International Development: Education

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Thursday 29th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

I echo the comments we have heard. As a member of the Select Committee, I was very pleased to be able to support this report. I have to refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—I, too, attended the RESULTS UK trip to Liberia last year. Liberia is an interesting case study, because of the recent pilot that the Liberian Government have undertaken. They have trialled a number of alternative models of education: one whereby they have used Bridge International Academies, which we touch on in the report; one whereby they use local NGOs as providers; and one whereby they use completely non-profit international NGOs. When we spoke to some of the international NGOs on that trip, I was reassured about their motivation for engaging in those projects, which seemed very clear to me: they were there to help to reform the education system and then hand it back to the Government, with the idea that it should be the Government, in the long run, providing all or the vast majority of education services in-country.

Street Child, which works internationally, added only $50 extra to the $50 provided by the Government, meaning that there was $100 to educate each child. However, Bridge Academies added hundreds of dollars extra to educate each child from external money, meaning that no Government in the developing world would be able to sustain that level of investment if the schools returned to the Government. The report that follows and the outcomes base are interesting because they show that the Street Child education was more inclusive, reached out to more young people and had the same or equivalent outcomes as Bridge Academies. That study means that the Department needs to relook at its involvement with Bridge Academies and other providers and consider value for money. It is one of the first case studies in which we have seen schools running side by side in one country and sometimes in the same city. The Government in Liberia want to move towards a project with the Global Partnership for Education whereby they would directly run the schools. Although we are not a major funder directly to Liberia, we are a funder through the GPE, and we need to look closely at that model and reflect that in our work. I hope the Minister will take it into consideration.

The GPE, whose Senegal replenishment conference I attended with the Secretary of State, requires countries to spend 20% of their tax revenue on education. We do not achieve that domestically, so we are asking developing countries to achieve a very high bar. DFID achieves only about 10%—we hope that that is growing—which poses the question: are we asking others to do something that we do not achieve ourselves, either in the international development budget or in our domestic budget? We need to reflect on that, because power is not just about being a funder and setting the rules, but about leading by example and showing others the way.

On the GPE and replenishment, we recommended in the report that the full amount—$500 million, which is about £300 million—should be invested over the three-year term. I have written to the UK Statistics Authority about the use of Government statistics in this respect. The Government say in their response that there is a 50% increase on their previous contribution. I do not believe that fully reflects the picture. The pledge last time was £300 million over four years, which is £75 million a year. The pledge this time is £225 million over three years, not four, which is £75 million a year. The per-year figure is identical. The Department is right that we did not spend all our pledged money last time, which meant that we spent only about £50 million a year. We might spend the full amount this time, but we cannot compare what we spent to a pledge. One has to compare either a pledge with a pledge where we have maintained the same pledge, or a spend with a spend, in which case we cannot tell what we will spend until after the spending period. We have imposed almost exactly the same conditions in terms of the cap and performance indicators on these pledges as we did last time, which was one reason why we did not fulfil the full cap last time. This time, I hope the GPE manages to meet all our conditions and that it is able to draw down the whole amount.

We have given a very generous amount, and I do not want to take it away from the Department at all that we are the single biggest country donor and the second biggest donor after the EU, to which, of course, we have contributed, in the GPE. We should be very proud of that, but we should be so proud that we do not have to fudge the figures. I would appreciate the Department coming back and saying, “Yes, we understand that for public relations purposes we did this, but the reality is that we are looking for a like-for-like match.”

I also note that, on the same day as the pledge was announced, the Department released its new plan—its policy refresh—for education. Broadly, it was a very positive policy refresh, but I am concerned about page 16, which states:

“Securing teacher reform will be politically challenging for national decision-makers. It will often require long negotiation with influential teachers’ unions which have the capability to mobilise at national scale should they oppose reform. Politicians who rely on teachers’ political support face difficult trade-offs in negotiating improvements”.

I am worried about the tone that that sets. It does not talk about unions in a positive way. It does not say that politicians who work with unions are more likely to get added value in reform if they bring teachers along. It sets up a clear dichotomy between reform and unions, which is a real shame. I would hate to see again the negative and pernicious attitude that was in the Department for Education with the Secretary of State a Government ago. He described unions and teachers as “The Blob”. I am sure that that is not what the Department meant, but that phrase was very poor and did not positively engage with teachers’ unions, which have played a very positive role globally and sit alongside our Secretary of State on the governing board of the GPE. We should see them as partners, not adversaries.

