Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (Seventeenth sitting)

Margaret Hodge Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 24th November 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Alison Thewliss]

I rise to support the new clauses in the name of the official Opposition, because Parliament will need to keep a close eye on how a lot of things in this Bill are being implemented and whether they are effective at tackling economic crime. We had a lot of debate in previous sessions about powers versus duties in the Bill and said, “If they are powers, that is one thing but if they are duties, that is quite another.” If these powers are being exercised, we need to be certain of that and keep a close eye on this Bill. These useful new clauses would allow Parliament to keep a close eye on these things, because they would require the Secretary of State to publish these annual reports to give more granular and specific detail on whether the measures brought forward in the Bill are being used and are effective.

[Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Christopher. I rise to make the simple point that the new clause is not a technical amendment; it is about an issue of principle. It is about transparency and accountability. It is not a provision that improves things at the margin; it is about making the legislation fit for purpose. Without it, the legislation will not be fit for purpose.

Throughout my history of learning about dirty money and money laundering, it has been absolutely clear to me that we have a range of tools already in legislation. As we do not have any accountability to Parliament as to how and whether those tools are employed, we do not know how effective we are in the battle against dirty money. Let me give three examples. There is now a new bit of legislation on unexplained wealth orders; it is the first time that I have known Ministers to agree to an annual report to Parliament. They agreed to it when we did the emergency legislation. I have been arguing for that for years, so I was pleased to see it, but until that moment we did not know, and we have not seen the report yet.

A better example is golden visas. We are still waiting for the report on golden visas, how they were abused, misused and used during that period, and who was let into the country on one. Another example is the amount of money that has been frozen from people who have been sanctioned by this Government. We do not have a clue how much that is. The Government put out a figure the other day for how much Russian state money had been frozen—£18 billion—but we do not have a clue how much money we have managed to get off some of the characters we know are sitting on billions.

If there is going to be effective legislation, we need clear transparency and proper accountability. That is something that the Opposition feel incredibly strongly about. We will be pressing the new clause to a Division, because it is a sensible, pragmatic and practical provision that should be in the Bill.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I thank the hon. Members for Feltham and Heston and for Aberavon for tabling their new clause. I also thank the right hon. Member for Barking and the hon. Member for Glasgow Central for their contributions. I agree with much of what they said. As they know, I fully agree that Parliament should be regularly updated on the implementation and impact of this legislation. What gets measured gets done, and it is vital that we know what is being done with this legislation.

I will speak to new clauses 26 and 28 first, because I think there may be a duplication of things that exist already. Much of the information suggested by new clause 26, such as Companies House expenditure and the numbers of companies incorporated and struck off, is already published in the Companies House annual report. Companies House already reports publicly on its activities and its regular statistical releases on gov.uk. On new clause 28, through dissolution a company is brought to a point at which it ceases to exist and ceases to appear on the register. A company can seek its own voluntary strike-off, or it can be struck of compulsorily by the registrar. In principle, that process takes place when there is reason to believe that the company is no longer in operation or carrying on business. In both cases, statutory processes ensue whereby the public generally are informed that the dissolution is in train by publications in the Gazette. There are opportunities for third parties to intervene and object to a company being dissolved.

Concerns have been expressed that unscrupulous companies choose to give the impression that they are defunct in order to precipitate their dissolution and evade creditors. That concern is ultimately misplaced, as any assets left in a company following its dissolution will not be held by the company any more, and will be passed to the Crown, bona vacantia—as ownerless property. It is also important to note the effects of the Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Act 2021, which amended the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 by introducing a mechanism for disqualifying directors of dissolved companies.

It is also worth noting that the 1986 Act includes provision not only for disqualifying directors but for ordering disqualified directors to pay compensation. That provision is in section 15A of the Act and, as amended by the 2021 Act, covers directors of both insolvent companies and dissolved companies. If a director is disqualified and the conduct for which they were disqualified caused loss to the creditors of an insolvent or dissolved company, the director can be ordered to pay compensation either for the benefit of specified creditors or by way of a contribution to the assets of the company.

The Bill introduces a new circumstance under which the registrar might seek to strike off a company that persistently fails to provide an appropriate registered office address. I assure Members that the registrar will initiate dissolution in those particular circumstances only after having assessed the risks of doing so. The normal notification procedures, by way of the Gazette and Companies House webpages, will apply.

