Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [HL]

Lord Lennie Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 15th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise if I caused hiccups by not moving Amendment 20. That was deliberate on my part. I did not mean to cause any hiccups, though. I thank the Minister for engaging with these issues. This is yet another example of co-operation right around the Chamber on this part of the Bill.

[Lord Lennie (Lab)]

My Lords, I am also grateful to the Minister. Clearly, he has listened a lot and has provided a lot of change from the initial version of the Bill. There is a meeting of minds—there is no question about that—but the one issue that I am not sure he addressed was about the requisite steps that persons are expected to take to address the concerns which led to the designation in the first place. I would like the Minister to comment on that, but we support the changes.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, again, I thank noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, asked me to confirm that the Bill makes no provision to change the ability of the designated person to be given the reasons for their designation and to be supplied with an irreducible minimum of the evidence against them. The only issue is that we have always said there would be national security elements. The amendment specifically says that,

“the regulations may not authorise the Minister to provide no statement of reasons”,

which I am sure the noble Lord has noted.