Finally, I want to touch upon some of the issues around the international finance facility for education. We recommended that the Department commit to that. It only partly agreed to do so in its response, saying that it will look at the issue and when it has greater detail it will decide. I am worried that this is the same approach that happened with the GPE. We asked for an early announcement and a pledge to refinance. The Government said, “Oh yes, just wait.” Only the day before did they announce—on the GPE—the amount we would pledge. If we are trying to leverage more money and support, we must announce early—we must be a forerunner, not a follower. With the GPE, we have pledged an amount now that is unlikely to reach the cap and really has not leveraged a greater amount. I worry that if in the international finance facility for education we do not pledge early, strongly and unequivocally, other countries and donors will hold off. I hope the Minister will be able to make a slightly stronger commitment than the Department did in its report.

I have picked out some of the things I disagree with in the Department’s response, but it is important to note that, on the vast majority of things, we are clearly at one—the Government, the Committee and, I hope, Parliament. We support global education. We understand the value that it gives to people and children in the developing world, particularly to young girls and people with disabilities, where we have led the way. We also understand the value for our country of providing a world that is more educated and more equipped to engage in positive economic activity, and that fulfils the human rights we value.

UK-EU: International Development

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Dr Williams]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising that issue. Together with our EU partners, we are the world’s largest donor, but if we are alone we will fall down the pecking order. At least some of our influence comes from working with EU partners, but I concede that our role and our leadership as a stand-alone player are still very important.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making very good progress. Does he agree that it is not just money that is important to our influence in the EU? In the final stages of the sustainable development goal negotiations, there were four actors around the table: the EU, the US, the G77 and the co-chairs. Is there not a risk that if we do not come to an agreement with the EU, we will lose a seat in some of the informal negotiations that shape development policy?

[Dr Williams]

I thank my hon. Friend for that wise intervention. Yes, there is a risk that we will lose much of our influence if we do not get this right.

My final point is that we need to think seriously about what kind of country we want to become. The Select Committee on Foreign Affairs recently warned that the rhetoric of “global Britain” risks becoming nothing more than a slogan. Just a fortnight ago, DFID signed a controversial new humanitarian partnership with Saudi Arabia, despite what it is doing to put 8.4 million people in Yemen at risk of famine. When we form the wrong alliances, it could spell disaster for development. Some may say that we could form aid partnerships with nations such as the United States, but that would put our existing work at risk, especially in the light of the President’s Executive order that brings back the so-called global gag rule. We could find our ongoing progress on sexual health and reproductive rights held back by others’ beliefs.

Our partnership with the EU must surely be one of our top priorities. Given what is at stake and the risks of getting it wrong, we cannot afford to treat our humanitarian partnership as a bargaining chip in Brexit negotiations. The impact of our contributions on millions of lives and the amplification that they give to DFID are far too important to sacrifice in Brexit negotiations. I hope that today we will have a chance to put party politics aside and restate what I believe is a widespread commitment to moving forward with an ambitious and substantive partnership with the EU on international development.

To move forward, we need to fully understand the Government’s position, so I hope the Minister will paint a clearer picture of it today. In September, the Government published an ambiguous Brexit position paper, “Foreign policy, defence and development”, that made a commitment to an ambitious international development partnership with the EU. Six months on, however, the details are still lacking. Just weeks ago, DFID published a new paper that suggested that the UK will seek flexible engagement with different funds. It says that we will continue to seek influence and a seat at the table wherever we can—hardly a clear or compelling vision. Surely the public, our EU partners, non-governmental organisations and developing nations deserve more clarity than that.

I ask the Minister to provide some clarity by answering the following questions. What EU funds do the Government want to contribute to? Will the Government continue making contributions to the central EU budget, or only to ring-fenced funds outside it? Will they actively push for the European development fund to remain independent, ring-fenced and outside the scope of the central EU budget? I understand that that is far from certain. What influence would we need to secure from the EU in order to consider the negotiations to have been successful? What exact plans is DFID making for a no-deal scenario?

Tamsyn Barton, the chief executive of the UK international development network, Bond—British Overseas NGOs for Development—has already warned that DFID runs the risk that the EU will see it as cherry-picking. The Government’s new paper also urges so-called creative thinking. I hope that our negotiations in this important area of humanitarianism will not suffer from the same negotiating weaknesses that we have seen elsewhere.

I hope that this debate will be just the beginning of a meaningful discussion on the future of the UK-EU international development partnership. Questions remain about how Parliament will have a say on this crucial topic in the future and about how we will exercise real scrutiny over the Government’s position. The UK has collaborated with the EU for decades, with shared goals and values, to eliminate hunger, poverty, disease and inequality and to tackle conflict and crisis at scale. That partnership is too important to risk. We must now get on with the business of making sure that we preserve it once we leave the European Union.