As noted, Companies House already makes data on company dissolutions regularly available. I question what benefit the reporting proposed by the new clause would add, as it is not clear to me that the information it covers would necessarily be available to the Secretary of State. However, I acknowledge the concern about the manner in which compulsory strike-off operates. I have asked my officials to advise me on the extent to which the Bill’s new information-sharing provisions might improve safeguards and transparency in this area. I am of course happy to engage further with Members on this topic in due course.

Most of the comments related to new clause 63. I absolutely agree that there needs to be a mechanism by which progress made on the implementation of the provisions in the Bill is reported to Parliament. There should be regular reporting on the registrar’s use of the new powers. I also accept that it is important to give Parliament an early opportunity to scrutinise how quickly Companies House implements the reforms.

I believe, however, that the new clause requires further consideration. As drafted, it has the potential to place unintended obligations on the registrar. For example, it will require the registrar to report on the imposition of financial penalties before the commencement date of the regulations. It also requires the registrar to indefinitely report on the implementation of the legislation, even if it is completed in the near future.

With the agreement of the Committee, I would like to ask my officials to consider the new clause further. I hope Members are reassured that we will give it consideration. If the new clause is withdrawn, we will have further discussions about what we might put in its place.

[Seema Malhotra]

I thank the Minister for his comments about the new clauses. I appreciate his response on new clause 63 and very much look forward to hearing from his officials about the proposed reports, but will he tell us when we will hear from them? None of us wants the measure to be lost in the course of proceedings, and we do not want it to be left to the Lords, so I would be grateful if he can tell us when he expects us to hear a response. Assuming that it will be positive, I am happy not to press new clause 63 to a vote.

On new clause 26, the Minister did not respond with the detail that I was expecting. I understand that some data is already published. We can have an argument about whether it is there, but it is easy for there to be a summary. If Parliament is looking at one document, it will want that data. It will want to review the later data in the context of the more procedural data that Companies House already publishes. I cannot see that it is onerous to publish a summary of data that already exists.

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

In the Minister’s response to my hon. Friend, he said that there was duplication of subsections (1) and (3). All the other things that were listed in subsections (4), (5), (6), (7), (8) and (9) are issues on which we want an annual report to Parliament because that shows us whether the legislation is working. If there is duplication, it is not the end of the world. There is a lot of duplication in our legislation—I am sure, Sir Christopher, that you are an expert on that—but that is not a sufficient argument to put the whole new clause out of the Committee’s consideration.

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[Seema Malhotra]

I thank the Minister. To clarify, he referred to coming back on new clause 63; my question is in relation to new clause 26 and whether and how the later subsections are all going to be covered by the Companies House annual report. It would be helpful if he responded to that, because currently I am not clear that they are all covered.

In new clause 26, we are asking for an assessment of whether

“the powers available to the Secretary of State and the registrar are sufficient to enable the registrar to achieve its objectives”

and about

“making recommendations as to whether further legislation should be brought forward in response to the report.”

Yes, there may be details elsewhere, but they could be summarised for the ease of use of the report. The new clause requires

“a breakdown of the registrar’s annual expenditure”

and

“data on the number of companies struck off”.

That information may well also be elsewhere. Will the Minister confirm whether

“the number of cases referred by the registrar to law enforcement bodies and anti-money laundering supervisors”

and so on is all going to published elsewhere?

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

May I also draw the Minister’s attention to new clause 26(6), which is important? It asks for an annual report of the total number of companies incorporated to the registrar and

“the number of company incorporations by Authorised Company Service Providers”.

The purpose of that particular bit of information relates to our concern about the integrity and honesty of company service providers. I do not believe that is covered in the Companies House report. I accept that there may be some duplication—we got that wrong—but there are issues of huge importance in terms of accountability and the integrity of the data that we would lose if new clause 26 were simply ignored.

[Seema Malhotra]

I thank my right hon. Friend for explicitly emphasising the importance of subsection (6). She is absolutely right. The Minister will be mindful of the importance of transparency in respect of the issues relating to incorporations by authorised company service providers. Will he confirm that all the subsections in new clause 26 will be explicitly covered elsewhere? If not, we will want to pursue the matter of how that information is going to be published by Companies House and the Secretary of State.

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[The Chair]

People can speak in whichever order they wish. If the right hon. Lady and the right hon. Gentleman rise before you do, I will call them first. Let’s suck it and see.

New Clause 44

HMRC anti-money laundering function

“(1) The Commissioners of Revenue and Customs Act 2005 is amended as follows.

(2) After section 5 (Commissioners’ initial functions), insert—

‘5A Commissioners’ Anti-Money Laundering Functions

(1) The Commissioners shall be responsible for anti-money laundering supervision.

