Global Anti-Corruption Sanctions

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Monday 26th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

Let me start by welcoming the hon. Lady’s support for both the legal regime and the designations we have made today. I agree with much of her analysis on the damage wrought by corruption around the world, and I think we are at one on that. She raised the issue of the international corruption prosecutions, on which she made an interesting point. Of course, criminal prosecutions are done on the criminal standard of proof, whereas sanctions are done on the civil standard —[Interruption.] Well, she is shaking her head, but that is just a fact. One challenge we have with international corruption is with gleaning the evidence in relation to it, and one advantage we have with the sanctions regime is that it gives us more flexibility and agility to address to the hole, to which she rightly refers, that we are plugging.

The hon. Lady also asked about Parliament feeding in its views, and I think there is a role for not only hon. Members in this Chamber, but relevant Select Committees. As with the human rights regime, we are entirely open to views and evidence. Indeed, we will have to rely on that evidence in order to look at further designations in the future. She mentioned Saudi, but I am afraid that she rather confused herself, because the sanctions relating to Khashoggi were imposed by this Government and remain in place under this Government. That roundly rebuts and repudiates the point she tried to make, which was that somehow the Saudi Government were seeking to undermine the robust approach we take by political influence. [Interruption.] She makes some good points about corruption, but I am afraid she tarnished her statement with a range of political mudslinging.

I do, however, wish to address this issue relating to the Government’s response to the Intelligence and Security Committee’s Russia report, which was published back in July 2020. It sets out multiple actions we have taken and are taking against the Russia threat, some of which I mentioned in the House today. We take action on cyber activity. We have introduced a new power to stop individuals at UK ports and the Northern Ireland border area to determine whether they have been or are involved in hostile state activity. We are introducing new legislation to provide the security services with additional tools to tackle the evolving threat. That Bill will help to modernise the existing offences. We have already implemented the National Security Council-endorsed Russia strategy and have established the cross-Government Russia unit, which brings together all of our intelligence, diplomatic and military capabilities to have maximum effect. This sanctions regime that we are introducing today on corruption is an additional tool, and we will be—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I have already told the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) to stop talking from the Dispatch Box while the Secretary of State is speaking.

[Dominic Raab]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The fact is that the hon. Lady, who agrees with us on this policy point, resorts to the mudslinging because she does not have too much more to say on the substance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dominic Raab]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. I share his determination to tackle this in relation to some of the groups he refers to. He will know that we have taken action, in particular in relation to the persecution of the Uyghur Muslims and the use of forced labour. In relation to others—he mentions Libya and others—I cannot speculate in advance. What I can tell him is that we have the legal framework now. We have also set out a policy note—he will be able to look at that and feel free to come back and ask me further questions—which will give him a sense of how we will determine the criteria. It is evidence-driven. That is often the hardest part, but again it comes back to the point about the importance of co-ordinating with our international partners, sharing evidence and sharing our assessment of individuals and countries where we can act.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I will now briefly suspend the House for three minutes in order to allow arrangements for the next item of business to be made.