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[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Mr Hanson, for calling me to speak. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (Dr Williams) for securing this debate, which is very important. Hopefully it will spur on the International Development Committee, which I sit on, to expedite its planned inquiry into this issue.

I will briefly touch on a number of issues, which supplement those that have already been raised, and which are particularly about the co-ordination of non-governmental organisations. At the moment, Britain and London are one of the leading hubs for NGOs and aid organisations around the world. Those organisations receive a number of substantial grants, from not only the British Government but the European Union, and they receive them because they have their headquarters or administrative offices in the European Union.

One thing we must ensure in any leaving of the EU is that we do not disadvantage NGOs that have decided to base themselves in Britain—very often because the British people have been so generous historically in supporting international development. We not only have Oxfam in Oxford, of course, but this city—London—is a leader for international development. Having a commitment that the Government will not only continue to support these NGOs from Government funds but go and bat for the NGO sector so that these NGOs are eligible for EU funds, even if their registered address is in London, will be vital to ensure that they continue their co-ordinated work. I hope that the Government will make a commitment on that.

On visits with many hon. Friends, I have seen how co-ordination on the ground is so important. Often, one of the big players—in other words, the EU or the United States Agency for International Development—takes a co-ordinating role between Government donors in countries, and Britain has often stepped up to co-ordinate EU efforts. Sierra Leone is one good example of that. Making sure that Britain is able to take the lead in co-ordinating Government efforts in-country, whether we are part of the EU or we have a memorandum of understanding with it, will be really important in ensuring that we continue batting like that.

The other thing I want to raise is the 2019 report to the high-level political forum. I welcome the fact that the Government themselves will report to that forum, which evaluates the sustainable development goals, but the EU will also report to it in the same year. How the Government feed into that report—feeding in the good work that Britain does—will be important, because it is international frameworks that help to leverage our money so that we have a bigger bang for our buck. However, if the EU report does not include British priorities, there is a danger that our voice will be diminished on the international stage. It would be really good to hear from the Minister on some of those issues.

I will finish by saying that very often, in my experience of international development diplomacy, and as I mentioned previously, it has been the EU that has led and co-ordinated, and it has been Britain within the EU that has helped to push the EU to be a leader in certain areas. I wonder whether the Government have had any significant discussions about how they will continue to play a leading role in “EU-plus”—I say “plus” because we will not be in the EU—co-ordination in New York when we are involved in these important negotiations. I ask that because there is a real danger, when we leave the EU, that if we do not have an arrangement with the EU to negotiate jointly with it, we will just not be “in the room”.

I leave Members with one anecdote. I was in the negotiations that set up the HLPF, and I remember that we went off into a small room. It was, as I mentioned earlier, the US, the EU and a few other big players. At the end of the negotiations, we had worked out a deal, but Switzerland came and said, “We’re not happy with that deal. We don’t like it.” The chairman turned around to Switzerland and said, “Well, I’m sorry, Switzerland. You’re not one of the big development players. You have a choice: you can either put up or you can shut up, but we are not changing our negotiated position now. You can vote against it and let the whole thing fail, and you will be the pariah of the world.” Switzerland decided to shut up and live with the negotiated text, which it was not quite happy with. There is a real danger that if we do not ensure that we leverage work with our partners in the US and the EU, we will become a poor relation, as Switzerland was on that night of the negotiations.

[David Hanson (in the Chair)]

We now move to the Front-Bench winding-up speeches. Given where we are now, I suggest that both Front-Bench Members take up to a maximum of 10 minutes each, and then I will call the Minister.

International Development Committee: Burma Visas

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

I thank my hon. Friend for his work in all those areas, and indeed as the Conservative party’s vice-chairman in charge of London affairs. I do not know where he gets the time to do all this work. Joking aside, I agree with everything he says. In many ways, we need to have a proper perspective on this issue, not just from the Bangladeshi side but from Burma too, in order to see to what extent there is any efficacy in being able to return to Burma at the earliest opportunity.

