Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords]

Debate between Helen Goodman and Gavin Robinson

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 1st May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman]

I certainly agree with that. Obviously, the law enforcement agencies—the National Crime Agency, the police and the Serious Fraud Office—need more resources. They would then be in a better position to crack down on this money laundering.

The purpose of transparency is not for the entertainment and titillation of the curious; it is to facilitate the authorities’ ability to track down illicit flows, because they can see the connections and links. This effectiveness of transparency was demonstrated by the fact that the Panama and Paradise leaks enabled Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to open civil and criminal investigations into 66 people, to pursue arrests for a £125 million fraud, to tackle insider trading and to place dozens of high net worth individuals under review.

I am extremely pleased that the Minister said what he did about not opposing new clause 6, which stands in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking. I welcome his change of heart on that. He has, in the written ministerial statement he produced this morning, bigged up the role of the Financial Action Task Force, and I was a bit surprised by that, as the FATF is a rather unsatisfactory forum. It is an inter- governmental body with no legal personality or explicit formal authority under international law and no enforcement powers. It has 37 members, which include Russia, China and the Gulf Co-operation Council. Foreign Office Ministers have been eloquent in recent months in saying that the United Nations Security Council is ineffective in upholding international law because of the Russian veto, yet here, when we want to tackle the financing of major crimes and terrorism, they seem content to hand over their moral compass to the Russians. The FATF is also highly secretive; in answer to my questions, Ministers have refused to publish future agendas or papers for discussion. Even the UK does not always ensure its FATF representative has a thorough-going commitment to reform—for years it was a person who had his family money in a secret Bahamas trust. So I will be very pleased if the House can unite behind new clause 6 this afternoon.

I turn now to new clause 14, which would require public registers in the Crown dependencies. The case in principle for acting to improve transparency in the Crown dependencies—the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man—is substantively the same: their secret ownership arrangements facilitate both money laundering and tax evasion.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

The hon. Lady will have heard what the Minister said in his speech about the response that the Isle of Man and other Crown dependencies are able to give within hours, whenever a request is made for information that falls within a terrorist category. Does she accept that the Crown dependencies forthrightly, earnestly and efficiently provide information to our law enforcement agencies within hours, when it is requested?

[Helen Goodman]

The hon. Gentleman makes the same point about the Crown dependencies as other Members have made about the British overseas territories. The current situation is as he describes it—if the law enforcement agencies want information and ask for it, the authorities in the relevant jurisdictions give it to them—but the problem is that, to crack down on serious and organised crime, it is really useful to see the whole picture, and we can see the whole picture only if we have all the information. That is the point of transparency and that is the lesson from the Panama and Paradise papers.