Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Layla Moran Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 13th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

I am very pleased that we are taking this action now. I take on board the point that this has been a long-standing matter that Members and Administrations have been talking about for some time. There has been progress over several years. We have the National Economic Crime Centre and new legislation, so there are greater powers, but I am focused on ensuring that the reforms in the Bill are implemented as quickly as possible. On reforms to Companies House, we seek to ensure that the level of change is balanced to avoid causing any confusion for legitimate customers and to ensure effective implementation. So yes, speed is essential, but not at the expense of undue disruption.

Some of the action we have already undertaken includes being the first G20 country to establish, in 2016, a public register of domestic company beneficial ownership; the publication of the economic crime plan in 2019 and the progress made against it; and establishing, as I said to the hon. Lady, the National Economic Crime Centre and the combating kleptocracy cell in the National Crime Agency. The Bill is just one component of a wider Government approach to tackling economic crime, including fraud. It sits alongside the National Security Bill and the Online Safety Bill, and the forthcoming second economic crime plan and fraud strategy.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

One of the areas this place will struggle to scrutinise is golden visas. It has now been four years since that review was commissioned. We understand it is ready, yet we have not seen it to be able to scrutinise it and hold the Government to account on it. Will the right hon. and learned Lady be the Home Secretary who finally releases that review?

[Suella Braverman]

When it comes to golden visas, I was very proud of the action the Government took in relation to Russian individuals following the invasion, where we stopped the sale of golden visas to particular individuals—

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[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose), who has championed these matters for an incredibly long time, along with so many other hon. Members. It is always an honour to take part in such debates because it feels as if it is Parliament pushing Government to go faster, further and deeper.

I do not suspect that economic crime Bill 2 will be any different from economic crime Bill 1. We all welcome the fact that we are here, finally, but we all have a “but”, which is that we wish to do more. Certainly, the speeches so far indicate that the spirit with which we approached economic crime Bill 1 lives proudly within us. We achieved quite a lot in that and I hope that economic crime Bill 2 will be equally as fruitful.

In some ways, I hope it will be the last economic crime Bill, because I hope we can get it done properly this time. In economic crime Bill 1 we kept being told, “Well, don’t worry about that. We are going to put it to one side. It’s a bit complicated. We need to go away and look it, and then we will come back and sort it in economic crime Bill 2.” When we picked up our copies of economic crime Bill 2 and saw that it was nice and hefty, I thought, “This is good.” Then I looked at it and, I am afraid to say, I was quite disappointed. There was a lot that was mentioned, both from the Dispatch Box and in private with Ministers, that we thought we were going to tackle this time, and it simply is not there.

That frustration leads us all to want to push the Government to go further. There is also the deep frustration that it has taken a war to get to this point. I see bombing in Kyiv, Crimea and elsewhere, and I have a Ukrainian guest living with me who feels these things very deeply. Every time I see that, in the back of my mind I think, how much of the money that has gone into Putin’s coffers to help pay for what is being done to her and her family came through our economic system? How shameful that there is that direct link. We know that link is there because that is what caused us to act as quickly as we did with economic crime Bill 1. I know there is that feeling of frustration in all parts of the House and that we want to tackle the issues as comprehensively and finally as we can, this time.

In common with other hon. Members, I welcome the measures in the Bill, in particular the reform of Companies House and Scottish limited partnerships, which are significant steps forward. We have not even had a framework to deal properly with many parts of economic crime. However, even if we have a legal framework for something, we still have to be realistic. We have a legal framework for burglary, muggings and all sorts, but there still needs to be adequate resourcing for the enforcement agency. In that case, the enforcement agency is the police but with economic crime there are 22 different agencies that are meant to do that, in particular the National Crime Agency. The funding for those agencies is falling, not increasing. If we are serious about tackling economic crime, there needs to be a commitment of money to the agencies that are the force behind those warm words from the Government. When the Home Secretary was questioned on that earlier, she gave very woolly answers.



As the Bill progresses through the House in the next few weeks, I am hoping to hear the Government say that they know how much money they need to do the job they have to do. The reasons for doing it are entirely in our self-interest. There is not just the geopolitical reason that I described—the shame that money flowing through our systems is in any way funding nefarious purposes—but the fact that HMRC has something to gain. If we can get our hands on some of that money and find ways to divert it, we can find ways to spend it better, away from the criminals. That is surely in the taxpayer’s interest.

As was mentioned by the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge), if we want to be seen as a good place to do business, we cannot allow ourselves to be a country that accepts this money. It taints all businesses—the good ones with the bad—that are deciding to trade in our financial markets. It is in our gift to make this country the best and safest place in the world to do business. It is in our own self-interest to tackle corruption. It is not just about the war; there are more far-reaching consequences.