May I ask all Members here please to keep faith with Burma and the Burmese people? However much we distrust, dislike and wish to dislodge any Government, we must remember that this is important work that is being done. If we do not do it here in the United Kingdom, it is not clear that anyone else is going to have the commitment that we have; part of that, as everyone knows, is for historical reasons. Please keep that faith.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am, of course, disappointed by this, as one of the Committee members refused a visa. I am also deeply disappointed as a Member of Parliament who represents a city that not only gave Aung San Suu Kyi the freedom of our city but allowed her to curate the Brighton festival a number of years ago. This is a huge personal disappointment for me. Aung San Suu Kyi seems more and more now to be part of the problem, and not the solution, in some of the ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. This is happening not just to the Rohingya but also perhaps to Chinese nationals and Christian minorities in Burma. Will the Government consider convening an emergency summit to put sanctions in place not only against Burma but possibly even Aung San Suu Kyi’s family assets here in the UK? Will we immediately review some of our other aid projects such as the £5 million that we gave to Yangon University in a project with Oxford University last month, to make sure that that money is not being used for academic work that undermines the Rohingya? Could we at least try to go to the Security Council to get a referral to the ICC? It is better to have tried and failed than to have not tried at all.

[Mark Field]

The hon. Gentleman is right to identify the fact that, apart from the issue around the Rohingya—terrible though it is, and on a different scale from other minorities—other minorities have also suffered in that country, often for many decades. I take on board much of what he said. I have covered some of the issues about why we have not gone for a UN Security Council resolution at this stage. I hope that whatever investment is being made between the universities of Oxford and Yangon, some of it may be for very positive reasons, and we should not necessarily criticise it. However, we need to get to the bottom of that.

Syria: De-escalation Zones

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Monday 26th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I do not wish to go back over the points that I have already made this afternoon about the red line that was, alas, crossed in 2013. Where there is incontrovertible evidence of chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian regime, with the connivance of the Russians, then—to answer the question that has been posed many times—the people responsible for those attacks should be held to account. By the way, it was as a result of UK lobbying and the activities of this Government that after the Khan Shaykhun attack we listed several members of the Assad military and imposed new sanctions on Syria. That is the way forward. To get to the question asked by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), in the end it will be the fear of prosecution, sanctions and being prosecuted for war crimes that will have the most powerful effect on the imagination of these individuals.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

I agree entirely with the Foreign Secretary that we must aim for a political solution. Do today’s revelations in the media that we have spent more on our air campaign in the region than we have on humanitarian aid in both Syria and Iraq during the same period show that we should put our money where our mouth is and prioritise aid, sanctions and peace negotiations, not a costly air campaign next door that does not seem to be working?

[Boris Johnson]

Much as I admire the hon. Gentleman’s idealism, I must respectfully disagree with him. I believe that our military campaign has been highly effective in removing Daesh from Raqqa and Mosul. It was invaluable. The UK had the second biggest number of missions in the air campaign, as the House will know, and it was crucial that we did that. At the same time, as I have said to many hon. Members, we should not neglect the towering work of our humanitarian aid workers. We support the White Helmets very generously, for example, and they have saved 100,000 lives, which is something in which the people of this country can take a great deal of pride. Britain is leading in the humanitarian effort in Syria.

Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords]

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 20th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that if we tackled tax evasion and avoidance, we would not see such modest levels of overseas development? Countries around the world—in Africa and Asia—would be able to finance their own basic services. Those places do have the money, but companies are stealing it via evasion and avoidance.

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Quite a lot of the money that is hidden is hidden by corrupt regimes, particularly in Africa.

A major criticism of the Bill as first drafted was of its Henry VIII clauses. Throughout, the Bill was giving Ministers the power to make regulations—in other words, to make law that cannot be amended by Parliament and is sometimes made without even any debate. In our consideration of the EU (Withdrawal) Bill, Members across the House complained that the level of the Henry VIII powers was so excessive that the Government agreed to a sifting Committee in order to limit the concentration of the power of the Executive. Arguably, with no sunset clause, this Bill is even worse in this respect. Speaking in the other place, the well-named and noble Lord Judge described it as a “bonanza of regulations” and the “Regulation Bulk Buy” Bill. Their lordships defeated the Government twice in votes on this. I hope that the Government will not now seek to undo those changes to the Bill. If so, we will oppose them.

It is surely obvious to everyone that sanctions regimes are effective only when they are co-ordinated internationally, as the Foreign Secretary acknowledged, and we need maximum support across the world and agreed implementation mechanisms to enforce them. However, he did not really answer some of the questions as to how that is going to be done post Brexit. Half our sanctions emanate from the EU. I am not saying that this is necessarily a matter for legislation, but surely the Government should have a plan for how we are going to be involved in EU decision making on sanctions regimes and the implementation of those regimes. Ukraine is a good example of where that is needed. What specific plans has the Foreign Secretary developed for a framework to provide for continued co-operation with the EU on foreign policy issues after we leave? What discussions have been held on that particular issue in the Brexit talks? What are the Government seeking to achieve in their negotiations with the EU on that matter? We were warned last week by the three spy chiefs that, without co-operation with our EU partners in intelligence sharing, policing and judicial matters, it would be difficult to enforce compliance on sanctions, which are vital for dealing with terrorism and proliferation.

