Financial Services and Markets Bill

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 26th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant]

I think that both that intervention and the muttering from a sedentary position on the Treasury Bench give an indication of just how seriously this Government take money laundering. Perhaps we can all speculate as to the reasons why.

We are not against the idea that any regulation should be applied proportionately, but it is too sweeping a generalisation to say that, because of someone’s job or who they know, they somehow become less of a risk. Let me give just one example. Would Baroness Mone of PPE Medpro have been regarded as being at low risk of anything because she was a Member of the House of Lords and a one-time Government envoy?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I gently remind the hon. Member that we are not allowed to directly criticise Members of the House of Lords by name.

[Peter Grant]

I stand corrected, Mr Deputy Speaker. Unless I said more than I intended to, I think I was asking a question; I was not expressing an opinion.

Let us not forget that over the last 10 to 15 years a huge amount of dirty money from Russia and other former Soviet republics has been laundered into the United Kingdom by people who, at least financially and in terms of their donations, were very closely associated indeed with leading politicians. It has to be said that, had Putin not carried out a second invasion of Ukraine last year—if he had been satisfied with the original illegal activity in Ukraine 2014—that money would probably still be coming in, because the Government only moved in a big way on dirty Russian money after the second invasion of Ukraine. They did not do anything, or anything like enough, in 2014 or afterwards, so we have to ask whether they are really serious about cutting off this dirty Russian money at source and handing it back to the people that it was originally stolen from.

I thought it was quite interesting that the Minister said that it was a bad idea to agree Lords amendment 10, to improve financial inclusion, at such a late stage, when the Government are happy to accept Lords amendment 38, to weaken our defences against money laundering, at the same late stage. That may give an indication of what the priorities might be of people who wield a lot of influence over the Government—maybe not the Minister’s own priorities.

As I have said, we in the SNP continue to support the Bill. Our concerns on almost all counts have been in areas that did not go far enough, such as the accountability of the regulators—the Financial Conduct Authority, for example. My issue is that the regulators have not been held properly to account for the myriad times they have failed to regulate and have simply not protected the public and investors. Other authorities have not protected pensioners. We can look at Blackmore Bond, London Capital and Finance, Premier FX, the British Steel pension scheme, the AEA Technology pension scheme, and hundreds of other financial scandals that were allowed to happen—or certainly allowed to happen as badly as they did—because the regulators did not do the job they were set up to do. They should be held accountable to this place and to the public for their failures to regulate. I am concerned that if we tie them up with too much regulation about how they regulate, and if they are worried about being dragged into Parliament or politically overruled when they do regulate, there is a danger that they will start to lose their independence from political interference, without which no regulator on these islands can ever be effective.

It is disappointing that the Government seem determined to reject some Lords amendments that would have made the Bill better, and to push through at least one that will significantly weaken it. It would be sad indeed if this elected Chamber were not allowed to express its will on whether amendment 38 makes the Bill better or worse. I for one believe that it makes it worse, and I hope we will be able to divide the House on it tonight.