Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill

John Penrose Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 7th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

At bleeding last! It is here. We have been waiting for years. Alleluia! It has finally arrived.

We have all heard some of the history of how long we have been waiting for the Bill, but it is also true to say that a few years ago Britain was at the forefront of this legislation. In fact, in some respects we are still the one-eyed man in the land of the blind. There are still many other countries that have not taken even the initial step of introducing beneficial ownership transparency, which we have long had in this country. But—and it is an essential “but”—because we have the City of London and the wholesale financial markets that are the envy of so many countries, we have to live up to a much higher standard than other countries, and that means that we have to go further.

We know that we have loopholes in our existing laws, and it is well past time for us to plug them. The Bill is the first step on that road, but it is only a first step, and I was delighted to hear the promise of more in the White Paper and the promise of a second Bill. Like the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge), I hope that that will come early in the next Session, because only if we do both those things in parallel and in tandem will we finish the job that was started back in 2015 or 2016, depending on which version of history we adhere to.

I am also delighted at the acceptance of the manuscript amendment tabled in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), which aims to speed up the application to deal with the oligarchs who own property in this country and will even now be searching for buyers to palm the assets on to so that they can get their money out, because they know that we are moving and also know that, as matters currently stand, they have some time to complete their transactions. It is vital that we move faster, and I am delighted that we will have a chance to consider the manuscript amendment.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I thank my very good friend for allowing me to intervene. I hope and presume that this Bill will freeze assets; will the second part of the legislation, when it comes, allow their confiscation? I hope that it will, in which case we might even put it to good use and help the people of Ukraine. Is that out of the question?

[John Penrose]

That is a question that I think the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), who I know is listening carefully, will be able to answer in his summing up. To the point raised by my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), we cannot sanction an oligarch’s cash if we do not know where it is, so the essential initial step is to rip back the veils of anonymity so that we can find it, so that we know what we are looking at and so that we can at least stop it leaving the country before we move on to those other steps.

There are two other points that I hope the Minister can address in his summing up. They relate to things that could be in the Bill but are not. I hope that they will appear later or that they will appear in the follow-up Bill that we are being promised. The first is the need for proper measures to deal with whistleblowers. We have heard a great deal already about the importance of enforcement. Enforcement is vital, but it is so much faster and so much better applied if proper whistleblowing legislation is in place. As with transparency of beneficial ownership, a few years ago this country’s legislation on whistleblower protection was among the best in the world, but the world has moved on and other countries have overtaken us.

We urgently need to improve the quality of our whistleblower legislation. It is good that the Minister who will respond to this debate is from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy because it is in his Department that the whistleblowing team sits. I fear that it is well behind the curve of where it needs to be if we are going to move promptly on this. We have a long way to go and a great deal of thinking to do, and I hope that he will be able to make some commitments when he gets to his feet at the end of this Second Reading debate.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

New clauses 14 and 27 both deal with the establishment of a commission for the protection of whistleblowers to do exactly what my hon. Friend is setting out.

[John Penrose]

I acknowledge that point. I am not sure whether the Government will be able to accept those proposals, but if they do not, I hope they will be able to make some commitments about what they intend to do very soon to plug the undoubted gaps.

My final point is about trusts. My hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay) intervened on the Home Secretary to make a point about trusts, and it is essential that we do not forget that one of the issues we are dealing with here is to do with companies, because they have been proven to be an excellent vehicle for covering up the ownership of assets. We have also heard from the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) about the problems that have accrued for Scottish limited partnerships. It is equally true that trusts could be, and potentially are being, misused in exactly the same way. This legislation does something on the use of trusts when it comes to unexplained wealth orders, but it does not do the same thing for the disclosing of the settlers, the trustees and the potential beneficiaries of trusts for everything else. Those vehicles could easily be misused, and we do not want to come back in a couple of years saying, “If only we had thought to plug that loophole at the same time.” I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will be able to deal with that omission and promise us some progress on that very soon.

[Several hon. Members rose—]