Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate
Main Page: Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate's debates with the Cabinet Office
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberI am sure the noble Lord will be aware that a number of very substantial fines have been levied for breaching money laundering regulations over the last few years. In 2020, Goldman Sachs was fined £48 million; in 2019, Standard Chartered was fined £102 million; and, even in the last few weeks, NatWest was handed a fine of £264 million. This just emphasises our commitment to dealing with this whole area.
My Lords, having had the dubious privilege of being one of those who helped to draft the anti-money laundering directives in Brussels, and thereby finding himself described by friends as an expert in money laundering, may I enquire about the word “proportional”, which appears in the directive? Does my noble friend feel that that word is being properly applied by our financial institutions to small investors and those who will never be engaged in money laundering? Does he think that that is balanced and fair and that we have the right approach?
I would certainly defer to my noble friend as someone who is an expert in this area, which I am not. It is extremely difficult to get the right balance in these things, because what one person would consider an intrusion, another would consider a protection. We have to remain alert and sensitive to the different forces, but what is most important is that we have a coherent system which is clamping down on an extremely complex and fast-evolving crime.