Sanctions (EU Exit) (Consequential Provisions) (Amendment) Regulations 2020

Lord Hain Excerpts

Thursday 29th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the expert and diligent way in which he explained these regulations. I welcome them and I take the opportunity to welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, to this House. I am sure her voice will be heard regularly. Our paths have diverged considerably since we worked together as young Labour parliamentary candidates 40 years ago, but I am sure she will make a big contribution.

Will the Government impose sanctions on the former South African business brothers Ajay, Atul and Rajesh Gupta, who were responsible for looting from South African taxpayers around 7 billion rand, or around £350 million sterling, which was laundered abroad through British-based banks such as HSBC, Standard Chartered and the Bank of Baroda? The Minister may say that the current Magnitsky-type sanctions in our legislation focus upon human rights rather than financial crime, but in this case the two are indelibly interconnected. For example, looting from a government-funded project for poor farmers in the Orange Free State in South Africa left them penniless and unemployed, with massive damage to their rights and freedom simply to live—and London’s financial system was complicit.

Human rights are not just constitutional and civil but social and economic, especially when they are attacked by financial crime, as in this case. I have raised this repeatedly before and have still had no formal reply on the Financial Conduct Authority investigation into HSBC, triggered by my letters to the Chancellor in September and October 2017. I introduced a whistleblower to the Financial Conduct Authority but still have no idea what the outcome was. If the Minister is not able to respond in detail this afternoon, can he please write to me answering the points I have made?