Criminal Finances Bill (Fourth sitting)

Nic Dakin Excerpts

Committee Debate: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 17th November 2016 Public Bill Committees

The amendments will put in place bespoke arrangements for training, accrediting and monitoring counter-terrorism financial investigators. The Metropolitan Police Service will be responsible for training and will be required to provide a system of accreditation for civilians who wish to become counter-terrorist financial investigators. That will include monitoring performance and withdrawing accreditation from any person who contravenes or fails to comply with any condition of their accreditation.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

The Minister is explaining the need for the amendments. Will he explain exactly what difference the proposed changes will make to the accreditation? How will it compare with what it would otherwise have been?

[Mr Wallace]

As I said earlier, terrorist financing often happens much more in real time. It is not about someone banking their asset to enrich themselves; it is about funding an operation. There will therefore be different requirements for these financial investigators. They will almost be chasing the money as they go, often to stop an operation that is about to happen—someone may be about to book a plane ticket and we may need that stopped—so they will need a different skill set from a normal accredited financial investigator. That is one fundamental difference; another relates to the different approaches that the Bill takes to terrorist financing and to criminal financing. There is a difference between enriching oneself and funding an act of terror.

Amendment 16 agreed to.