Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Robert Neill Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 25th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I will briefly thank a few people on my behalf and on behalf of the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake). I must thank my noble friend Lord Callanan, the Minister for Business, Energy and Corporate Responsibility, who continues to do so much to support the Bill and has been a great help. I also thank the Home Office Minister, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, who is a fantastic asset to our Department.

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) and my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), who helped so much to prepare the Bill. Furthermore, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell), who ably shepherded the Bill through its early parliamentary stages, and the Lord Commissioner of His Majesty’s Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann), and his team for their excellent assistance, particularly when he courageously stood in and answered on behalf of the Department in a brief moment of surprise—mostly to him. I also thank the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy for their contributions.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his positive response to the amendments tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) and others in relation to the reform of corporate criminal responsibility. That is welcome. Will he take on board the importance of including in that the reform of the identification principle, which is a major bar to corporate prosecutions? The Justice Committee has called for that more than once in its recent reports, and it is supported by the current and previous Directors of Public Prosecutions and the current and previous Directors of the Serious Fraud Office.

[Tom Tugendhat]

I thank my hon. Friend the Chair of the Justice Committee. As he knows, this is an area of great interest and for further discussion, which we are indeed looking at taking forward.

I finish by saying an enormous thank you to the Bill team, who are in the Box today—Tom Ball and the rest of the clan—who have done a fantastic job on Burns night, of all times. Because it is a time for us to find that we are no longer wee and tim’rous beasties, but are instead going to look for that fair trojan of the human race, the “puddin’-race”—forgive me—I look forward very much to being freed of the Dispatch Box and skipping off to the whisky and the haggis. On that, Mr Deputy Speaker, thank you.