I want to draw the Minister’s attention to a few areas now so that he has plenty of time to work on them before we get to Committee and the Bill goes through its next few stages before eventually reaching the other place. First, and most importantly, we need to start with the provisions of the first economic crime Act and look again the register of beneficial ownership. While it has now come into force, if I was an enabler wanting to make a mint from my oligarchs, it would be really easy for me to tell them how I would get around the new legislation. All I would have to do is transfer the entity into one of my relatives’ names, or, instead of having four people registered as beneficial owners, I would just need a fifth, and all of a sudden the problem would disappear. Those are two simple examples of how people can get around that register. Everyone recognises that economic crime Act 1 happened quickly, but given the time that we have had to properly scrutinise and think about these matters, I ask the Minister to consider amendments that would improve it. There is a small part of the Bill where the Government have started to do that for the register, so such amendments would be in scope. I therefore urge him to consider further amendments to that end.

My second question, which I posed to the Home Secretary, is about golden visas. We have heard absolutely nothing about them. It is not enough to say, “We’ve put a freeze on them and we’re not giving out any more.” The fact is, we did give them out. She clearly misspoke when she said that we sold them—that was rightly picked up on—but it is quite an interesting way of looking at it. Actually, many of the people who “bought” them will have seen it that way. There would have been an exchange. At the time, the idea was, “If you invest in this country, you get something back,” and in this case it was citizenship. Other countries do that, too. However, we know that golden visas were being used as a way essentially to whitewash people who should never have been given the right to reside here, let alone passports or anything else, and unless we understand fully the extent to which they were used, how and by whom, this place cannot hold the Government to account for what they are trying to achieve with the Bill.

We are in a perverse situation. We understand that the Minister has access to that review—it has been done, it is finished, and it is sitting there on Ministers’ desks—but Parliament has not seen it. That is unacceptable. At the Dispatch Box, the Minister should not say that he will look at it, as the Home Secretary did. I do not want her to look at it—I want to look at it. I want all hon. Members to be able to look at it. The Government should publish it so that we can see it. On economic crime, the slogan for all of us must now be “Better out than in”.

The third thing that I want to raise, as several hon. Members have, is the Law Commission’s look at the “failure to prevent” offence. While I was sat down I searched for that, because the pace has been so glacial that wanted to remind myself of the phases that it has already gone through. If I remember rightly, it was back in 2016, before I entered this place, that David Cameron mentioned it as part of his anti-corruption plan—in fact, I think he first mooted it in an article in The Guardian —and nothing happened. After having done a consultation announced in 2016, the Law Commission reported back in June. So we have been talking about the failure to prevent for five or six years.

The point made first by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) and then by the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) was that if we put the onus on the entities to prevent economic crime in the first place, that would be hugely powerful and speak to all of our concerns about the lack of resource for the National Crime Agency and the other agencies that are meant to enforce this area. That is really neat. Actually, it would be even better, because by putting the onus on the entities themselves, it would not have to cost the Government that much.

[Peter Grant]

What does it say about the Government’s priorities if they have taken six years and not brought in failure to prevent legislation for economic crime but have managed to bring in failure to prevent legislation that fines companies tens of thousands of pounds if they unintentionally give a job to somebody who under immigration law is not entitled to be here? Is there a question of priorities that needs to be looked at?

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[Layla Moran]

I agree with the hon. Member. It needs to be done for the cost to the economy alone, but also for the personal cost to families and individuals, which we have heard about. Economic crime sounds like something that is not personal and does not affect actual people, but that is not true. Every time that we turn a blind eye, look the other way or say “It is too difficult,” we are doing our constituents a disservice.

The final thing that we need to grapple with, which we have spoken about over and over again, is the enablers. Firms of accountants and lawyers are used to help those with the deepest pockets to circumvent the very heart of what we are trying to achieve in this place. We need only listen to what Catherine Belton said to the Foreign Affairs Committee about how she has been hounded. It is not just her; there are others as well. In fact, I know that parliamentarians across the House have faced lengthy letters from lawyers whenever we have tried to raise things. We are protected by privilege, but it should never be the case that someone is afraid to speak out on what is right because they are concerned that they will be hounded by lawyers being paid by oligarchs with the very nefarious money we are trying to prevent from getting into their hands in the first place.

There is very little in the Bill that tackles the enablers. I appreciate that that may need an economic crime Bill 3, but I have heard nothing about it at all so far. I remind the Minister, if he has not looked through Hansard to see what Ministers before him have said, that previous Ministers promised we would look at the issue in some depth in economic crime Bill 2. I am sorry to say that I see very little in this Bill that goes any way to tackling the concerns raised in the speeches on the first economic crime Bill.

To conclude, I am glad we are here and talking about this, as there is so much to say. There is huge good will in all parts of this place and the other place to tackle this matter once and for all. I urge the Government not to shy away from the difficult decisions. Parliament will support them if that is what they want to do. There is a will and there is a way. Now please, Government, get on with it.

Campsfield House Immigration Removal Centre

Layla Moran Excerpts

Friday 23rd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I am grateful to the House for allowing me another chance to raise the proposed reopening of Campsfield House immigration removal centre, after business was so mournfully changed two weeks ago.

I start by thanking the Minister for engaging with me and my office on this issue and answering my questions today. However, I am deeply disappointed that we have to debate this issue again at all. One of my first campaigns as a parliamentary candidate for Oxford West and Abingdon was the campaign to close Campsfield House. At the time, Campsfield was a detention centre for over 200 adult men facing deportation. My community fought tirelessly for over two decades to close the centre, and make no mistake: we are ready to fight again.