Labour’s view is that the core principles of sanctions policy should be that sanctions are targeted to hit regimes rather than ordinary people; minimise the humanitarian impact on innocent civilians; and have clear objectives, including well-defined and realistic demands against which compliance can be judged, with a clear exit strategy. There should be effective arrangements for implementation and enforcement, especially in neighbouring countries, and sanctions should avoid unnecessary adverse impacts on UK economic and commercial interests. We will seek to amend the Bill to ensure that those principles are adhered to throughout.

One very big and obvious hole in the Bill is its failure to incorporate Magnitsky clauses, which the House has repeatedly supported and voted for. Sergei Magnitsky was a Russian lawyer who uncovered large-scale tax fraud in Russia. For his pains, he was imprisoned and tortured throughout a whole year, finally dying having been brutally beaten up while chained to a bed. We will be tabling a Magnitsky clause that would enable sanctions to be made in order to prevent or respond to gross human rights violations. Such provisions have been adopted in the United States and Canada, and they were also reflected in the Criminal Finances Act 2017. I cannot understand how or why the Foreign Secretary has missed this opportunity; perhaps he has been too busy designing bridges. Such a step is not just about Russia. We are now in the strange position that the United States has tougher sanctions than we do on Myanmar.

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[Helen Goodman]

That is very shocking. I did not know about it. I hope that the hon. Lady will dilate on the matter further during the debate.

It is obviously possible for people to buy a property, take in rent in perpetuity and have a clean income. In evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, the surveyor Henry Pryor said:

“we do have the equivalent of a welcome mat out for anybody to come if you want to launder your money.”

Money laundering enables the corrupt to live in comfort and security. It is also used to finance other serious and organised crime such as drug dealing, human trafficking, terrorism and even the illegal arms trade and WMD sanctions busting. The click of a computer mouse in London or the overseas territories can mean untold misery across the globe. The Government’s own impact assessment for the Bill says:

“As a global financial centre, the UK is particularly exposed to the threat of being exploited as a destination or transit point for illicit funds”.

Ministers know that this is a problem. Between 2013 and 2016, David Cameron’s Government issued increasingly strong statements and promises, culminating in the May 2016 global summit. There were three specific proposals: a transparent register of beneficial owners of all companies registered in the UK, similar registers in the British overseas territories and Crown dependencies, and a public register of foreign owners of UK property. However, the implementation has been halting, under-resourced, partial and confused. Currently we have at least 25 different regulatory bodies. It is true that we can now see on the Companies House register who the person is with significant control, but last year 400,000 companies failed to submit the information. Companies House has no due diligence procedure and employs only 20 people to supervise 4 million entries.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that, when one of my constituents reported a fraudulent entry in the Companies House register, the response from Companies House was that it does not do the enforcement, but is just the registry? This fraud is a mockery of the whole registry system.

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend has brought precisely the point to the House in highlighting that unfortunate episode.

Registers have been introduced in some of the British overseas territories, but they can be accessed by the authorities in London only when the authorities have a reason to be suspicious. The inadequacy of that approach was demonstrated by the publication of the Panama papers and the Paradise papers. According to the Guardian investigators, the law firm Mossack Fonseca, operating out of Panama, acted for 113,000 companies incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, which hosts 950,000 offshore companies. That is a country with a population of 30,000. This is public interest journalism at its best—fearless, determined and forensic. Had it not been for the excellent investigatory journalism, we would not have known that Britain’s high street banks processed $740 million from a vast money-laundering operation run by Russian criminals through anonymously owned firms, nor that Mukhtar Ablyazov, who fled Kazakhstan in 2009 after $10 billion went missing from the bank he chaired, had a Cayman Islands trust set up by law firm Appleby.

Significantly, HMRC has been able to use the information revealed in Panama and Paradise to open civil and criminal investigations into 66 people and pursue arrests for a £125 million fraud, tackle insider trading and place dozens of high net worth individuals under review. Imagine how much more effective it could be if transparency were the rule and not the exception.

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[Dame Margaret Hodge]

I strongly concur. Interestingly enough, David Cameron recognised that in 2013 when he told the overseas territories to rip aside the “cloak of secrecy” by establishing public registers of beneficial ownership. He wrote to them in 2014 saying that public registers were

“vital to meeting the urgent challenges of illicit finance and tax evasion.”

