Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (Eighteenth sitting)

Debate between Liam Byrne and James Daly

Committee stage
Thursday 24th November 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Liam Byrne]

The truth is that people will be appalled by this debate. We gathered an enormous number of campaign groups and journalists together in the House on Tuesday evening, at a function that I had the privilege to co-sponsor with the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden. The kinetic energy behind reform is significant. The law will change—we will get there—but the question is whether this Government want to be the authors of that change or continue to oppose it.

Every single day that the law does not change, bad people and bad lawyers will be racking up millions of pounds in legal costs in order to intimidate and stop publication by journalists who are hunting the truth. I am afraid that is not a good place for this Government to be in.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

I refer the Committee to my entry the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. The question I have is not a challenge to what has been said. As a practising solicitor I agree with the points the right hon. Gentleman is making, but the new clause would impact upon some general points regarding the professional duties of solicitors to their clients. A solicitor accepts a brief and then has to act in the best interests of that client and do various other things. If that involves criminality, it is a different question altogether. The Law Society is very much behind these proposals; what further regulation or advice should there be for solicitors to ensure that they can act within legislation such as that proposed?

[James Daly]

I apologise; I said I was a practising solicitor part way through my intervention. I mentioned that because I was touching on the legal profession, how it interacts with legislation and professional duties, as also mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Security.

[Liam Byrne]

The hon. Member is not just a practising solicitor, but clearly also a recovering solicitor. The SRA has been on the front foot in wanting to crack down on some of the bad behaviour. We had this debate in January on the Floor of the House; it was one of the best debates I have seen in 18 years in this place. What became clear was that, although there are some in the legal profession who do have to operate on that cab-rank rule—they have to step forward and plea in favour of people who are at the front of the queue—there are others who have choices about who they represent. The truth is that here in London there are groups of lawyers, such as Schillings—there are many others—who are making millions out of some very bad people. In fact, those people are so bad that they have subsequently been sanctioned, in this country and around the world.

Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Liam Byrne and James Daly

Committee stage
Thursday 27th October 2022 Public Bill Committees

[James Daly]

Can we very quickly come to you, Mr Hames?

Duncan Hames: Helena is the expert on this particular subject.

Helena Wood: This is a welcome step forward. Others are going much further. The legislation that has been put forward in Singapore and Holland basically removes any barrier to information sharing by making it mandatory to share private-to-private in the context of the shared utilities that are being set up in those jurisdictions. Whether we should go down mandatory sharing is, as I have said, something that requires much further and longer public consultation. But we do need to look at that.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

Q Duncan, I think I heard you say that UK corporate structures were the structure of choice for money laundering in what was the biggest money laundering scandal in Europe. That chimes with a piece of work you put out on 10 October, which said that there are more than 21,000 limited liability partnerships that have red flags—characteristics of organisations associated with economic crime—and that economic crime could have cost tens or hundreds of billions of pounds. That is a hell of a state for this country to be in. Does the Bill fix the problem you have identified?

Duncan Hames: It is a serious matter, and this Bill doesn’t. Although, as you say, we published that report very recently.