Salisbury Incident

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As a former Security Minister, my right hon. Friend has a particular understanding of these issues. The ability to bring in the capabilities of the counter-terrorism police, who do not just operate in the Metropolitan police, as he knows, but have regional bases around the country, is part of the layered structure that we have in relation to police forces. I am sure that he will be making sure that the police look at the immediate response that they had to this incident. We certainly do not want to see an incident of this type happening again on United Kingdom soil and that is why we are giving a very clear message to the Russian state, but we do want to ensure that all our police forces are aware of the threats that they may face.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Prime Minister’s words were appropriate, measured and correct, and she has my full support. She mentioned dirty money from Russia. Can she look again at the role of tax havens internationally, including those in British overseas territories and Crown dependencies?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his remarks. As he knows, we have been taking a number of measures in relation to financial activities in the British overseas territories and dependencies, and we continue to press on those. Of course, we have enhanced our ability to deal with these issues here in relation to economic crime through the formation of the national economic crime centre. I am pleased to say, having formed the National Crime Agency, that we have now set up that national economic crime centre as part of the NCA, which brings a number of capabilities together to deal with these issues.