In September 2015, he accused them of

“frankly…not moving anywhere near fast enough.”

He said that

“if we want to break the business model of stealing money and hiding it in places where it can’t be seen: transparency is the answer.”

When he launched the UK’s public register, he argued that

“it’s better for us all to have an open system which everyone has access to, because the more eyes that look at this information the more accurate it will be.”

I agree with all those sentiments and arguments. All that we are asking of the present Government is that they stand by the promises made by their colleagues, their right hon. and hon. Friends, in a Conservative-led Government nearly five years ago. I also agree with the current Prime Minister, who said:

“If you’re a tax-dodger, we’re coming after you. If you’re an accountant, a financial adviser or a middleman who helps people to avoid what they owe to society, we’re coming after you”.

However, our tax havens are “middlemen”. It is time that the Prime Minister and her Government turned their rhetoric into practical action, and put an end to the nefarious activities that take place in so many of our jurisdictions.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Many of our tax havens, and some of our Crown dependencies, were put on the EU watch list. They had to demonstrate that they were making improvements. I understand that one of the ways in which they could get on to the watch list was for the UK Government to underwrite that progress by indicating that they would support it, which would enable them to avoid being put on the blacklist. Is it not imperative for us to enforce the commitment that we made to the European Union in preventing them from being put on the blacklist by ensuring that they implement what they promised?

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

I entirely agree. Indeed, if we leave the EU without having implemented reforms that would have an impact on the overseas territories, the EU will blacklist them.

I know that there are many principled Conservative Members—including the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell)—who care passionately about transparency, and have championed the cause from both the Back Benches and the Front Bench for many years. I urge them all to make clear to their Front-Bench colleagues that they will support a cross-party amendment setting a clear and reasonable timeframe within which the overseas territories would be required to prepare and launch public registers of beneficial ownership. I hope that the Government will listen to the advice of leading Back Benchers on their own side. Those of us who are involved in campaigning for transparency are not seeking short-term political advantage. What we want is an important, sustainable change that will have a lasting impact on the process of stamping out financial skulduggery, and a considerable impact not just on the United Kingdom’s public finances but on those of the poorest nations in the world.

We can never build a global Britain on dirty money. We will not create a strong economy on the back of being the jurisdiction of choice for every kleptocrat and crook in the world. Our British overseas territories will not prosper over time on the basis of being safe havens for illicit wealth. Transparency is an essential tool in the battle against all financial crimes. Exchanging information behind closed doors, which the Government claim is sufficient, particularly disadvantages the very same countries that suffer the most from financial crime and money laundering, because they have the weakest regulatory agencies in operation.

Relying on regulatory bodies is also very much second best. Even our under-resourced bodies such as Companies House are at best reactive in their work on uncovering financial crimes; there is very little evidence that they are undertaking proactive investigations. Indeed, the constant flow of scandals is strong evidence that the system based on the private automatic exchange of information is not working.

Let us consider the case highlighted recently by Global Witness of the $75 million paid by Glencore to Dan Gertler, a controversial businessman accused of bribing senior officials in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to advance mining interests. The money was originally due to be paid to Congo’s state mining company, but following a secret agreement was paid into one of Dan Gertler’s companies registered in the Cayman Islands. Or let us consider the case revealed in the Paradise papers of Jean-Claude Bastos, who managed Angola’s sovereign wealth fund and was paid more than $41 million from the fund via a secretive British Virgin Islands company. The BVI company was itself owned by a series of secretive offshore companies, but the ultimate beneficial owner was Mr Bastos.

Today’s Guardian contains disturbing revelations that North Korea broke international sanctions aimed at inhibiting the development of weapons by using a network of companies based in our tax havens to acquire millions of dollars-worth of fertiliser, coal and other commodities—our tax havens, undermining our national security and that of other western nations. Secrecy enables wrongdoing.

Ironically, the British Government have accepted that argument, because we are ourselves publishing our national register of beneficial ownership. The standard that we accept for ourselves should be the standard we expect for our overseas territories. To pretend, as the Government do, that the overseas territories are making good progress is nonsense. It was 2013 when David Cameron first demanded public registers; nearly five years later, we are still waiting for a number of the jurisdictions, including Anguilla and the Turks and Caicos Islands, to set up a central register.

