Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill

Debate between Liam Byrne and Paul Scully

Committee stage
Monday 7th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

First, I thought that when I said, “Essentially, yes,” it was a clear, two-word answer to a simple question. I will cover my right hon. Friend’s amendments in my closing remarks, but I wanted to speak to the Government amendments at this point. However, his new clause 29 would give a huge amount of powers not just to the Foreign Secretary in relation to Putin’s regime, but to future Foreign Secretaries. We need to tread carefully and look at that carefully before the House acts in that way.

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

We can see that the sanctions regulations will become much stronger, but our sanctions regime is still a long way short of the kind of sanctions that have been imposed on, for example, Iran, whereby we are able to sanction secondary entities trading with sanctioned companies. Does this legislation allow us to enforce Iran-like sanctions on Russia, because ultimately, that is what will be needed?

[Paul Scully]

I think the right hon. Gentleman comes from a place of supporting the proposal from my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). I do not want delay the Committee in debating the amendments in full before I respond towards the end of the debate.

On the provisions on the register of overseas entities, we will increase the ceiling of criminal penalties for non-compliance from £500 a day to up to £2,500. Again, we have listened to representations from Members across the House. We are increasing the limit to allow for stronger enforcement mechanisms, but, by making it “up to” that amount, we are also making sure that we do not criminalise people who do not have their house in order but who are using these entities for perfectly legitimate reasons.

We are reducing the transition period for existing overseas entities to register their beneficial owners from 18 months to six months. We want to ensure that there is no place for corrupt elites and kleptocrats to hide, but there are many legitimate individuals and businesses that are likely to be holding property through overseas entities for understandable reasons, such as personal security. As I said, we want to make sure that we can work with people from across the House, including my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), to make that more secure and to see what more we can do to tackle the issues that we face here and now. It is important to remember that once the register is in place, new transactions will be caught on day one.

I am grateful for the engagement of the Scottish Government on part 3 of schedule 4. We are committed to consulting Scottish Ministers on regulations made under that part that contain provisions within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament. Similarly, we are committed to consulting Northern Ireland Ministers on regulations made under the similar mechanism for Northern Ireland in clause 32(4), (5) and (6).