Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords]

Jo Swinson Excerpts

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

[Sir Alan Duncan]

There is an obligation to report, which I will come to in a minute. I would be happy to explain the exact details to the hon. Gentleman, although of course they are still being devised on the back of the obligations laid down in the Bill.

New clause 3 requires reports to be made—this relates to the question that the hon. Gentleman has just asked—about the use of the power to make sanctions regulations, including the specifying of any recommendations made by a parliamentary Committee on the use of that power and the Government’s response. It is right and proper that an independent review of the powers should be carried out by Parliament. This is a strong set of measures to address the Government’s approach to imposing sanctions for human rights abuses, and I would like to put it on record again that the Government are committed to promoting and strengthening universal human rights and holding to account states and individuals who are responsible for the most serious violations.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

Will the Minister outline how he envisages such a parliamentary review operating? Will it be done through specific Committees, or on the Floor of the House? Will we be able to have confidence that that procedure is robust enough to ensure that the review is appropriate?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

The hon. Lady hits on a point that illustrates the important distinction between the Executive and the legislature, even though the Executive are drawn from the legislature. We, as Ministers, are the Executive. The hon. Lady is a Member of the legislature. I will not say, “Long may that continue”, but it might. It is therefore inappropriate for us to determine in primary legislation exactly how the House should go about its business. That is for the House itself to decide. We believe that we have included in the Bill the proper impetus for the House to be able to structure itself as it wishes—through the Joint Committee on Human Rights or the Foreign Affairs Committee, for example—while saying in advance that we as the Executive will have an obligation to report back and respond to any such independent activity.

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[Sir Henry Bellingham]

I declare an interest as the chairman of the all-party group on the British Virgin Islands and as a former Minister for the overseas territories. I had the pleasure of visiting all but two of them during my time in office.

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss). She said that not enough progress has been made, but I disagree. I think a lot of progress has been made, and I will come on to that in a moment. We are all of the same view, however, about the problem that exists, which was so eloquently outlined by the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell). No one can disagree with what they said or about the scale of the problem; it is just a question of how we attack and deal with this problem.

When I was a Minister, I came across a number of examples of straightforward pilfering by different parties in African countries. One that my right hon. Friend and I dealt with, when he was the Secretary of State for International Development and I was the Minister for Africa, involved the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where a company called Tullow had its licence expropriated, completely unreasonably, by the DRC Government. It transpired that, after it was expropriated, it was handed over to a nephew, I think, of President Kabila and to a relative of President Zuma, while the company receiving the assets was registered in the BVI.

We know exactly what the problem is, but the question is how we should go about dealing with it. In many ways, I am disappointed with the Government. I feel that they should have tabled their new clause a bit earlier and made the arguments for it and that they should very much have stuck to their ground, but we must now move forward.

As far as the economies of those territories are concerned, unless people have had the chance to go there, it is difficult fully to understand the extent to which some of them have become dependent on international financial services—in the Caymans, it is obviously banking; in the BVI, it is international corporate registrations. They are extremely successful economies, with a very large number of professional service jobs clustering around their business model. I agree entirely with my right hon. Friend when he said that they can compete in other areas, such as tax and efficiency, as well as looking after the clients, and I hope that many parts of those professional and service businesses can expand, but there will be a disruption to their business model in the short term.

I am concerned that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will be required to work incredibly closely with the Governments of those territories—particularly those of the BVI and the Cayman Islands, and to some extent those of the Turks and Caicos Islands and Bermuda—to make sure that, over the next few years, it puts in a huge amount of effort, knowledge sharing and capacity building.

My right hon. Friend will be more aware than anyone that, under the International Development Act 2002, the Department for International Development is the first port of call for financial assistance when something goes wrong in the territories. He and I obviously remember what happened in Montserrat, when DFID quite rightly came to the rescue, and when the Government of the Turks and Caicos Islands in effect went bust, DFID came up with a very large loan. That is why it is incredibly important that successful economies, such as that of the BVI, can transition to the new world in which they are going to have to live.

I would not have supported my right hon. Friend’s new clause 6. He asked me to support it, and I thought long and hard about it. In many ways, I would like to have done so, but I was very concerned about it for a few reasons, the first of which involves the constitution. As the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) pointed out, I was the Minister responsible for the overseas territories White Paper in 2012, into which DFID had a significant input, as indeed did the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) assisted in that part of the White Paper that looked at international obligations on biodiversity and so on. The White Paper said that the UK Government could and would legislate in extreme circumstances, and that was a given because the territories are our responsibility. The citizens of those territories are as British as we are, and we have the ultimate responsibility for them. In some circumstances, we would of course legislate, and we reserved the right to do so. But the White Paper, and all the discussions and promotion on it, made it clear that that would always be a last resort, and in every circumstance we would try to build consensus and work in partnership with the territories.