(2) The Commissioners shall treat the function in subsection (1) as a priority equal to the functions in section 5.’”—(Dame Margaret Hodge.)

This new clause would require HMRC to prioritise its AML supervisory function.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 72—Office for Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervision: powers and duties—

“(1) The Secretary of State must by regulations set out a further power and duty for the Office for Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervision.

(2) The power referred to in subsection (1) is the power to impose unlimited financial penalties on Professional Body Supervisors that fail to—

(a) adopt an effective risk-based approach to anti-money laundering supervision;

(b) impose proportionate and dissuasive sanctions for non-compliance with anti-money laundering requirements; and

(c) fail to separate their advocacy and regulatory functions.

(3) The duty referred to in subsection (1) is the duty to publish the details of any sanctions imposed on Professional Body Supervisors, and its reviews of Professional Body Supervisors with data disaggregated by body rather than by sector.”

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

I will speak to new clause 72 first and come back to new clause 44. The Minister and the Government will know that time and again we have said we are concerned about the way in which professionals are checked, supervised and regulated in the financial services sector and that the current system is not fit for purpose. I think we all recognise that it is the professionals who play a key role in enabling the fraudsters and money launderers to successfully commit economic crimes. It is they who either facilitate, collude in or enable the wrongdoing.

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[Kevin Hollinrake]

Can I just say something from my own business experience? We had two very thorough inquiries from HMRC, which spent days in our office looking at our money laundering procedures. I am pleased to say that we passed the test, but HMRC really does take its job seriously.

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

I do not know whether I have the quote here from the previous HMRC permanent secretary—I will dig it up and send it to the Minister—but he actually said, in evidence to the Treasury Committee I think, that he did not quite understand why it was part of his job to do the supervision. I am not quoting him accurately, but the purport of what he said was that they see it as marginal and a sort of add-on—I think he used the word “add-on”—to their main function, which is to get the money in.

The position and reputation that professionals enjoy through membership of professional bodies is really important. Therefore, the professional bodies themselves should be taking steps to minimise and attack suspicious activity where it takes place, and they should be calling it out. It is in everybody’s interest to get the bad apples.

Let me give some evidence of the current failings as we see them. The 2021 review of OPBAS—the body responsible for all the professional bodies—found that 81%, or eight out of 10, were not supervising their members effectively. This review was done only on the legal and accountancy professions. Half the supervisors did not ensure that their members were taking timely action to improve their money laundering procedures where they were found wanting. A third of the supervisors did not have effective separation between the advocacy role and the supervision role, which I think is an important aspect. For a proper review, one would separate bodies undertaking supervision and bodies undertaking advocacy to ensure there is no conflict of interest.

Some 60% of the firms visited by the Solicitors Regulation Authority in 2021 were failing to comply fully with their duties to have adequate AML controls in place. OPBAS found that nine supervisory bodies of MLR are engaging in what it calls “low levels of enforcement”. The way in which those bodies respond when they find something going on is to have a quiet chat rather than issue fines and publicly censure lawyers for breaching the MLR rules. The highest ever AML fine for a law firm by the SRA was £232,500, and it was for Mishcon. If that fine had been levied by the FCA under similar powers, it would have been £5.4 million.

The Council for Licensed Conveyancers, another group of professionals who are active in this area, imposed zero fines, despite finding that two out of three of the firms it is responsible for supervising were non-compliant with AML regulations in 2019-20. To use another example, the Law Society of Northern Ireland imposed just one fine—of £1,750—in the year 2019-2020, despite it finding 228 cases of non-compliance. That is a considerable body of evidence, if I may say so, that shows that the current system is broken and not fit for purpose.

The Chartered Institute of Taxation, a group I work with a lot, found that a third of the firms visited were non-compliant, but only four firms were disciplined for failure to provide renewal forms by the required deadline and fined for failure to submit appropriate criminality check certificates or to deal with the action points that had been raised with them in the review by CIOT of their AML procedures. In three of the four disciplinary cases by CIOT, a financial penalty was imposed, and only in the fourth was the member suspended.