The Government are now planning to reopen the centre, with an expanded capacity of 400 beds at a cost of £227 million to the taxpayer. Our opposition comes primarily from concern over the welfare of the detainees, the impact that has on everyone in the community and also the cost efficiency of this plan in the immigration detention estate. It is expensive and does not achieve its aims. But most of all, it is cruel.

I want to start with detainees’ own descriptions of Campsfield. One man detained at the centre said:

“Some of us have been here for over 3 years with no prospect of removal or any evidence of future release. There is no justification whatsoever for detaining us for such a period of time. Our lives have been stalled without any hope of living a life, having a family or any future.”

Another former detainee talked about finding solace in music:

“I tried to create a kind of musical environment around me in Campsfield. It genuinely helped me so I didn’t get too depressed. It saved me from self-harm and suicide, which I saw many people try. It made me feel like I was reaching out beyond the fences. Sometimes I think it’s ok to escape reality in that kind of a place because the reality there can feel like you are living in a nightmare.”

The nightmare of immigration detention was made much worse by failures in processes and procedures. In 2013, I uncovered that a child was being held at Campsfield. A boy was held there for between two and three months. He would have been the only child in an adult-dominated, guarded facility with barbed wire fences. He would not have been allowed to go to school and he would have been unable to interact with other children or lead any sort of normal childhood. We know very little about him other than that he was between 12 and 16. I hope that all hon. Members will agree that that was and is totally unacceptable—but he was not the only one. Another boy was incorrectly identified by social services as being an adult and was held at Campsfield for 62 days. He was 16. The chief inspector of prisons said that he

“was held by mistake and should never have been detained”.

That is fine, but there is only one way to ensure that such an atrocity does not happen again at Campsfield, and that is simply not to reopen it.

Accidental child detention is not the only concern. As detainees faced unacceptable conditions, tensions often boiled over into aggression and protest. There were riots, fires and escapes. Detainees completed suicide. One asylum seeker completed suicide at Campsfield after being detained for six months and denied bail three times. He was only 18 years old.

As hon. Members might imagine, all that causes enormous distress to the local community. It is important to note that detention has an enormous effect far beyond the fences. A volunteer visitor service was set up by local people and became the wonderful organisation Asylum Welcome, which does fantastic work to support asylum seekers across Oxfordshire and plays a pivotal role in welcoming Ukrainian refugees.

One former visitor said:

“The men detained at Campsfield House were representative of a broad range of humanity—not all were angels, although most that I spoke to were very decent people. But they were all human and therefore deserving of their human rights, and none deserved to be locked away without having committed a crime”.

That is critical: most of the detainees who passed through Campsfield were true asylum seekers—they were not criminals. The Home Office claims that Campsfield is necessary to hold foreign national offenders, yet in 2017 an average of only 98 were held at Campsfield at any one time. Why do we need a 400-bed centre away from the main airports?

Immigration detention is described by the Home Office as having a “limited, but crucial role” in helping to control our borders. There are a stringent set of circumstances in which the Government have the power to detain an individual: to enable removal from the country; to establish the basis of someone’s identity or claim; and when the Home Office suspects that someone will not comply with immigration bail. The Home Office’s own guidance states:

“Detention must be used sparingly, and for the shortest period necessary.”

On the face of it, that is sensible. I make it clear to the Minister that I can see the need for a small number of detention places, very close to airports, for people to be held for an extremely short time. That is not in question. But what is happening now, with the expansion of the detention estate, starting with Campsfield, shows that there is a failure in that system.

When the chief inspector of prisons carried out a final inspection before Campsfield closed, the average length of detention was 55 days, but some men were held for “excessive periods”. The longest detention in that year was one year and five months, but we have heard from detainees who were held for more than three years. Many detainees are not held in one centre but are deported, released, or moved around the system. They are passed from one centre to another and not allowed to form relationships. An MP might advocate for them, but then they move and the MP cannot do so anymore. They do not have consistent caseworkers. That is cruel, but it is also incredibly costly.

The cost element needs to be explored. When Campsfield was open, it cost £86 a day to detain someone there, but costs have increased. In the first quarter of 2022, the average cost of holding someone in detention was £107 per day. The more individuals we detain, and the longer we keep them behind bars, the more costly it is. As the Minister may well remember, we are in a cost of living crisis. Families are struggling to afford food; pensioners cannot afford to turn their heating on. We heard this morning the Chancellor’s grand plan to tackle the economic crisis—I am sorry, but the way to solve this is not to keep detaining people at enormous cost, it is instead to invest that money in a system to improve processing times.

Taxpayers deserve a Home Office that does its job properly. Figures from the House of Commons Library reveal that the same amount of money that the Government will be spending on re-opening Campsfield could be used to fund more than 1,000 asylum caseworkers, who are desperately needed to process that backlog. Why are we not investing that money in staff? How many new caseworkers do the Government intend to bring into the system, or are they just accepting failure?