France has a different model, with some of its territories incorporated into La France and with representatives in the Assemblée Nationale. We have moved to a model of home rule that is different in every case. Every territory has a different constitution and a different type of home rule, and we must work now to try to build consensus. I sincerely hope that the nuclear option contained in new clause 6 of Orders in Council will not be needed. We will have to work hard to make sure that we make progress in terms of what is outlined in the new clause. If we do not, I foresee a serious stand-off with at least three of the territories. I also fear for the economies of the territories if change happens very quickly and they have a significant loss of income. How will they transition and build up tourism, for example, or agriculture, where the BVI is very far behind?

I am concerned also that those territories have nascent independence movements and they will look at what has been said in the House today and say, “Well, if Britain is not prepared to work with us on a consensual basis, why should we remain in the British family?” I will do all I can to dissuade them from that course of action. Over the next two or three years, I hope that Ministers will have many discussions and make a generous offer of assistance, so that we can make progress in the right way.

[Jo Swinson]

The hon. Gentleman says that we need consensus and to try to work with the overseas territories. I would gently point out that the UK has been showing leadership on this issue since the international summit in 2013. Why does he think the overseas territories have engaged so little on this agenda, and why is he optimistic about success without the type of measure that the House will agree today, given that the Government have been making the case for five years?

[Sir Henry Bellingham]

I understand the hon. Lady’s point, but I would point out that some of us worked extremely hard to build up to the exchange of notes in 2016, so that our law enforcement agencies can access key information from, for example, the BVI within a matter of hours and use it in various measures they take against serious organised crime, money laundering, international slavery and the expropriation of assets—[Interruption.] I hope that it is someone important. On 70 occasions, the law enforcement agencies have been able to move against unsavoury people and get results.

If we move too quickly and without a decent transition, many of the corporate registrations will not stay in the BVI, the Cayman Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Anguilla and so on: they will move to places such as Delaware, Panama, Venezuela, Nebraska and Equatorial Guinea—which my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield and I know well, as we have both visited it. Unless we are incredibly careful, that displacement will take place and, as the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) pointed out, it will take place to the Crown dependencies.

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[Mr Speaker]

Order. I want to call several more colleagues and therefore there is a premium upon brevity.

[Jo Swinson]

Having listened to various hon. Members refer to the excellent briefing by Transparency International UK, I should declare an interest, as I am married to its director of policy—the briefings really are excellent.

Turning first to the Magnitsky amendments, I welcome Government amendments 10 and 13, which reflect the Prime Minister’s commitment of 14 March. After Second Reading, many of us felt rather less confident than previously that they would be forthcoming, so I am glad that the Government have brought them forward, given that the issue has been raised repeatedly. I am particularly reassured by the Minister’s confirmation that the lists of people sanctioned will be put in the public domain for anybody to see. I agree with others that that is a very important deterrent.

The importance of human rights and the part that our country plays in upholding them internationally cannot be overstated—they are vital. The hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) set out the horrendous case of Sergei Magnitsky and the horrendous lengths to which oligarchs will go to protect their ill-gotten gains. I was reminded, on the wider issue of corruption, that we are talking about not just numbers on spreadsheets, but people’s lives—this is literally a life and death matter. I recall planning a visit to Russia to investigate human rights abuses in Chechnya. We had to postpone the visit because the individual we had been organising it with, Natalya Estemirova, who was from a human rights organisation, was assassinated.

That followed the murder of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya, and last October we were shocked by the murder in Malta of the investigative reporter Daphne Caruana Galizia. These people were murdered for investigating and exposing corruption and human rights abuses. I was particularly pleased to see the launch of the Daphne project in tribute to Daphne, with 45 reporters from 15 countries carrying on her work so that her stories will live on. One of the most powerful ways to send a message to anyone who would seek to silence those trying to uncover corruption is to make sure that what they were uncovering is finally exposed.

The Minister mentioned the consultation that was launched yesterday on Scottish limited partnerships. The very real problems that have arisen under those partnerships have been in the public domain for more than 18 months, and given that we as a country have been trying to lead on this in recent years, we need to be moving with much more alacrity. The hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney) made an incredibly important point about enforcement. We need to ramp up Companies House’s ability to investigate, and that requires resources. Very good people there are trying to do a very good job, but given that 17,000 Scottish limited partnerships were registered to just 10 addresses, there are questions to be asked about how risk-based investigation and digital tools could be improved.