Let me take this opportunity to debunk some of the myths that were prayed in aid when this matter was debated in the House of Lords. Raising the spectre of identity theft and personal security risks is wide of the mark. Public registers can have tightly defined case-by-case exemption policies to protect individuals who are genuinely at risk. Ministers claim that no other countries are adopting public registers. Again, that is not true: the EU is currently implementing the fifth anti-money laundering directive requiring all EU members to implement public registers by 2019, including Gibraltar, and we should be implementing that.

Arguing, as Ministers do, that we should not act until others have acted is a wretched excuse. We have been bold in leading the movement to stamp out corruption; we should pursue that course and be proud of it. As the number of tax havens decreases and the noose tightens around the remaining tax havens, our action will make action elsewhere in the world inevitable.

I welcome today’s statement from the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union that the UK wants to lead a global race to the top in rights and standards. There is no better way of leading that race to the top than by insisting that our overseas territories adopt public registers of beneficial ownership.

Public registers will not undermine legitimate businesses or individuals who want to continue to take advantage of low-tax regimes. They will expose those who seek to hide their money because they have received it corruptly, or who unlawfully evade tax, all too often at the expense of poor people and poor countries.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

I agree with many of the comments we have heard today from both sides of the House, which I would summarise as a necessary start but not good enough, not far enough, not strong enough.

One area I am interested in is arms control, which the Bill misses an opportunity to address. The arms export control system we use in the UK goes hand in hand with the sanctions system we use to stop arms getting to certain regimes. The arms export regime we operate in this country is, of course, underpinned by EU consolidated criteria. There is no mention of consolidated criteria or of bringing the arms licensing regulations into a system such as the sanctions regulations. It is, I suggest, a great shame. The Bill does not touch on that area.

All of this is all very good, but enforcement is needed. Without enforcement, there is no point and the Bill is not worth the paper it is written on. Since 2011, there have been no prosecutions by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs of people who have broken the arms export regime or broken sanctions on arms sales. What is the point of introducing a Bill with a raft of sanctions against arms sales to certain regimes if we are not going to enforce them? It is not as though during this time there have not been significant and very credible reports that arms export controls have been breached and that arms have been sold to some of the most dangerous regimes in the world. We have just failed on enforcement because HMRC is under-resourced and these issues are under-prioritised in that department.

Turning to another area, I have a constituent who is a local business owner with a foreign national. She has reported many times her feeling that the company that she co-owns has been engaged in money laundering. She reported it to Action Fraud, Sussex police and HMRC, but for over a year, nothing was done. It took us hiring forensic accountants for HMRC suddenly to realise that hundreds of thousands of pounds might well have been laundered through the company. This was a director who wanted to blow the whistle, but HMRC and Action Fraud were just not interested. That is another example of how what is written in the Bill is all well and good, but the enforcement is just no good.

When Labour Members talk about wanting to give more money to our nurses, teachers and firefighters, we are often mocked by Government Members, who say that we want a magic money tree. It seems to me that a crop of magic money trees is growing with incredible health in some of our 14 British overseas territories. They are very clean because they are laundered daily, and they clearly like the climes—the balmy 32° that it is right now—in the British Virgin Islands. I note that many of the people in the Virgin Islands never really see these trees because they are lovely brass-plate trees.

Maybe it is not the climate that encourages magic money trees to locate in our overseas territories. Perhaps they thrive as part of a protection racket to shelter the very wealthiest in our society from paying their fair share. As we leave the European Union, it is vital that we have the mechanisms in place to replace the sanctions and money laundering provisions of the EU. I commend the Government for taking the first steps, but the Bill falls very short of creating a public, central and open register of beneficial ownership for our overseas territories.

More than 70% of corruption cases surveyed by the World Bank between 1980 and 2010 rely on anonymously owned companies helping to obscure what they are doing. It is the overseas territories that fly the flag of brand Britain and endanger that flag by not opening up—[Interruption.] I am sure that you will have a moment to reply later on, Mr Foreign Secretary. You do not need to chunter from your seat. These corrupt regimes are under the British flag. We have seen in the Paradise papers how companies such as Appleby—I call them crooked Appleby—advertise themselves as respectable offshore sector companies. However, they are now suing The Guardian for telling the truth that six of their 10 offices are located in overseas territories and are involved in money laundering. What will the Bill do to help people? Not enough.

We might hear from Government Members that we cannot do much on these issues, but a raft of people from overseas territories have written to me, begging us to take action, saying that they see no benefits in the territories for people on the ground from this tax evasion. It does not benefit our overseas territories. It benefits a small, super-elite and if we do not take action on enforcement in our overseas territories, who will? The Bill must go further. If it does not, we must ensure that amendments are forced in Committee and on the Floor of the House because there is cross-party support for ensuring that brand Britain stays clean and that we kick out the dodgy dark money from our country and our overseas territories.

