Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [HL]

Lord Hope of Craighead Excerpts

Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 21st May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)]

My Lords, if it is not improper to say so, I hugely regret the decision of the Speaker in the other place not to have permitted the Government to suggest other solutions to this problem without the need to override the overseas territories’ sovereignty rights. However, we are now faced with the Commons amendment and, although I recognise how powerful the speeches of all those who have supported the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, have been, and although I am deeply sympathetic to the overseas territories for the wholly undeserved insult to which this provision now appears to expose them, for my part I hope that the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, will not be pressed. If it is, I should, regretfully, feel unable to support it. This is not an appropriate occasion for yet another vote in this House that would override the considered view of the elected Chamber—after a full debate, which I read in Hansard this morning—moreover, in circumstances in which it would be bound most mischievously to be misrepresented as a vote by a privileged, unelected body intent, no doubt in the view of some, on preserving opportunities for the continued secretion of illicit funds abroad. It would be a wholly false slur on us, but I fear that it would be placed upon us by many. I hope that this is not judged an unduly pusillanimous approach.

Assuming the new clause is agreed, one can only hope that, two and a half years hence, it will not have proved necessary to make the contemplated Order in Council and, accordingly, that we shall never learn whether the opinion of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, on its prospects were it to be challenged by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, was or was not correct.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I had not intended to speak in this debate. With respect to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, we owe a debt to the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, for tabling his amendment, because it has given us an opportunity to set the record straight. I hope that those in the affected overseas territories will take some comfort from the points in the very powerful speeches that have been made right across this House to express the great dismay at what happened in the other place.

I emphasise the opportunity that the noble Lord has given us to express our feelings, and personally endorse entirely what was said by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger, and the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, who set out very fully the arguments for supporting the noble Lord, Lord Naseby—although I know he will not press his amendment to a vote. It is very important, as I am sure the Minister will agree, that we have debated this and made the House’s position absolutely plain—while regretting that we have to accept the decision of the House of Commons.

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, first let me say how much I appreciate the tremendous amount of work undertaken by the Minister in all that he has done on this front. I know that he has shown a great deal of personal commitment—as indeed did his predecessor. That should be put on record by all of us. We have moved a long way forward.

The noble Lord, Lord Naseby, said that he would not take lessons from Oxfam and Save the Children because of their record. I declare an interest: in the 1980s and 1990s I was a director of Oxfam and I have stayed very close to that organisation all my life, and remain as close now as I ever was—perhaps closer. I want to tell the noble Lord that the dismay and disgust in Oxfam at what happened in Haiti at the beginning of the decade cannot be overstated. There is profound dismay at what some people decided to do, and at the damage it has inevitably done both to the organisation and, more importantly, to thousands of people whom the organisation is now unable to help in the way that it would have liked because resources have inevitably dwindled.

That brings me to why this debate is so important. We have been discussing the technicalities of law and the constitution, and talking about the democratic rights of people—but what we are really talking about is justice, social responsibility and the accountability of wealth and power in the world. My noble friend Lord Anderson referred to the Select Committee’s report. It is a very important report, which we should all take very seriously, but it is operating in the context of parliamentary democracy and responsibility. All this Russian and other accumulated wealth that we are talking about—let us not dodge it; we have had allusions to property wealth finding its way to some of these territories as well—is not simply the wealth of those who are handling it; it is wealth that has come from countless ordinary people throughout society. That means that we all have a responsibility to ask: what are we doing, with teeth, to make sure that people who deceive, cheat and accumulate riches wrongly and unfairly are brought to account?

That is why I say how much I appreciate the tremendous work that the Minister has been doing. He has demonstrated the importance of diplomacy and the reality of the world that we live in. It is a matter not just of stating these things, however strongly we state them, but of how you move towards achieving what you want to achieve, and I take his arguments very seriously.

In the time that remains for this debate, I ask your Lordships to remember that we are talking not about money, although that may be a way of measuring the size of the problem, but about people—people from whom this money was accumulated and the countless people across the world for whose benefit it could be used through fair systems of taxation and through policies devised to meet the needs and help the development and emancipation of those who are exploited. This is not just a technical debate. I know that it is not fashionable to say it in this House but it has to be said: it is a debate about morality, justice and fairness. We have to stop sentimentalising about our commitment to those things; we have to make sure that there are teeth and muscle in meeting that commitment.

Perhaps I may come back for a moment to the challenge thrown down by the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, about my old organisation. I invite any of your Lordships to come and meet the staff, the trustees, the volunteers and the people across the world in the organisation who are busting a gut to make sure that something that happened at the beginning of the decade and let down the whole cause can never occur again.