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[Hannah Bardell]

Does the hon. Lady agree that it is disappointing to hear Conservatives saying that the money will move elsewhere? If we do not make a start, how will we move forward? The gender pay gap reporting has done exactly that.

[Jo Swinson]

I concur absolutely. The fact that we cannot solve this problem in every single jurisdiction in the world does not mean we should not do what we can in those areas where we can have influence. We should certainly be using our diplomatic influence to try to expand the use of public registers in other countries, but we should also be setting our own house in order, because if we do so, we will have more legitimacy and credibility when we urge other countries to follow suit.

The United Kingdom is trying to take a leadership role on this issue, and that is important. That dates back to 2013, when the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, set out the Government’s plans at the G8 summit and was aiming to secure international agreement through the anti-corruption plan. I was delighted to play a role as a Minister in the introduction of measures on beneficial ownership and the public register in this country through the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015. There was also an anti-corruption summit in 2016. However, there has been delay since then. At that time, the Government committed themselves to legislate to increase transparency in the housing market and to require overseas companies that owned property to declare their beneficial ownership publicly. That was supposed to be in place by April, but now it, too, has been delayed. We will not see even a draft Bill until the summer, and we will not get the actual legislation until next year.

The issue of the overseas territories really matters. More than three quarters of corruption cases involving property that were investigated by the Met’s proceeds of corruption unit involved anonymous companies based in secrecy jurisdictions, and nearly four fifths of those were registered in either the overseas territories or the Crown dependencies. As I have said, it is important that we get our house in order. Conservative Members have said we should try to do that through consensus but, as I pointed out in an intervention, the Government have been attempting to do that with various levels of enthusiasm over the last five years yet the registers have remained firmly private.

What we are talking about is an international crime. It is not victimless. We are talking about corruption that has a very serious impact on vulnerable people in countries throughout the world. Money is siphoned off through corrupt means and denied to the populations of those countries when it should be funding public services and enabling individuals to be looked after. That has an impact on the UK’s own reputation as well.

It is worth recognising the significant role of the overseas territories. In the Panama papers, the British Virgin Islands was the most popular tax haven mentioned, and Bermuda is No. 1 on Oxfam’s list of worst corporate tax havens. That is why it is important that we act. The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield rightly explained the challenges involved in including the Crown dependencies under new clause 6 and the specific relationship levers that we have as a country. Nevertheless, I hope that, having accepted the new clause, the Government will be enthusiastic about pursuing the same issues with the Crown dependencies to ensure that they follow suit. They should definitely be required to publish such a register so that the UK can show global leadership on this issue.

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

My experience of the House leads me to conclude that when somebody pays a Member a compliment, they should bank it and move on. However, although I am grateful to the Minister and the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), it is important to say that a lot of people have worked on the Magnitsky amendment or law, as it has come to be known, many of whom sit on the opposite side of the House. Many of them have also been involved in this matter for a lot longer than I have, but I do stand to speak in support of new clause 3.

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[Jo Swinson]

I rise to speak briefly in support of various amendments, including amendment 21, which would remove the Henry VIII powers. It has become an unfortunate hallmark of this Government that they have sought to put far too much power in Ministers’ hands. If anything, the whole “take back control” thing should be in the direction of Parliament and the representatives of the people, not to Ministers, with decisions therefore undergoing less scrutiny. I very much support amendment 21 on that basis.

I am sure that shortly the House will hear from the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle), who tabled new clause 18, which I very much support. I understand that my support was communicated to the Public Bill Office, but unfortunately my name was not added to the amendment paper. I wanted to put on record the fact that that communication had been sent. My right hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) advocated the change in the new clause during our time in coalition, but it was one of those things that was blocked by our coalition partners, who claimed that it would somehow add to regulatory burdens and so would not be possible. I am delighted to support that new clause today.

On new clause 12, which was tabled by the hon. Members for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) and for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), it is absolutely sensible that, just as we have a public register of beneficial ownership for companies, the same requirements should apply to trusts, given that we know how often trusts are used in a way that is conducive to money laundering. I understand that there are concerns about some individuals who may be vulnerable, but a better way to deal with that would be to carve out specific exemptions for such individuals, rather than go in the other direction, with the assumption being secrecy. It is about what the default is, and transparency very much ought to be the default, particularly given the widespread evidence of the use of trusts for the sheltering of wealth and therefore as cover for shady activities.