I know that the Government are looking at the supervisory framework but, as is the way with Governments, that could take forever. We want to implement these reforms swiftly, so we must have some assurance and confidence, particularly because of the outsourcing of the checks on individual companies, that the professionals will seek out the miscreants in their profession. We cannot wait for the review, to put it bluntly. With these measures, we have taken the least of all the options the Government have put forward and proposed it for legislation. If the Government, on reflection, want to come back with a tougher regime, that is fine, but at least we would have the minimum in place as we enact the legislation and the reform of Companies House. Our new clause says, “Action now. Toughen up the powers and duties of OPBAS—introduce greater transparency into the system, and comeback if that is needed.” We are suggesting new powers and duties for OPBAS. The power is

“to impose…financial penalties on Professional Body Supervisors that fail to…adopt an effective risk-based approach to anti-money laundering supervision…impose proportionate and dissuasive sanctions for non-compliance…and…separate their advocacy and regulatory functions.”

This is minimal, sensible and desperately needed now if we are to go ahead, with the speed that we all want, with the implementation of the legislation.

[Seema Malhotra]

I do not propose to spend much time speaking in support of the new clauses. The arguments made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking have broadly said it all. She highlighted the high levels of non-compliance, the very low levels of fines and disciplinary measures, and the frustration of the sectors in terms of tools to really root out the rogue players who need action taken against them. The new clauses would be very effective and are much needed, for the reasons outlined—in trying to get action now, toughening up powers and providing greater transparency. For the reasons that I have outlined, I totally agree that the Bill is the right place for these measures. We should not have to wait and wait and wait for what is likely to come and will almost certainly draw the same conclusions.

New clause 44 would have the effect of amending the Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Act 2005 such that the commissioners would be responsible for anti-money laundering supervision, and it states:

“The Commissioners shall treat the function in subsection (1) as a priority”.

New clause 72 would introduce provisions requiring the Secretary of State, by regulations, to set out a further power and duty for the Office for Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervision. This is defined as

“the power to impose unlimited financial penalties on Professional Body Supervisors that fail”—

that fail—

“to…adopt an effective risk-based approach to anti-money laundering supervision…impose proportionate and dissuasive sanctions for non-compliance with anti-money laundering requirements …and …separate their advocacy and regulatory functions.”

We want stronger action taken against economic crime, not least because we know the scale at which it comes through the cracks, with the damage that it does to our economy. It seems to me that tightening up the roles and the performance of professional body supervisors and HMRC in some way is an opportunity that we should not miss.

The proposed clause would also insert a duty

“to publish the details of any sanctions imposed on Professional Body Supervisors, and…reviews of Professional Body Supervisors with data disaggregated by body rather than by sector.”

The sum of the two new clauses is to ensure the urgent improvement of the UK’s anti-money laundering sector. Throughout our witness sessions and Committee debates, we have heard about the lack of effectiveness of our AML system. I think that is a view also supported by the Minister. The changes are a much-needed strengthening and safeguarding against potentially rogue corporate service providers, the third parties who act on behalf of companies and can carry out the identity verification of directors.

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[The Minister for Security (Tom Tugendhat)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill and for Barking for their amendments, and I welcome the effort and energy they put into the oversight mechanisms that are so important in ensuring that the Bill is effective. That is the nice bit. They know what is coming next.

I do agree enormously on the importance of supervision, which has been emphasised, but I am afraid I cannot support new clause 44. Despite what the right hon. Member for Barking says, HMRC already has an anti-money laundering supervisory function and it does take its responsibilities extremely seriously. It supervises nine sectors and is the default supervisor for trust and company service providers where they are not already subject to supervision by the FCA or one of the 22 professional bodies.

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

I wish I had brought some of my previous notes with me. What evidence does the Minister have of that, apart from HMRC telling us that?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

It visited my business!

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

I am amazed that it did. Is there evidence of the number of visits or assessments carried out? I can remember a quote from the previous permanent secretary, who said, “It is not our core business.”

[Tom Tugendhat]

The core business of HMRC is raising money and ensuring that that money is clean. That is absolutely essential. Until HMRC works out whether or not the money is clean, it is hard to raise money. I would be hard pressed to describe my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary as a dodgy individual, but if he is going through these AML checks I think it is a good indication that HMRC is taking such matters very seriously. As I say, the checks are already being done and the responsibilities are held by branches of the Government, including HMRC and other professional bodies.

The amendments are therefore a duplication. The reality is that HMRC carried out 3,500 formal compliance inspections with businesses last year and issued over £2.5 million of penalties in 2021-22. That demonstrates that the business checks are not symbolic. They are not minor. They are extremely serious. HMRC takes them very seriously. I think the Government is entirely in agreement with the right hon. Lady that these checks need to happen, but the scale and type of reform to improve effectiveness and solve these problems is not yet clear. The Treasury will no doubt have many views when its formal consultation on the possible options opens. The consultation will ensure that the risks and implications of each option are fully understood before the Government commit to any particular model. The right hon. Lady knows very well that we need to get this right, not just to be quick.

