Money Laundering

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Rooker]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have, if any, to commission an independent assessment of the scale of money laundering in the United Kingdom.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office and the Treasury (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)]

My Lords, the UK money laundering regulations require the Government to make an assessment of the UK’s money laundering and terrorist financing risks and to keep this assessment up to date. The Government accordingly published a national risk assessment in 2015, 2017 and 2020. Assessments detailing specific threats are published by UK law enforcement more regularly, including by the National Crime Agency’s National Assessment Centre and the National Economic Crime Centre.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his Answer, but is he not curious about the effects of transnational kleptocracy by British professional service providers such as HSBC and Mishcon de Reya, which enable crooked elites to launder their money and reputations? Would he condemn, as does the recent Chatham House report, the lawyers and PR agents who make quasi-libel defamation cases against journalists and researchers researching money laundering and then go on to deter the ill-resourced regulators, who can be bought off, as in the recent Mishcon case?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

I 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.