Finally, I wish to talk about the Companies House issues raised by new clause 13, because I was formerly the Minister in charge of Companies House, which tries to do a good job, albeit not with significant resources. Some of the changes that have come in—such as the move to do much more online, thereby getting rid of the paper trail caused by requiring every single company registration to be sent in on paper—are positive and often work well. I speak as somebody who used the Companies House service to set up a company when I was out of Parliament.

I wish to see the process remain simple, straightforward and low cost so that it is easy for people to set up new companies. However, it strikes me that, in that move to online, we have opportunities to undertake many more checks in a more cost-effective way than would have been possible under the paper-based system that existed before. As the hon. Member for Oxford East pointed out, we can have innovations such as drop-down menus which we are familiar with on so many different websites that we interact with in other spheres of life. We can therefore design into the system many of the checks that need to be done.

For addresses to be entered, we could have a simple checking process against the postcode address file. Anyone in this Chamber who does online shopping—I confess that I have, on occasion, done it myself—knows that it is just not possible to enter an address that is not a straightforwardly understood UK address, which is part of the postcode address file. There are therefore lots of good opportunities for Companies House to update its system so that it is much more adept—still in a cost-effective way—at identifying the small proportion of registrations, out of the large number of companies that register with Companies House, that require enforcement activity. Being able to do that in a risk-averse manner, as well as, no doubt, dealing with other patterns of registrations that might end up needing to be investigated would certainly be helpful. Over time, no doubt, tools could be developed to improve the risk assessment process.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making some good points. Currently, companies have to pay a nominal fee to register. On the types of registration that she is talking about and the in-depth detail that will need to be considered, has she done any work on the sort of fee that companies will be looking to pay?

[Jo Swinson]

I welcome the hon. Lady’s intervention. Basically, I am talking about making changes to the system in a cost-effective way. We are talking about system changes to multiple transactions, which, as I have said, are hardly groundbreaking in terms of online systems that exist in other spheres. I am talking about having access to these databases that already exist. Over time, intelligence-led risk profiling would also make sense. It is not about saying that for every company registration there needs to be an incredibly cumbersome process; it is about saying that measures could be taken in a fairly cost-effective way to use the technology and the ability that we now have—while things are being registered online—to identify where the problems are, in much the same way that when we enter a company name with one of those 135 sensitive words, a flag goes up, and it will be looked at by some human eyes. We could certainly have that system in place with a wider set of parameters without impinging on the general efficiency of the system, which no Member would want.

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

rose—

[Jo Swinson]

I am finishing my remarks shortly, but I will certainly give way.

[Will Quince]

The hon. Lady is very kind in giving way. I have a very quick question for her. She rightly answers the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) about the process and, potentially, adding additional cost. The hon. Lady probably did it herself but many people use intermediaries—be it solicitors, accountants or other individuals and businesses that do it for them. Does she foresee additional cost being created because of the additional administration involved?

[Jo Swinson]

What we are discussing here is having additional checks at the Companies House end. For other organisations, some additional checks already happen. The hon. Gentleman is right that I did do a bit of a test run to check what I had said about it being straightforward. Happily, it generally was fairly straight- forward and an easy system to use. None the less, I think that there would be a way we could use new technology to improve enforcement work through the Companies House website. Additional resources will be needed if we are to take this seriously, and I hope that the Government will recognise that in their response.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

For £12, disreputable individuals can register UK companies and begin trading arms internationally through a network of subsidiaries. For £12, they receive the legitimacy of a trading company and a respectable business. We know that this is the case because it has been happening for 10 years, and it could well be happening right now.

We know that this has been happening thanks to the investigative work of Amnesty International and other non-governmental organisations. In 2014, Ukranian-based S-Profit Ltd, which was registered here in the UK, was named by the South Sudanese Government as brokering a £44 million small arms deal. The South Sudanese Government are subject to sanctions; yet, astonishingly, S-Profit Ltd is still a registered British company.

In 2009, the Committees on Arms Export Controls found that a company called Hazel UK had been brokering arms to Libya, Syria and Sri Lanka, which violated sanctions against those countries at the time. This company is still registered. I could go on. For example, System Use Contract Ltd brokered arms to Rwanda. I have a long list.

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[Sir Alan Duncan]

I salute them for all their efforts.

On what my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) said about the overseas territories, I am grateful that, in response to the point of order made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox), Mr Speaker made it absolutely clear that procedurally the Government’s proposed amendments were in order. The compromise amendment was tabled rather late in the day, but it was not out of order for being late. We fully recognise that the Speaker has the discretion to select or not to select an amendment for debate. We were obviously disappointed that the compromise amendment was not selected, but we respect Mr Speaker’s decision.

