walker and Pauline Latham

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

The right hon. Lady’s timing is prescient, because I was about to say that some colleagues had been denied places as charity trustees or board members, simply because the charity could not deal with the financial compliance required to make the offer of the voluntary position worth while. These colleagues want to give their time and experience for free.

Another example of heavy-handedness concerns colleagues who retain a link with their professional practices. De-risking by banks means colleagues are struggling to open company bank accounts, often despite being required to do this by their own professional regulator, in order to look after and protect client moneys. In another case, a colleague’s 81-year-old father was summoned for an interview by his bank to verify his details and sources of wealth, despite his having been with the bank for more than 50 years.

Other colleagues have been asked to provide details of their parents’ financial assets, such as property, share and cash holdings. A son-in-law of a Back-Bench MP who owns his own business was recently informed that he had been identified as a politically exposed person and was required to provide details of his business’s transactions, as well as information about his personal account. In a similar vein, a Back-Bench MP’s son was required to provide information about his wife and details about her parents—his in-laws.

The actions of banks are, at best, highly intrusive and, at worst, in danger of restricting the ability of honest people, such as sons, daughters, brothers and sisters, to raise the money required to invest in and grow their business.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

We were recently contacted by a bank that we have been with for more than 40 years asking for proof of our address. It beggared belief, as it had managed to send us statements for the whole of those 40-odd years. I said, “Well, don’t you know where we live?” It said, “You’ve never proved it.” This is taking it to the most stupid nth degree, and it has to stop.

[Mr Walker]

My hon. Friend’s intervention brings me nicely on to the next part of my speech. The aggressive application of de-risking by the banks comes despite assurances from Lord Deighton, the then Commercial Secretary to the Treasury, to his colleagues in the other place, on 14 October 2014, when he said—I quote again I am afraid—that

“while UK parliamentarians are not currently considered to be “politically exposed persons”—or PEPs—domestically, revised global standards to which the UK is fully committed will require that they are treated as such. These global standards require enhanced due diligence and ongoing monitoring only when the business relationship is assessed as high risk. The UK will make representations when negotiating the fourth money laundering directive to ensure that it reflects these standards.”

Lord Deighton went on to say:

“The key here is in the approach of the banks in doing their due diligence appropriately. The main feature of these arrangements is that domestic PEPs should be assessed in terms of their level of risk, and in the main UK parliamentarians should be assessed as low risk and, frankly, treated in precisely the same way as any other customer. The problem is when banks do not apply the right kind of risk-based assessment and instead revert to inappropriate box-ticking approaches.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 14 October 2014; Vol. 756, c. 114.]

What is now obvious is that the banks have not paid the blindest bit of regard to the entreaties of Lord Deighton. In advance of the fourth money laundering directive, they have decided to apply the rules with no regard to any assessment of risk. This should come as no great surprise. The financial crisis that the banks sprung on us in 2008 clearly demonstrated that they have no, or at best a limited, understanding of risk.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Walker]

Colleagues are naturally reluctant to talk about the issue, but I can tell my hon. Friend that this applies to every bank, although some are worse offenders than others. The banks that I have come across are HSBC, Lloyds, the Halifax and Barclays, but there will be others.

[Pauline Latham]

NatWest.

[Mr Walker]

My hon. Friend mentions NatWest. I think that all banks are conducting their business in this way.