Same-Sex Marriage in Bermuda

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Thursday 8th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin]

I think I have, in an earlier answer, already committed to doing that.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

How do we expect to be leaders of the world on this issue, and how do we expect to raise this issue seriously in the Commonwealth as the Minister suggests, if they can all turn around and say, “Well, in the territories you sanction it. In Northern Ireland you sanction it”? We are making our country a laughing stock in the international human rights field. Will we be able to think again? Will we put pressure on all our territories to introduce same-sex marriage? Will we consider the self-determination—the phrase the Minister uses—of LGBT people in our territories and stop going on about the self-determination of some usually rich elected politicians, far up in their ivory towers in their islands, who do not represent a lot of the minorities on their islands who we need to stand up for today?

[Harriett Baldwin]

In championing the human progress, as we see it, in England, Scotland and Wales, the hon. Gentleman rightly points out that it is somewhat different in Northern Ireland. As I pointed out, five Caribbean territories currently have no general recognition. There are, of course, a range of other territories that do. Around the world we are moving in the right direction. I strongly believe that in due course the direction of travel will continue to be in the direction he seeks, but in this case we are balancing this issue with allowing the right to self-determination on the back of a democratic manifesto and a vote in the Parliament of Bermuda.

Refugees and Human Rights

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Given my role as chair of the all-party group on Bangladesh, I will confine my remarks in this short time to the experience of those fleeing persecution in Burma and living in Cox’s Bazar. The right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) seemed to imply that the Government needed to get their finger out, as if this were something that had just happened. I think the House needs a little history lesson. The first major push against the Rohingya was in 1978. Then the Burma Citizenship Act of 1982 left them out of the list of 135 ethnic minority communities, thus denying them their state—so this has been going on for a very long time. In 1992, their political party was also outlawed. I understand that by that point 47 individuals—four of them women—from the Rohingya community had served as MPs in the Burmese Parliament.

This process has, then, been going on for an extremely long time. Those of us who have visited the sites and camps—right hon. and hon. Members from both sides of the House—have seen the atrocious conditions these people are being forced to live in. We would all accept that a basic human right is the freedom to worship as we see fit. The one thing that joins the Rohingya in solidarity with their brothers and sisters in Bangladesh is their religion. Unfortunately—it is a sad story to tell—the Buddhist community is complicit in and accepting of the driving out of the Muslim population that are the Rohingya. Yes, some Hindus have been forced out as well, but overwhelmingly it is the Rohingya, who are Muslims, who are being driven out. It is that link—of humanity and religion—that opens the arms of Bangladesh.

I am pleased that repatriation is no longer being considered, because the memorandum of understanding did not mention the word “Rohingya”. How can there be no voice for the Rohingya at the negotiating table? It is totally unacceptable that the oppressors, who are land-mining the border and driving people out with machine guns, and who have denied these people their rights since 1982, should be divvying up the role of the Rohingya and their future. It is no surprise that there have been marches and resistance on the camps to any talk of repatriation. How can anyone accept being asked to go back to a country where their existence has been denied since 1982? That needs to be dealt with as much as anything.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the hon. Lady share my concern at the British Government’s involvement in the last census in Burma, which we paid for but which made no mention of the Rohingya? We should be exercising our duty as the census payer to make sure the Rohingya are included.

[Mrs Main]

It was an international effort, I believe, but the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is unacceptable that they are not on that census. This is not a simple problem, however. I mentioned that there were 135 ethnic communities. That is part of the issue: Burma is a fractured country. It is not a case of just getting our finger out. This could be a very dangerous situation for some of the other groups in the country. I am concerned that this be dealt with appropriately. My plea, given that they have been shattered for so long, is that somehow the Rohingya be given a voice. I understand that Ata Ullah is not an acceptable voice, as he is leading a resistance group, but there must be someone who can speak up for the Rohingya. They are a “talked about” and “done to” group, and that cannot be right.

I encourage the UNHCR to do all it can, but the reality is that Burma is blocking, and while I can understand Bangladesh’s need to solve this crisis, it is not a signatory to the 1952 convention; it is acting out of humanity and love for its fellow Muslims. That said, it is a poor country. It is in receipt of a lot of international aid, but it cannot continue with this on its shoulders. We must keep driving forward to find someone who will sit at the table and say what the Rohingya want to happen, otherwise the rioting and unrest in the camps will continue. The worst thing we can do is insist that people go back to a country where they are denied even their existence.