[Jo Swinson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I am very short of time. Does the shadow Minister wish to speak?

Oral Answers to Questions

Jo Swinson Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I wholeheartedly agree with my right hon. Friend. We all have the utmost respect for the significant contribution that the 1 million Poles living in the UK make to our society. He has been very supportive of his own local Polish community and his constituents fully recognise that. May I say on this occasion that we would like to thank the Polish Government for their full and vocal support for the United Kingdom following the attack in Salisbury?

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

Women’s rights are human rights and they include reproductive rights. Poland already has some of the most draconian abortion laws in Europe, with illegal and potentially unsafe abortions estimated to be in the tens of thousands each year. This weekend, we saw thousands take to the streets to protest against a further crackdown. What representations have Ministers made to their Polish counterparts about these worrying laws and how are the Government promoting reproductive rights, including access to safe terminations, more widely?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I recognise what the hon. Lady says but, obviously, countries across Europe have different laws on abortion. However, where they breach the sort of human rights that she is describing, we will, of course, always make representations when we meet Ministers from other countries.

Government Policy on Russia

Jo Swinson Excerpts

Tuesday 6th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for that. Obviously, we cannot prejudge the outcome of this investigation, as that would not be right. As I have said repeatedly, in the formula I have used, if the suspicions of Members on both sides of the House are confirmed, such sanctions are going to have to be one of the options we look at.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

These developments are clearly deeply concerning—not only those in Salisbury but the Heidi Blake reports about the potential of a wider pattern of multiple assassinations on UK soil by the Russian regime. I welcome the fact that the Foreign Secretary, in response to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, said he is going to look into those cases further. I want to press him on this point about assets, because other countries have taken a tougher line on the assets of Russian nationals than we do here in the UK, particularly in London, where there is a higher concentration of these assets. Will he look again at what can be done, not only on cases where we are yet to have further investigation, but on past cases where we already know many of the facts, such as that of Magnitsky?

[Boris Johnson]

I will certainly look at what the hon. Lady proposes, but I have to say that the UK leads the world in cracking down on money laundering and those—[Interruption.] We do. We lead the world in cracking down on money laundering and we are trying to expose the beneficial ownership of accounts across the world. If it is possible to expose further such illicit activity in London, or indeed anywhere in the UK, in order to hold people to account, of course we will do this.

International Development Committee: Burma Visas

Jo Swinson Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

We will do our level best to get to the bottom of exactly what has happened and who is responsible. When parliamentarians visit other countries, we are often teased by our constituents, who say that we are just heading off on one big jolly. Many will know I was a very new Minister when I first came to speak on these matters of tragedy in the early part of September, and for my own part my two visits to Burma—to Sittwe in Rakhine, as well as to Rangoon and Naypyidaw—and the opportunity I had to visit Bangladesh have made an immense difference to my understanding of the situation. The work done there is invaluable and visiting really puts that into perspective. A Committee such as this one, which is rightly holding a Government Department to account, needs to be able to see the work being done on the ground.

May I pay some tribute to the Secretary of State, although it is perhaps for the Committee, not for me, to do so? She has expended a huge amount of time, energy and passion on this matter. She is very much on top of the issue, recognising that we have to make some fundamental changes in the way in which we look at programmes, particularly in Burma. We are much respected across the globe for the tremendous contribution that we have made since the Rohingya crisis came to pass some six months ago.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

This is obviously hugely disappointing for the Select Committee. If true, it is shocking to hear the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) say that Aung San Suu Kyi may have been personally responsible for blocking the visas, although I know that it will not dampen the Committee’s efforts and determination to keep the pressure on. This is a clear signal that the diplomatic relationship is breaking down, which is frankly understandable and in some ways even reassuring, because a regime that commits ethnic cleansing is no ally of ours. The Minister is absolutely right that we must keep supporting and helping those vulnerable people in Myanmar, particularly the Rohingya.

May I press the Minister on the issue of accountability for Min Aung Hlaing and those responsible in the military? Could he have discussions with others within the Security Council about the possibility of a resolution to refer those responsible for the atrocities to the International Criminal Court?

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Lady. The UK continues to work to maintain the UN Security Council’s focus on Rakhine. She will be aware that in recent weeks the Syrian issue has obviously been very important, and last autumn there was a lot of focus on what was happening on the Korean peninsula. That is not to say, however, that we are not persistent about trying to make this matter as high profile as possible. At our request, the UN Security Council held an open briefing on 13 February to focus on the very specific issue of returns and the likelihood of those returns happening. Last November, the UK secured the very first UN Security Council statement on Burma—a presidential statement—in a decade, and we will ensure that the Council maintains its focus and attention on what is happening, and has happened, in Burma. We are preparing a response to the report by the fact-finding mission of the UN Human Rights Council, which is due in March, and we co-sponsored the Human Rights Council and General Assembly resolutions.