On new clause 72, I welcome the desire to strengthen the UK’s anti-money laundering regime. I also share the support for the work OPBAS does. However, it is not yet the right time for the proposed changes, and I cannot support the suggested amendment. In June of this year, the Treasury published a review of the UK’s anti-money laundering regime, which considered the performance of the supervisory regime, including the work of OPBAS. It concluded that although there have been significant improvements in recent years, further reform is necessary to ensure effective supervision across the regulated sector. The review set out four options for reform, ranging from strengthening OPBAS to structural reform to establish a new statutory supervisor. Further policy work to develop these options is already under way, and the Treasury has committed to publishing a consultation before a decision on the direction for reform is made. It would be wrong to preclude the ongoing policy analysis and public consultation by making the changes proposed by the amendment.

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

I heard the Minister’s words with gloom. Initially, the Government put out a consultation with four options, and to speed it up, we decided to go with the weakest of the options—the one to which there would be the least objections. What I think I just heard him say, which is so gloomy, is that the Government will now publish a further consultation. All this stuff in the Bill will come into being and we will have absolutely no assurance that proper checking, regulation and supervision will be carried out on company service providers.

[Tom Tugendhat]

As I say, this is really a matter for the Treasury, and it has committed to publishing a consultation before the decision is made. It would be wrong of me to preclude the ongoing policy analysis and public consultation by making—

[Tom Tugendhat]

I have had many conversations with Treasury colleagues in recent weeks and months on various aspects of the challenges that economic crime poses to the UK. Many of us are committed—in fact, the Treasury is very committed—to ensuring that economic crime is reduced in this country. The support that the Treasury has given in various different ways has resulted in many things, including a very successful operation conducted this morning by the Metropolitan police that resulted in the arrest of many people connected to economic crime. That may sound tangential on the grounds that it is about fraud, but the reality is that all of it is connected. We see a very strong overlap between money laundering, fraud and various other different forms of economic crime. The Treasury, unsurprisingly, is extremely committed to making sure that economic crime in this country reduces. The Home Office and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy are absolutely committed to making sure that we considerably reduce the level of fraud in this country.

What is important now is to ensure that we make OPBAS as effective as possible, and that we look for some of the reforms that we have started to highlight, because that means that the changes required by the amendment will be unnecessary. I hope that we can focus on that aim.

I have just been given a statistic that records that in October 2022, HMRC named 68 estate agents that had breached anti-money laundering regulations, and fined them a collective total of £519,000. We can see that the supervision of estate agents is not just conducted by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary but by many others around the country and is taken extremely seriously.

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

I hear what the Minister says, but I think we will just be setting up another duff register unless we get the regulation of those company service providers toughened up at the same time as we introduce the Bill. I want to press new clause 72 to a vote.

[The Chair]

You will not be able to do that now, and in the meantime, you must seek the leave of the Committee to withdraw new clause 44.

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

Thank you very much, Sir Christopher. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 50

Requirement for UK-resident director

‘(1) The Companies Act is amended as follows.

(2) In section 156B of the Companies Act 2006, inserted by section 87 of the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015, after subsection (4) insert—

“(4A) The regulations must also include provision to require all companies to have at least one director who is ordinarily resident in the UK.”’—(Stephen Kinnock.)

This new clause would amend the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 to require all companies to have at least one person who ordinarily resides in the UK as a director.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Stephen Kinnock]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

New clause 49 sought to ensure that the provisions of the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015, which require company directors to be natural persons, would be brought into force. The Opposition welcomed the Minister’s commitment to introducing the necessary regulations to enact that measure in the near future, and we are very pleased to have that on the record. At the same time, however, the Opposition remain convinced that there is much more that the Government could and should be doing to reduce the risks of money laundering and economic crime within the company registration requirements. The new clauses we are about to discuss provide a number of different means by which the law could be further strengthened against the risk of such abuses.

New clause 50 would make it a requirement that every company registering in the UK has at least one director who is ordinarily resident here. I have already spoken in Committee about the risks that often come with a system that allows companies to register in places to which they have a tenuous connection in terms of actually doing business there. Although there may be certain limited circumstances in which it might be legitimate for a company with no UK-based directors to register with Companies House, I am struggling to see what they might be. On the other hand, I can think of plenty of reasons why the fact that a company has no UK-based directors might be considered a red flag for money laundering risks, calling for additional scrutiny from the registrar.