We raised concerns at the time about the welfare of those in Campsfield, but we must also understand why there has been this shift in policy. That is why this debate is so important. Campsfield was shut in 2017 off the back of the Stephen Shaw review, which concluded that the “direction of travel” for the detention estate in the UK should be “downwards”, both for reasons of welfare and for better use of public money. The Home Office agreed with that recommendation and made the decision to reduce the immigration detention estate, aiming to reduce it by almost 40%. As part of that Campsfield closed, but the Government have now changed direction and numbers are climbing to the same levels that we saw before 2019. Not only are they re-opening Campsfield, but there is another detention centre at Haslar in Hampshire, both with more beds than they had before. That is a clear, active change of policy, and we have not had an explanation for what has changed. Which recommendations in the Shaw review does the Minister now not accept?

How does that change of policy fulfil the Government’s legal obligations? There have been legal challenges on human rights grounds for those held on the detention estate, but most of those people—and this is where we must end—are not criminals. Most of those people are true asylum seekers, and 80% of those who try to claim asylum in the UK are granted asylum. When we combine the fact that there are a small number of foreign prisoners who should be detained and supported, and that 80% of those who try to claim asylum are granted asylum, I simply ask the Minister why the Government are doing this, and whether they will reverse the decision to reopen Campsfield House.

National Security Bill

Layla Moran Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 6th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is why the Bill has been constructed in a sensitive manner with our agencies and partners, based on expertise and insight. This is about how the laws will be applied to individuals in specific cases, so the sensitivities must always be considered. A case-by-case approach is rightly required when it comes to the application of our laws, as well as to law enforcement and how we pursue these matters further.

The Bill brings together many measures, but I would like the Chamber to indulge me for a minute—particularly off the back of this weekend—as I pay tribute to our world-class law enforcement and intelligence agencies. We were all touched to see the numbers of people who came to London to see Her Majesty and celebrate the platinum jubilee. Our law enforcement and intelligence agencies came together, ensuring that in every aspect of our celebrations the British public were kept safe by remarkable people, who worked tirelessly; I pay tribute to them. It is their expertise that we are trying to preserve, enhance and develop through the Bill. We want to ensure that they have all the tools and protections they need to deal with this ever-changing and evolving landscape.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

May I also pay tribute to the agencies? When I saw all those people on the Mall, I thought, “My goodness, if something had gone wrong, imagine what that would have looked like.” It was an extraordinary effort, and the Secretary of State is right to pay tribute to them. It is also right that we protect them, but protections for whistleblowers in the security agencies are missing from the Bill. When the Bill has come before the House previously, there have been efforts to provide that, including through the amendment tabled by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). There was also the Office of the Whistleblower Bill in the House of Lords. What are the Secretary of State’s thoughts on protecting whistleblowers?

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Lady is right that the protection of whistleblowers is vital. I will be frank: we need to find the right measures and means to do that. She has highlighted the current debates and thoughts on the issue. We need to find the right balance. Whistleblowers play an integral part in these matters, and she will hear additional points on the subject later in my speech.

HM Passport Office Backlogs

Layla Moran Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who, as ever, puts his case forcefully but entirely respectfully. When there are compassionate or compelling circumstances, steps can be taken to expedite applications where appropriate. Some of the sorts of circumstances that he mentioned would potentially be eligible in that scenario. I cannot, of course, provide an explanation on the Floor of the House for his particular case, but I will take his wider point away. On the three-week target, I will ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), who is responsible for passports, to write to the hon. Gentleman to set out the position and let him know his thoughts on that point.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

This issue is undoubtedly causing huge anxiety. I have a case of a new mother who, when her daughter was born, wanted to register her for a passport immediately, because she wants the support of her family, who live in Egypt. She has been up all day and night trying to get a fast-track application. She could not find one, so she put in a regular application. She then did find a fast-track application and now she has been told, having secured the fast-track application for Saturday, that if she shows up, she may not get the passport because the regular application cannot be withdrawn. We have tried everything for her. First, if she does show up, will she be able to get the passport on the fast track, and can I show the Minister the case just to make sure? Secondly, will he assure people that a common-sense approach will be taken in cases such as these and others, so that if someone finds a workaround solution, it will actually work?

[Tom Pursglove]

I would always want to see common sense shown in these matters. The hon. Lady suggests that it would be worthwhile to share the specifics of the case with me. I would certainly appreciate the opportunity to take this away and look at what we can do to assist and provide any appropriate guidance and advice.

Preventing Crime and Delivering Justice

Layla Moran Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

No, I will not give way; the right hon. Lady will have a chance to speak. [Interruption.] The right hon. Lady will have an opportunity to speak shortly. [Interruption.] If I may finish my point, I may come to her.