On the notion that we have a headlong rush towards a UN Security Council resolution, I have to say that the feeling on the ground in New York from our representatives is that that would almost certainly be vetoed by the Chinese and probably by the Russians as well. That is not to say that we might not test that further at some point, but there are other avenues that we wish to pursue. One of the reasons I have been so pleased to be able to work together with our colleagues in the European Union is that getting sanctions from that quarter will achieve some progress, particularly against leading lights within the military.

Syria: De-escalation Zones

Jo Swinson Excerpts

Monday 26th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

My hon. Friend asks an excellent question about relations between the Council of Europe and the Syrian regime. I think there should be no such relations at the present time.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

It is crucial that those who commit international war crimes know that the world is watching and that we will not forget. What steps are being taken to enable UN monitoring forces to ensure that careful records are kept of attacks on hospitals and other civilian infrastructure and of the indiscriminate killing of women, men and children, so that the perpetrators of such crimes can ultimately be held to account?

[Boris Johnson]

The hon. Lady asks an important question. As I said to the House, careful records and tabulations are being made of exactly what is happening with a view to holding the perpetrators to account.

Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords]

Jo Swinson Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 20th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), who made a powerful speech to which I hope his Front-Bench colleagues were listening. It is hugely encouraging to hear so many Conservative voices speak out in favour of more transparency than is already being implemented. I hope it is a sign that this House has a centre of gravity for encouraging further action, of which the Government need to take note.

This Bill is sadly necessary if we are to leave the European Union. The very existence of this Bill underlines the negative impact of Brexit. Our international influence is diminished by leaving the European Union. Of course, sanctions and action against financial crime and money laundering are much stronger when co-ordinated internationally, and the European Union has been a successful mechanism for doing just that.

The existing sanctions and anti-money laundering rules are important, because fighting corruption is an important part of protecting our democracy. When I was a Business Minister, I was charged with implementing parts of the accounting directive through secondary legislation and with championing extractive industries transparency through the extractive industries transparency initiative. One of the issues I was always keen to explain is the link between financial crime, which can often be seemingly victimless—we are talking about numbers on a spreadsheet or on pieces of paper—and its very real and significant impact on people’s lives. The extractive industries transparency initiative is about fighting the corruption that we know happens in some developing countries, where vast mineral wealth is siphoned off into the pockets of dictators rather than funding essential public services.

It is important that we recognise that our country is not immune to such practices. Given particularly that London is such a major financial centre, we perhaps have a greater responsibility than other countries to ensure that tough laws are properly enforced to crack down on corruption. Of course, UK tax havens are another area to which that responsibility extends. I totally agree with the points made about the effect on our international reputation when we do not make sure that happens.

On the sanctions part of the Bill, I welcome the UK’s appetite to align with the EU’s sanctions policy in future, although I note that we will not enjoy the influence we currently have on what that sanctions policy should be. It is crucial that we do not diverge from that policy, because we do not want to risk being seen as a haven for corrupt individuals and corrupt money.

As the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) said, there are opportunities in the Bill to provide greater clarity for NGOs that are doing vital work in difficult countries where there may be regimes that are subject to sanctions but where, none the less, those NGOs need to purchase fuel, supplies and food in country. Clause 15 makes sure there are more powers in primary legislation to provide exemptions so that there is legal clarity that what those NGOs are doing is proper and in order, which is important. Some NGOs, and others in the sector, have suggested that there could be improvements in the detail, which can no doubt be discussed in Committee and on Report.

More generally on sanctions, despite the amendments made in the other place, the Bill still hands over too many powers to the Government, and those powers are too widely drawn. Clause 12 is a case in point, as it defines sanctions not in terms of named individuals but gives Ministers the power to describe groups of people. The potential for unfairly catching individuals in such descriptions is large, and we still need to consider that point. I urge the Government not to look to overturn amendments made in the other place or to roll back the positive changes that have already been made to this Bill.

Various right hon. and hon. Members, including the hon. Members for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) and for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) and the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield, have raised the idea of a Magnitsky amendment. It is important that the UK takes a leadership role on human rights issues, and sanctions responding to human rights violations are therefore important. That means a crackdown on money and on visas, and it should also include a public list of those who are banned or for whom a ban is potentially being considered. I will look with great interest at any amendments tabled on that basis, and my party and I are very much minded to lend support to such amendments.

