Economic Crime

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) for securing this very important debate. I thank them for all the work they have done over the years on these issues, and indeed on wider issues of fairness in the economic industry. I have had great cause to be grateful to the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton for the assistance he has afforded some of my constituents through his expert advice from his experience on the all-party parliamentary group on fair banking.

The right hon. Member for Barking spoke very powerfully about the problem of money stolen from the Russian people being laundered in this country, saying that it impacts on our national security in a number of ways because it is spreading its tentacles through our society. She was intervened on by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who drew attention to the problem of money laundering through paramilitary, which unfortunately we still have as a result of the legacy of the troubles in Northern Ireland. The right hon. Lady made the very important point that that enables other crime, and that, in her words, if you cannot follow the money then dirty money triumphs.

There was an important intervention on the right hon. Lady from the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), who told us that one third of crime in the United Kingdom is now economic crime but only 1% of police enforcement time is spent on that. I certainly know from my time as an advocate depute in the Crown Office in Scotland that there were often not really adequate resources for us to prosecute economic crime properly. It is decades since I was a prosecutor, but I know that a huge amount of work has been done in Scotland to give the Crown Office more powers to do that. Prosecuting economic crime is very challenging, and Government need to put a lot more investment into making sure that it is done effectively.

Importantly, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton explained why economic crime is not a victimless crime. He cited the tragic death of the 27 people who drowned in the channel trying to reach our shores last week as a good example of organised crime and economic crime taking a terrible toll on its victims.

The right hon. Member for East Ham outlined the need to tackle online fraud. He was absolutely right in identifying the online safety Bill as a missed opportunity do that. He rightly took aim at Google for its failure to take down a scam when it was well aware that it was there. As he said, that shows that the law must be changed. We are all well aware of the problem of the huge power of organisations such as Google, Facebook and Twitter, and it is really important that the Government put real teeth into legislation to make sure that they do not facilitate crime—particularly, in this case, economic crime. I was interested to hear that the Financial Conduct Authority has said that financial harms should be included in the online safety Bill.

It was also interesting to hear from the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell), who speaks from a career of some length in the regulation industry and therefore with some authority about what needs to be done and the challenges of doing it. He made a powerful point about the damage that has been done to our great cities as a result of the overinflation of the property market. In my own home city of Edinburgh at the moment, most people can no longer afford to be a first-time buyer. I know that is a huge problem in the great city of London as well. Tackling economic crime is one way that we can bring house prices down.

Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) spoke knowledgably from her lengthy experience in relation to these matters and drew our attention to the fact that, ultimately, Companies House is the front door to this problem, and existing corporate structures facilitate economic crime. She gave very good examples of the hoops we have to go through to do things such as getting a driving licence, but how easy it is for people to tell a pack of lies and misrepresent themselves in setting up a company. She raised again the issue of Scottish limited partnerships, which have been raised over the years by a number of Members of this House, most notably my friend and former colleague, Roger Mullin.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central put the question succinctly for the Minister to answer this evening: where is the urgency in dealing with these matters? We have had many debates about these issues in the six and a half years I have been in this House, and I know they have been going on for much longer than that. The Government have made a number of commitments, but why are they not honouring them? Where is the urgency?

Then there is the troubling question of who benefits from the delay to the Government tackling these issues. We know that some pretty dodgy Russian money has found its way into the coffers of the Conservative and Unionist party. As my hon. Friend said, there are wider political implications here. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) continued in this debate to raise the matters of concern that she has raised previously about the failure to properly regulate political donations.

Although we have had a short debate, it has been very knowledgeable, and the Members who have contributed have done so from a position of strength and of knowledge of this matter. The helpful briefing prepared for this debate basically tells us what needs to be done. It has three big asks for an economic crime Bill: creating a register of overseas companies that own UK property; reforming Companies House to ensure it can monitor, verify and investigate suspicious companies; and reforming corporate criminal liability laws to ensure that enablers are held to account. The question for the Minister is: when will that economic crime Bill be brought forward?