Global Anti-Corruption Sanctions

Peter Grant Excerpts

Monday 26th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend is another ardent, tenacious and eloquent campaigner on this issue. She makes a really important point. We obviously want to be able to apply all the tools we have at the most senior level. We are more likely to have an effect that way. The challenge, of course, is that the higher up the chain we go, the more indirect—I think that was the word she used—the links are, and the challenge is to make sure we have the evidence. However, we will look at this based on the seriousness of the activity and according to the policy note, which I am sure, when she gets a chance to look at it, will give her the reassurance she needs.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP) [V]]

The Secretary of State mentioned Transparency International in his statement. Last year, it said that it had identified more than £5 billion of property in the UK bought with suspicious money, one fifth of which came from Russia, and half of all the money laundered out of Russia is laundered through the United Kingdom. So does he not agree that any action taken by the UK to tackle global corruption will lack credibility until the United Kingdom Government have put their own house in order by implementing in full the recommendations of last year’s Intelligence and Security Committee report, including the tightening of rules on all political donations from Russia?

[Dominic Raab]

I think I have already addressed the second part of the hon. Gentleman’s question. On the first part, in relation to Transparency International, the United Kingdom is of course an open, outward-looking country. We want to attract direct investment, which is why, as I said in my statement, we need to be on the lookout and be eternally vigilant to make sure that dirty money or blood money does not drift into this country. We are taking these actions today precisely because we are serious about this issue. If he looks at this fairly, he will see that when we came into office in 2010, the UK was ranked 20th in the world on the corruption perceptions index. We have now risen to 11th, and we will keep taking action until we are even higher up the rankings.