On the anti-money laundering aspects of the Bill, one part of the UK economy where there is real cause for concern is our property market. My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) talked about her experiences when the Public Accounts Committee visited the United States last week. The United States is already ahead of us, with mechanisms to define areas where property transactions and property ownership can be further investigated. The statistics are shocking. As many as three in 10 properties that are investigated have suspicious ownership. The London property market is hugely vulnerable to such intervention. Properties are bought to try to clean dirty money.

Excellent research by Transparency International UK has identified £4.2 billion-worth of property in London that has been bought with suspicious wealth, most of it based in secretive jurisdictions. In praising Transparency International, I should declare a degree of interest. Transparency International has excellent research, and my husband happens to be its director of policy.

The anti-corruption summit in 2016 committed to introducing legislation so that overseas companies that own UK property would have to declare their beneficial owners. We were promised that legislation by April 2018—in two months’ time. That is clearly no longer happening. It has been delayed on more than one occasion, and now it looks like we will not receive even a draft Bill until the summer.

[Danielle Rowley (Midlothian) (Lab)]

With the UK in a housing crisis, does the hon. Lady agree that the Bill could speed up the property register and help tackle that important issue?

[Jo Swinson]

I absolutely agree. There is no need for any further procrastination. Officials clearly ought to have been looking at this issue since the promise was made at the anti-corruption summit 2016, and it was expected that something would be ready in time for this year. Even if a draft Bill is being considered for the summer—I recognise that parliamentary time is sometimes a constraint on the Government—there would be real support for the bringing forward of some amendments to this Bill based on what may already be partially drafted legislation, because money laundering is important when it comes to property and understanding who owns it. This situation is just another worrying signal from this Administration about the priority they give to combating corruption, because promises made in 2016 are being downgraded and delayed.

Others have pointed out the missed opportunity in this Bill in respect of the overseas territories and Crown dependencies. Back in 2015 and the latter part of 2014, I was the Minister who brought forward changes to the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill—now Act—to introduce a public register of beneficial ownership of UK companies, and I am proud to have done so. Persons of significant control are now registered at Companies House, and people can now log on and see exactly what is there. I agree that there is a need for additional resources for enforcement to will the means, but that was an important step forward, and I am proud to have been part of a Government who took a leadership role.

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable), who was Business Secretary at the time, and to the former Prime Minister, David Cameron, because he was absolutely committed to fighting corruption and to playing a global leadership role through the G7 summit and beyond. He repeatedly made it clear that overseas territories should also publish registers. In fact, between 2013 and 2016, the Government sent letters to the overseas territories on several occasions encouraging action, and it is deeply concerning that the appetite has significantly diminished under the current Administration. It is almost as if the Government are now relaxed about the murkiness of financial transactions of the like that we saw revealed in the Paradise and Panama papers and about our overseas territories being used in the UK’s name to hide complex structures under which corruption can flourish. Progress has ground to a halt. If the Government disagree and think that they are as committed to tackling corruption as ever, what have they been doing since 2016? Where are the letters and notes from meetings where they have been encouraging the overseas territories to publish their beneficial ownership registers? I stand ready to be corrected if the Minister can provide that information, because the House would very much like to see it.

The right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) mentioned Gibraltar and the fifth anti-money laundering directive when the Foreign Secretary was still in his place. His answer was somewhat vague, suggesting that maybe we would be implementing it, because the UK is already going beyond what is required, but that was not entirely clear. We then heard a response that was slightly more depressing, if a little clearer, from the Minister for Europe and the Americas later in the debate, suggesting that we perhaps would not need to implement the directive because we may have left the EU by the final deadline for implementation. He knows as well as I that there is no reason to be a last-minute merchant about such things. There is nothing to stop us implementing the directive before the final deadline, so it is absolutely in the gift of the Government to do so. If they are choosing not to, that is a clear decision from this Government to allow Gibraltar not to conform to the provisions of a directive that we deem to be necessary for the UK as a whole.

The hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) raised Scottish limited partnerships, and I am glad that she did, because they have been abused in major money-laundering schemes. Indeed, they have potentially been implicated in the alleged bribery of European politicians. Such partnerships have been required to file beneficial ownership information since June, but many have failed to do so or, in some cases, have filed patently false information. Again, there is an issue about enforcement.

