Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] (Sixth sitting)

Luke Graham Excerpts

Tuesday 6th March 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Before we broke for Justice questions, I was speculating about why David Cameron’s Administration were quite enthusiastic to make progress on this issue but the current Administration seem less enthusiastic. I had basically made my arguments and I was about to bring my speech to an end.

[Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)]

I say to the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland that there are Government Members who are in favour of public registers of beneficial ownership in British overseas territories. I studied international financial reporting standards extensively in my former life as an accountant—I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—and I am a member of the Public Accounts Committee. Having more transparency through country-by-country reporting and ensuring public oversight and increased transparency of a lot of our transactions will mean that we actually raise standards, not only in the UK mainland, where we have done so by introducing a public register, but in our overseas territories. Given the opportunity that Brexit provides us, in terms of having to reinvigorate our economy and our brand, it is important that we lead. Certainly, what is good enough for the mainland should be good enough for overseas territories.

I know from conversations with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe and the Americas that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has concerns about whether it is right to impose measures on overseas territories. There is precedent for that, as the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland said, but there are concerns about whether it would be right to do so in this case. I do not believe in “devolve and forget”, although overseas territories have different constitutional arrangements. As MPs, we are responsible for taking a leading role. Westminster is here to lead, not to follow, and the United Kingdom should be a leading light when it comes to financial transactions and financial transparency, as it has been on so many global reporting standards.

[Helen Goodman]

The distinction that the hon. Gentleman makes suggests to me that, although he may hesitate to vote for new clause 1, he will agree to new clause 8, which merely calls for a consultation.

[Luke Graham]

I will come to exactly what I am looking for in just a minute.

[Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)]

Don’t let her tempt you.

[Luke Graham]

Yes, exactly. I am conscious that we have discussed new clause 1 at length and that my right hon. Friend the Minister has listened to private petitions from me and other Members. I reiterate that I am sensitive to the different constitutional arrangements for each overseas territory, the way that local legislatures pass their laws and the reasons why they have interests in different areas of financial services, as the hon. Lady highlighted. However, the United Kingdom Parliament should be clear that, if we find a wrong, we should try to right it. I have received correspondence from overseas territories about the cost of implementing a public register and how that might negatively impact their economies. The United Kingdom Government should try to help them with any transition or implementation costs. In the longer term, if it means a shift in their economies and if implementing a public register creates a large gap, we should commit to helping their economies to transition. We must not just take away one aspect of their economies and leave them to fend for themselves.

I ask my right hon. Friend the Minister to commit to engaging with the overseas territories. We have already made a lot of progress. The United Kingdom mainland is the leading light on financial transparency, and we have led the way with the public register. We must engage with the overseas territories, take them on the journey with us and help them to overcome some of the challenges they will inevitably face in a positive and constructive way.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire. My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland probably shares quite a few of these views. She made a comprehensive and weighty case; I just want to build on a couple of elements of it. We have recognised on Second Reading and during this discussion that Britain and the British Parliament have a really good record in this area. We should be proud that we are world-leading, and we should continue to be so. As we debate this transition Bill, which is a Brexit Bill at its heart, we should ensure that we remain at the forefront.

We can have the best fence in the world, but there are limits to what we can do if this goes on to our neighbours’ properties. If we have a special relationship with our neighbour, perhaps there are better ways of doing it—I will not torture that metaphor further. At its root, this is clearly a problem that needs solving. The hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire characterised it as a wrong that needs righting. The Panama papers listed the British Virgin Islands as the No. 1 location for those issues. Similarly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland said, Oxfam listed Bermuda as No. 1, and we have seen the briefing materials from Christian Aid. Just so this cannot be portrayed as an activist campaign—as though that could be a bad thing—HSBC and even BHP Billiton say that this is the sort of thing we need. BHP Billiton is the world’s biggest mining company, so it is not often that it and I are bedfellows, but it understands that unclear audit trails for money are bad for its business. They are bad for the communities from which the money comes, but also bad for BHP Billiton’s global finance enterprises, so it is urging us to take action.

This proposal is proportionate. We heard on Second Reading that, given that the overseas territories have had a difficult few months, time has been built into the proposal. There is recognition of how the Crown dependencies ought to be supported. Ministers have said throughout this Bill Committee that, when it comes to the overseas territories, we are responsible for foreign affairs and security. Absolutely—I could not agree more—and anti-money laundering and dirty money passing over borders in massive quantities are at the root of security and foreign affairs. Money laundering underpins global terror, and we ought to be squeezing it wherever we can, because that is one way of cutting off those networks. The combatants we engage with may seem like they are hidden in hills and hard to find, and are perhaps not like us, but from all we have been through over the past 20 years, we know that they have some very sophisticated cells, behind which is big money. This is a chance to clamp down on that.

This will say a lot about us as we go into the brave new post-Brexit world. We have heard the phrase “brand Britain”—the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire talked about our brand—and who we are and where we place ourselves in the world will be very important to it. On the one hand, our Ministers are going round the world saying that we have a great approach to money laundering, but on the other, these are British overseas territories—the Minister referred to them as overseas territories, but they are British overseas territories, and our name is attached to them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Alan Duncan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is exactly that comparison that we need to see in the round, in order to understand that there could be unforeseen detrimental consequences of any kind of imposition proposed for the overseas territories.

[Luke Graham]

I understand the Minister’s point about overseas territories and the challenges faced by other jurisdictions such as the United States. Britain leads in a number of global reporting initiatives. Without compelling overseas territories to change their ways, we could still lead the conversation with the United States and the overseas territories in the round, to ensure that we progress this reporting and show the benefits that we have already recognised on the mainland. I urge my right hon. Friend not to draw parallels between the devolved settlement in the UK because we have Scottish MPs in this House, and they are there making laws in Scotland, whereas the overseas territories do not have MPs in this House.

[The Chair]

May I remind the hon. Gentleman that interventions should be shorter than that?