The other factor in terms of policing is the increase in the volume of digital evidence, and a vast amount of work is taking place across policing and the CPS now looking at how we can have an end-to-end approach across the criminal justice system to assess digital evidence. Also, for the first time the criminal justice system is now going to be held to account through performance scorecards through the crime and justice taskforce and also through the MOJ as well as the Home Office.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I thank the right hon. Lady for giving way. Is she aware, among student victims of sexual assault, of the use of gagging clauses and non-disclosure agreements in university non-contact agreements? I am in touch with various victims, particularly from Oxford university. One college, Lady Margaret Hall, has now signed a pledge to no longer use these but none of the other colleges has. Will the right hon. Lady join me and the universities Minister, the right hon. Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan), in asking other colleges to do the same, and will she consider meeting me so that I can relay to her the thoughts of victims in these cases?

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. [Interruption.] I hear calls for more legislation from Labour Members, but, frankly, they also vote against all Government legislation. The hon. Lady raises a serious point. Through the crime and justice taskforce particularly, which is a cross-Government endeavour, the Education Secretary and other parts of Government are working with the MOJ to address and tackle these issues. The CPS has an important role to play here as well. I would be delighted to meet the hon. Lady and to speak to the universities Minister about this, because it is simply not right. Frankly, some of the practices being used are immoral, because they are effectively denying victims their right to have a voice.

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[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a free, fair and open society in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no one is enslaved by poverty, ignorance and conformity.

Let us take poverty first. If there was one message that the people of this country sent the Government in the recent council elections, it was that they were struggling and needed help at this time of a cost of living crisis. When we compare that message with the contents of Her Majesty’s Gracious Speech, we see a Government who are not listening to what the people are asking them to do.

This is a Government who are more interested in stoking culture wars and opening past sores than in looking forward to a future on which we can all agree. We need only look at the way in which they are attacking our human rights. Promoting human rights is at the heart of what Liberal Democrats believe: it is in the DNA of our mission. What we have seen in the Queen’s Speech, however, is a replacement of the Human Rights Act with a so-called Bill of Rights that will weaken, limit and undermine our current human rights protections. I do not think that that is what people throughout the country have asked for, and it is certainly not their priority at the moment.

Let us now put aside what is in the speech, which is underwhelming, and look at what has been missed out completely. There is no law to make misogyny a hate crime, there is no reform of the criminal justice system that has failed women and girls in particular for far too long, and there is nothing for the 4.1 million victims of fraud.

I have had personal experience of fraud recently. My official Twitter account was hacked, and I found myself looking at my online self trying to flog PlayStation 5s to my unwitting Twitter followers. Luckily none of them took it on and no one was inconvenienced, but it took an age for me to regain control of my account. When we reported the incident to Action Fraud, I eventually received a phone call from—I must say—a lovely gentleman, who told me that of his team of four who, with him, comprised the entire support network, three were off with covid and the other was on holiday. I am pretty sure that I received the call because I was an MP and we had reported it because we were worried about security concerns.

I think that this omission says a great deal about the emphasis that the Government put on online crime, which is worth £27 billion a year. The Liberal Democrats do not believe that the provision in the Online Safety Bill is sufficient, which is why we are calling for the creation of an online crime agency to tackle illegal online content and activity effectively; but the Government, I am afraid, are not listening.

It is not just new legislation that is missing. I hope that some loose ends from the last Session will be tied up in this one, and I am thinking in particular of the Vagrancy Act. There was much celebration in all parts of the House when we finally consigned that Act to history, at least in theory, because in reality it has not yet been scrapped. The Government’s public consultation closed last week. I sincerely hope that the Act will not be in force this Christmas, and that we will no longer be a country which criminalises people simply for being homeless. I look forward to truly celebrating when that happens.

My campaign began when the issue was brought to my attention by Oxford students. When they were turfed out of clubs at a late hour they would have conversations with homeless people on the streets of Oxford, which was how they discovered that the Vagrancy Act was one of the measures used by the police to move them on.

Those students have now graduated, but another campaign is being run by new students on an issue that is really troublesome. I want to raise it in my speech today, and I sincerely hope it will find its way into one of the 38 Bills. It is a campaign to stop the use of gagging clauses for university students. This applies in particular to young women, because it is mainly young women who are the victims of this, and they are being encouraged to not speak out about their experiences of sexual assault in university. The prevalence of sexual violence among young women and girls is well known, and there are doughty campaigners on this on all sides of the House.

The group It Happens Here supports survivors of sexual violence at the University of Oxford, and it urged one survivor—I will call her Lucy—to come to me with her story. She has given me permission to tell her story today, to show just how widespread this issue is. She was assaulted in her college dorm room by her ex-partner, who lives in the same college. With support from the Oxford sexual abuse and rape crisis centre, she reported the assault to the police during the Easter holidays. On returning to the university, she was terrified that her assaulter would find out that she had reported him to the police and therefore try to hurt her again. On the advice of the crisis centre, she spoke to the principal of her college about putting in place measures to protect her.

Months went by. Eventually, the college set up what is known as a no-contact agreement. This banned both students from entering each other’s accommodations and set out separate times to enter the dining hall. That sounds perfectly sensible, except that the agreement was conditional—and by the way, breach of the condition would result in expulsion—on neither party making any information about the assault, the police case or the college publicly available in any way. That is shameful. These are Lucy’s own words:

“I signed it, feeling terrified that if I didn’t agree to it he would be able to enter my accommodation without any consequence. But I was incredibly upset about the effective gag clause. I was terrified of telling absolutely anyone anything, because what if college interpreted that as ‘publicly available’? I felt I couldn’t talk to anyone, my friends or my mental health support or my GP, because of it and felt very alone.”

