Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (High-Risk Countries) (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Robert Goodwill Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2022 General Committees

[Sir Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

I do not want to detain the Committee long, as I very much support the measures before us today, but will the Minister comment on some of the activity by the financial institutions, particularly the high street banks, which has become more of a box-ticking operation than perhaps an intelligence-led investigatory process? Let me give one example from my own experience as a North Yorkshire farmer with a turnover of less than £200,000.

I was telephoned by my bank, HSBC, some years ago to ask whether I had done any business in Iran. It is a little ridiculous to start interrogating farmers, and crofters in Scotland, about their activities. Many small businesses are being asked a load of questions that can only be seen as box-ticking exercises. That same bank was fined £63.9 million in December last year for not monitoring financial transactions—for a period the whole of Wales was not being monitored—and was previously fined £1.2 billion in the USA for not being on top of money laundering associated with the drugs trade.

Another area where the bank seemed to be overly officious is with regard to politically exposed persons. Every Member of Parliament is a politically exposed person, and in many cases it is almost like we are too difficult. I have heard stories from colleagues whose sons and daughters cannot get mortgages, because it seems too difficult to answer the questions about whether we are subject to bribes or other types of illegal financial activity, when in fact the UK is very high on the global index of non-criminal activity among our political classes; we are one of the least corrupt countries in the world.

Will the Minister talk a little about working with the financial institutions in the implementation of the measure to ensure that we target dodgy transactions and do not just tick boxes for North Yorkshire farmers who might be doing some business in Iran, or indeed for Members of this House and other Parliaments around the world who seem to be getting the glare of attention from these institutions, which should perhaps be looking elsewhere for illegal activity?