Corporate Transparency and Economic Crime Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Mark Pawsey
Main Page: Mark Pawsey (Conservative - Rugby)Department Debates - View all Mark Pawsey's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Kwasi Kwarteng
I would like to make a point about donations to political parties. We all know that we do not have state-funded parties. Any citizen can fund and give donations to political parties. I also want to say gently that not every single person of Russian origin is an oligarch. People come here—many of them have British citizenship—and they give freely of their funds.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
It is good that the measures will be with us tomorrow, but my constituents who have gone through the process of buying a property will find it hard to appreciate how, over many years, we have allowed the acquisition of UK property to hide wealth that has often been illegally obtained. Can my right hon. Friend reassure them that these new measures will bring this kind of activity swiftly to an end?
Kwasi Kwarteng
Absolutely. That is the point of this raft of measures. We want to shine the light of transparency on these transactions and to minimise the likelihood of people using our property and our goodwill to hide their ill-gotten gains.