This is not an isolated case. It Happens Here, the group supporting victims such as Lucy, has received testimony from survivors across several different colleges who are under similar gagging orders. I am aware of young women who are my constituents who are scared to talk to me directly about this because they are fearful that it would invoke the gagging clause and that they would be expelled. They fear that they have to choose between their voice and their future. The irony of this is that in cases of sexual violence, that discrepancy of power is at the core. It is not just about sex; it is about power. These young women have gone from a situation where they were robbed of their power into another situation where that power is again taken away, this time by the college.

I want to congratulate those survivors on having the courage to come forward to It Happens Here and to congratulate Lucy on coming to me, and I would urge others to do the same. I congratulate the Oxford student union, and especially Ffion Samuels, who have been brilliant at bringing these cases forward. I am pleased to report that Lady Margaret Hall, the college that Lucy attended, has now taken the important first step of signing a pledge committing never to use these types of non-disclosure agreements in cases of sexual misconduct, harassment or bullying. For this, it should be applauded, but it is shameful that it is the only Oxbridge college to have signed such a pledge. Some other universities have done so, but these agreements are rife in many other universities across the country.

I am grateful to the Universities Minister, who has called on all colleges to sign that pledge, and also to the Home Secretary who earlier today condemned such use of gagging clauses and agreed to meet me so that I could relay more stories of these victims. But for the survivors of sexual violence, delivering justice surely begins with allowing them to tell their story. We should be helping those victims to reclaim their power. These gagging clauses in the cases of sexual misconduct do nothing to help that. In fact, they do the exact opposite. They are immoral, they have no place in modern society, and I simply urge the Minister: please can we find a way to address this in this Parliament?

Ukraine Refugee Visas

Layla Moran Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

The scheme is uncapped from a visa point of view. I suspect that the issue of conversations with the Treasury may be more for the next UQ about the funding that will be provided to local communities where people are sponsoring. We are clear: it is an uncapped scheme with no restrictions. If very large numbers of people want to sponsor individuals, we welcome that. One of the reasons we have gone down the path of appealing directly to the public is that it has proved, first, to deliver far more spaces much more quickly; and secondly, to be much better value for money than more traditional schemes, as, sadly, we have seen with Afghanistan. When a large number of people arrived, offers via local councils from communities did not come forward to the necessary level and therefore we ended up having to pay for people to stay in hotels.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I have an urgent case that I need to raise on this last day before we rise for recess. The mother has a five-year-old. She is in Italy. She is eight months pregnant. If she does not get a visa literally in the next few days, she will not be allowed to fly by her doctor. She speaks no word of Italian and is really worried about having to give birth with doctors that she cannot communicate with. Meanwhile we have a host ready and waiting for her in Oxfordshire. Will the Minister urgently take up this case and help us to get her over?

[Kevin Foster]

I am very happy to do so if the hon. Lady gives me the details after this session.

Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill

Layla Moran Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 7th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank my hon. Friend for amendment 64. He was in touch with me about it over the weekend. He is absolutely right, and we are looking at the details of that proposal.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

As the right hon. Lady knows, the Bill provides exemptions that Secretaries of State would be able to use in order not to require an entity to be on the register. One of them relates to

“the economic wellbeing of the United Kingdom”.

Many of us, across parties—and I thank Ministers for being so constructive in this regard—fear that that could drive a coach and horses through the entire legislation. Is this another amendment that the right hon. Lady is looking at, or would she care to simply accept it?

[Priti Patel]

At this stage, I am outlining the measures in the Bill. We have a Committee stage coming up, and we are considering all the details, because we absolutely must get this right and ensure that all the measures will be effective.

Overseas entities will be required to verify information regarding beneficial owners and managing officers before making an application for registering, or updating or amending information held on the register. That is very important, because the current system is out of date. We need to be able to keep the information fresh and agile, and ensure that the right checks and balances are constantly applied. They will have to provide evidence to underpin that verification, and Companies House will be able to query all information under the broader powers we will create in the second Bill. If a foreign company does not comply with the new obligations, or if it submits false filings, its managing officers can face criminal sanctions or civil sanctions. Criminal penalties in England and Wales could, depending on the offence committed, be a prison sentence of up to five years, or a fine. We are also introducing a mechanism by which financial penalties can be enforced without the need for criminal prosecution. More importantly, overseas companies will be restricted in their ability to sell or lease their land if they do not comply with the requirements.

--- Later in debate ---

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills), and I associate myself with his comments. Although, as the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) said, it has taken a war for us to get to this point, I find myself forgetting how often I go to other countries and speak to people there, or speak to family members who live abroad, who say how they look to this place for what should be best practice. Yet when it comes to tackling economic crime we have been lagging behind. The Secretary of State said that this was done speedily, and I am reminded of when I was a teacher and people used to stay up all night to do the homework I had set three weeks earlier. The Government could have done this better and sooner, and they did not, but we are here now.

[Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady is making an excellent speech. Does she agree that actions speak louder than words? We have had an awfully long time to get this right—it goes back to 2016—so let us see some action, and action now.

[Layla Moran]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, and she is right. I do not say this in any other spirit than one of wanting to help. I thank the Ministers for the ways in which they have engaged with us, and I will keep working constructively with the Government on this, because we need to get it right, and not just for the people of Ukraine. Before I came into the Chamber today, I was talking to some Russians in Russia. I cannot name them and will not do so, because if I did, it would put their lives in danger. Members will be aware that on Friday Putin put in place legislation to give them 15 years’ imprisonment for simply saying that Putin is waging a war, as opposed to an exercise or a peacekeeping mission. They describe what is happening as strict and cruel legislation designed for political oppression, and they are asking Members of this House to work with the Russian community here in the UK to get the message out through their networks and to their friends about things such as how to circumvent Putin’s internet clampdown in Russia in order to get the BBC in Russian to people on the ground. There is something that all of us can do to help those Russians who want to help us here, and who are desperate not to be tarred with the same brush.

I look forward to the Committee stage that will take place later this evening, so I shall be brief, but I would love to hear from the Minister what exactly will be in the economic crime Bill part 2, especially in relation to the Companies House reform that we seek. I also want to associate myself with what has been said about enforcement. When I asked doughty third-party groups such as Transparency International and the Royal United Services Institute why other countries—America, for instance—had managed to include far more companies and individuals on their lists, I was told, “They have fewer laws, but they enforce the hell out of them.” Can we please be a country that enforces the hell out of this and any further legislation that we might want to introduce?

We also want to ensure that the second Bill clamps down on enablers. Amendments have been tabled to that effect, but we know that stand-alone legislation will be required for this purpose. It is not just the lawyers who are involved; it is the PR firms, the accountants, the banks, and all the others who knew what they were doing. It should not be ‘a case of acting “recklessly”—there are some get-out clauses in this Bill that we need to be careful about—because those people knew or decided to turn a blind eye, and that can no longer be good enough. I appreciate that this cannot be covered in today’s Bill, but when will it be covered?

I look forward to working with the Minister in future iterations of these matters, and I especially look forward to the Committee stage, when we shall be able to discuss some of the holes in the Bill in more detail.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Scully]

No, indeed. If the right hon. Lady looks at the Panama papers, I think she will see that they cite Emma Watson as having bought a house under a shell company owing to security risks, and the Pandora papers cite a former Prime Minister of this country buying a house in Harcourt Street and ultimately saving £300,000 in stamp duty. We clearly should not support that. So we have to get the balance right. There will be legitimate reasons, and there will be people avoiding tax, which we want to stamp out, but, in repurposing these measures, we want first to ensure that we are stamping out oligarchs’ money.

[Layla Moran]

The Minister will be aware of amendment 4—we will discuss it in Committee—which asks why there is an exemption on the so-called economic wellbeing of the UK. He will be well aware that many of these oligarchs own big companies that employ thousands of people, so the exemption could be used as a loophole. Will he accept the amendment? If not, will he explain why the loophole is there in the first place? We are very confused.

[Paul Scully]

I will happily talk about that amendment in Committee. However, I take the hon. Member’s point and the spirit in which she makes it. Perhaps we can debate that later, because I totally get what she is saying.

In respect of Russia specifically, we have swiftly implemented the strongest set of economic sanctions ever imposed against a G20 country, including the recent sanctioning of Kremlin associates Alisher Usmanov and Igor Shuvalov. That is worth a combined $19 billion with immediate effect. The Government’s new amendments will also streamline current legislation so that we can respond even more quickly.

We had discussion about funding and resource. The Government have developed a sustainable funding model, including about £400 million over the spending review period. We have announced new investment of £18 million in the next financial year and £12 million in the years after that for economic crime reforms, in addition to £63 million over the spending review period for the Companies House reforms. Since 2006-07, just under £1.2 billion of the assets recovered under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 have been returned to law enforcement agencies.

Afghanistan Policy

Layla Moran Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my hon. Friend’s local authorities. They have worked very closely with my Department in recent weeks, and I am grateful for that. He is absolutely right on the last point. These are very skilled, highly qualified people who can be our doctors and our teachers, while some of them can—dare I say it?— help through standing for local councils. They can make a huge contribution. We have settled on the funding settlement very carefully because we want to try to encourage take-up as quickly as possible. We also have the additional fund of £20 million to help those authorities that are telling us some of the issues they have with housing. We want to try to make this as easy as possible for local authorities.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I thank the Minister for her statement. I thank Vale of White Horse District Council and South Oxfordshire District Council, who have opened their arms and absolutely said that they will take as many as they possibly can. I am helping to support about 400 individuals at the moment, some of whom are from the Hazara Afghan community. The Minister mentioned that there were other routes available other than the resettlement scheme—because, let us face it, that is not going to be enough. There is one willing to sponsor their brother, give them a job and support them. Will the Government give a special dispensation so that that space is given to someone else equally vulnerable who may need it?