Many of these issues need to be explored further during the passage of this Bill, which is sadly necessary. The Bill overreaches in some areas by giving the Government too many powers, but in other areas it misses opportunities that we need to take in order to provide assurances that we are taking the necessary and swift action to fight corruption. The Bill is an all right start, but it clearly needs further improvement. We should maintain the positive changes already inserted by the House of Lords, and I look forward to exploring the detailed issues as the Bill progresses through the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jo Swinson Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

If I may say so, I think that my hon. Friend has hit upon the notion of a metaphorical fixed link: a great, swollen, throbbing umbilicus of trade—I will not say which way it is going—with each side mutually nourishing the other. I very much approve of the note of optimism that he strikes.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

I am generally in favour of building bridges rather than walls, but may I urge the Foreign Secretary, instead of indulging in fantasy engineering projects, to focus on the important work, which he just mentioned, of building metaphorical bridges with nations that share our values, such as France and other European neighbours, in order to prevent Brexit Britain from becoming isolated and increasingly reliant for trade and influence on regimes that have dubious human rights records?

[Boris Johnson]

The hon. Lady makes an important point, but she will recognise that we are beefing up our diplomatic representation in the EU and seizing the opportunity to build new links and revive old partnerships around the world. Nobody could have been more eloquent about our unconditional commitment to our friends and partners in the EU than the Prime Minister was in Munich last week.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jo Swinson Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

The hon. Gentleman will recognise that I represent the FCO in Asia and the Pacific, but he is absolutely right that these issues are prevalent in places such as Nigeria and Kenya. In the part of the world where I represent the FCO, I do my best at every opportunity to represent the interests of Christians. I recently wrote a letter to all our high commissioners and ambassadors there asking for their own plans for ensuring that minorities from Nepal to India and elsewhere can be properly protected.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

The crackdown by the Myanmar military continues to have dire consequences for the human rights of the Rohingya population, and Myanmar has now cut off all co-operation with the United Nations special rapporteur. While the strong stance taken by the General Assembly is a positive development, dissent from China, Russia and some other countries is preventing the adoption of a united international approach. What influence can the Minister use to convince China in particular of the need for diplomatic action to solve the crisis?

[Mark Field]

The hon. Lady has identified the hub of the matter, which is the fact that we cannot get a UN Security Council resolution through because it would be vetoed by China and Russia. However, she should rest assured that we are doing our level best to engage constantly in conversations with our Chinese and Russian counterparts in the Security Council. There was a presidential statement for the first time in 10 years just before Christmas, and I repeatedly raised the appalling treatment of the Rohingya with both the Burmese Defence Minister and the Minister for the Office of the State Counsellor in Nay Pyi Taw recently when I was attending the conference of the Asia-Europe Foreign Ministers.

Israel: US Embassy

Jo Swinson Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

I have no sense that yesterday’s decision made a contribution to advancing the peace process. I understand what the President said, and he had a particular logic in doing so, although I am not sure I share it. I do share the view my hon. Friend expressed in his last point—what happens in the region can be either a blow or an opportunity, but usually it is both. We must make sure that the opportunity provided by yesterday’s statement is not lost. There is a new role for others to play, but ultimately it must be about what we can do to assist direct negotiations rather than push them back.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

Trump’s rash desperation to tick off every ill-judged, divisive campaign soundbite now threatens the peace process in one of the most volatile geopolitical regions in the world. The Government have welcomed his words about a two-state solution, but those pronouncements count for little when his actions, coupled with the expansion of Israeli illegal settlements, mean that the prospect of a two-state solution seems more distant than ever. The Government are clearly limited in their ability to influence the US position, but surely it is now time for them to listen to the clear will of this House and for the UK to confirm our commitment to a two-state solution by recognising the state of Palestine, as we do the state of Israel.

[Alistair Burt]

I do not want to repeat what I said earlier, but the United Kingdom’s position has a degree of flexibility. The House is right that we have to make a collective judgment about when the time is right in the best interests of peace. The Government then have to make up their own mind about the circumstances and what is right, and they will do that, but colleagues’ views are known.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jo Swinson Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Who shall we have? I was going to call Mr Burden, but he is not standing, so I can’t and I won’t. I call Jo Swinson.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

At the last Foreign Office questions, the Foreign Secretary told me that the UK could not pinpoint any direct Russian cyber-attacks on this country. Today, he tells us the Prime Minister’s comments last week about Russia’s sustained campaign of cyber-espionage and disruption refer only to other countries. Why does he think the UK is uniquely immune to Russian interference, or is he just complacent about the threat?

[Boris Johnson]

I should be clear with the hon. Lady that, because of the sensitivity of the intelligence involved, it is impossible for us to pinpoint these attacks in public. When the Prime Minister referred to “meddling in elections”, she was referring to meddling in other countries.