Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Debate between John Penrose and Robert Buckland

Report stage
Wednesday 25th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[John Penrose]

I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on making a powerful speech in favour of his new clauses, several of which I have signed. Before he moves on, may I press him on the point about this being a slightly rum affair? I think that was the phrase he just used. It is rum because we have two options set out by the Law Commission—as well as many other analyses—neither of which are being taken into the Bill. There are two good options, and they are being completely ignored. Also, at least one of the two Ministers on the Front Bench has repeatedly—and rightly, in my view and that of many other people—been a dedicated advocate of precisely the ideas my right hon. and learned Friend is putting forward in his new clauses, yet they are still not in the Bill. How much more rum can it get?

[Sir Robert Buckland]

I was going to spare the blushes of the Minister for Security, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) and the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), but my hon. Friend has said it for me, and he is right. They know that what I am saying does not just have force, but that they agree with it. That will no doubt carry great weight—

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[Sir Robert Buckland]

Well, my right hon. Friend must speak for himself. I will tell the House a story: I remember when the present Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace), held the office of Minister for Security, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling now enjoys. We used to have cross-governmental committee meetings—this was during the Government of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May)—and I remember having a very fierce argument with a very senior permanent secretary at the Treasury about this very issue. I will not name them, because that would be wrong, but they told me that there was concern about the proliferation of criminal offences in this area because somehow it would add more of a regulatory burden to business. I disagreed hotly with that civil servant then, and I disagree hotly now.

The Minister for Security now has a great opportunity. It is a great privilege as a Minister to get on with a job that others would have wished to finish. We have passed the parcel to him, and he can open it and enjoy the gifts within.

[John Penrose]

My right hon. and learned Friend is being very generous with his time. May I say very gently that the anecdote that he told just now and the intervention that the Minister for Security has just made both come under the category of explanations, rather than justifications, for where we now find ourselves? The Bill is here, now. What has been said explains why we are here, but they do not justify why this stuff is not in the Bill.

[Sir Robert Buckland]

Well, I am trying to be the diplomat and the reasonable interlocutor here. My hon. Friend is playing the bad cop with the Minister, and I am trying to play the good cop. I know that the Minister will eventually yield to that persistent approach; I hope that it will be done in a way that is neither oppressive nor unreliable.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Penrose and Robert Buckland

Tuesday 14th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

I am always grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s words of wisdom, but I will just correct him in this respect: there was a general agreement that the use of theft legislation to deal with what were more than goods and chattels just was not an adequate way to reflect not just the taking of a pet, but the suffering of the pet and of the owner. That is why abduction is a much better read-across, as he knows from the matter of child abduction, for example.

I take issue with the hon. Gentleman on the point and I challenge him and the Opposition: if the matter is brought forward in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which they voted against again and again, will they now support it?

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

12. If he will make an assessment of the effectiveness of access to justice for small companies affected by anti-competitive behaviour that are ineligible (a) for the Competition Appeal Tribunal fast track procedure and (b) to have their cases taken up by the Competition and Markets Authority.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Robert Buckland)]

The Government are currently consulting on a range of reforms to competition and policy in order to more effectively and swiftly address anti-competitive behaviour. The consultation includes many of the recommendations that my hon. Friend made in his excellent report. As part of it, we welcome suggestions from small businesses about how the system can be improved.

[John Penrose]

The Secretary of State understands that anti-competitive behaviour is just as likely among small firms as among big ones. The effects are terrible: fast-growing small firms that are future world beaters get throttled by slightly bigger incumbents, levelling up is slower and less likely because competition and productivity are much lower outside London, and residents are left with less choice and more vulnerability to rip-offs. Does he agree that the justice system plays a central role in tackling the problem and ensuring that small firms have some kind of redress? Will he therefore look closely at the proposal in my Government-commissioned report for a new tier of local county competition courts?

[Robert Buckland]

I will be as brief as I can, Mr Speaker. We have read my hon. Friend’s paper with great interest. With respect, I do not think that the way forward is to create a further tier of specialist courts. However, there is much that can be done with colleagues in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to make sure that the overall structure of the competition mechanism is reformed and improved. His point about access to justice is absolutely right: it should apply to small and medium-sized enterprises as much as to individuals.

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[Robert Buckland]

The hon. Lady is right to raise the retirement age issue. Indeed, the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), rightly pointed out in answer to an earlier question that there had been two attempts in recent years to resolve this issue. No agreement was reached with the Prison Officers Association, but I very much hope that any future discussions will result in some agreement. We continue to look at this issue, and I want to put on record my warm tribute to the prison service and to the much hidden and misunderstood work of jailcraft that prison officers do, day in and day out, in England and Wales, and indeed in Scotland.

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

T2. Drug use in our prisons lines the pockets of organised criminals and smuggling gangs, puts prison staff at risk of pressure from those same gangs and makes the already difficult job of prison rehabilitation far harder. How long do Ministers expect it to be before British prisons become practically drug free?