[Victoria Atkins]

I hope the hon. Lady will appreciate that I should not be making very significant decisions about immigration policy at the Dispatch Box, but I will take away her idea. We have tried, as I say, to construct this resettlement scheme alongside our existing system, going above and beyond what many countries around the world are doing. We are proud to do so and we want to encourage others to follow our lead. But of course the immigration system, as is, remains there for those who have perhaps sought asylum under the family reunion rules.

Health Measures at UK Borders

Layla Moran Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to speak of clandestine entry. First of all, rules will apply, and testing will apply, to everyone with regard to illegal entry to the United Kingdom and those seeking to claim asylum, although our policy is clear: they should be claiming asylum in the first safe country, not risking their lives by travelling by small boat or illegally being trafficked by people traffickers.

Secondly, with regard to Napier, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have covid-compliant measures in place already, in line with Public Health England. I commend our partner, Kent County Council, for the work that it is doing with us on safeguarding people at Napier, and we are going to enhance our measures even further to prevent the spread of coronavirus and protect public health. I give my hon. Friend that assurance, and I am very happy to speak to him further if he has any other questions that he would like to raise with me about Napier.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD) [V]]

In the week when we have counted 100,000 dead, the Home Secretary’s announcement is, of course, welcome—better late than never—but these measures will not work without 100% compliance with isolation. Currently, only one in five people asked to self-isolate in the UK does so. Evidence that we have examined in the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus shows clearly that carrots are often very much more effective than sticks when it comes to such measures, so does she agree that if the Government ensured that there was no loss of earnings from isolation, as other countries do, that might help improve compliance with self-isolation and so cut those chains of transmission?

[Priti Patel]

It is important to put this into the context of travel and the measures and checks that we have put in place around compliance. I have already stated that Border Force is undertaking 100% checks at PCPs. Also, when it comes to carriers, there is now a carrier liability measure in place; they have that burden, and they will be given a fine if they do not check their travellers before they get on their planes, in particular. These are stringent measures with significant penalties and significant fines in place, and the carriers, which are also operational partners that we work with, are very clear about that. However, the hon. Lady is right about self-isolation. Self-isolation must take place, and that is why across Government—not just the Home Office but health and the isolation assurance service, along with the police—we are working collaboratively across the board to ensure that those measures are being adhered to and enforced.

Fire Safety Bill

Layla Moran Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 29th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD) [V]]

Like many other Members, I vividly remember 14 June 2017 and my horror at the tragedy of the Grenfell fire. I was a brand new MP, with just a hot-desk and a laptop. Like so many, I was overwhelmed at first by the harrowing pictures and then by what felt like—and must be by this point—tens of thousands of emails from my constituents, hastily written, expressing sorrow, outrage and anger at how something like this could ever have happened. It feels like I have come full circle today, in what will be my maiden virtual speech, nearly three years later. I express my deep sympathy for the families and communities affected. I am sorry that it has taken this long to get this far. I am sorry that this has ever happened. We cannot let this happen again.

Grenfell showed us that we need properly to enforce and monitor fire safety regulations, and the Bill is welcome step. As my party’s education spokesperson, I welcome the fact that the Bill will help local authorities to enforce the ban on combustible-materials cladding on new tall buildings, including student accommodation and school dormitories. But we need to make sure that our fire and rescue services and councils are financially protected and supported, and that any operational changes necessitated by the Bill, and the secondary legislation, do not leave them out of pocket.

At a time when many are facing huge shortfalls because of covid-19, the Government need to be careful to make sure that the situation is not made any worse. The delaying of the comprehensive spending review and the precarious funding of our fire services mean that the money guaranteed in the Bill for them to carry out audits is in danger of being eroded away. I would welcome clarification from the Government on their long-term plans to support councils and fire services financially to ensure that the regulations remain fully enforceable and that no corners are ever cut.

It is absolutely right that the Bill will mean that fire risk assessments are improved, but the Local Government Association has concerns that the UK currently has a chronic shortage of fire-engineering expertise. We need to take this seriously across Government; without the skills and the know-how in our workforce, the Bill, and the building safety Bill to follow, may fail. The Fire Industry Association plans to advise its members that they should not provide fire risk assessments that cover cladding unless they have the requisite expertise; most, as yet, do not. Without the necessary competence and skills, the new risk assessments, which are absolutely needed, may be impossible to fulfil. We cannot provide any landlord with an excuse for not following the guidance.

We need more fire engineers—it is as simple as that. I would welcome clarification from the Department on what is being done with the Department for Education and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to make having more fire engineers a priority, and on what courses are planned. It strikes me that conversion courses and apprenticeships in particular are really needed. After all, it would be such a shame if the Bill’s ambitions were curtailed because we did not plan ahead and did not invest in training.

We need to continue to plan ahead. If we are to avoid another tragedy on the scale of Grenfell, we need to make sure that our country is equipped with the skills it needs to keep buildings safe, assess the risks and save lives. We owe it to the victims of Grenfell to make sure that we get this right.