Russian Assets: Seizure

Debate between Roger Gale and Alyn Smith

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to wind up for the SNP in this very constructive debate. We support the motion. I commend the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for moving it; I can hardly do anything but support it, because I called for the same thing from this spot on 26 April last year and reiterated that call on 25 May and 22 September.

The SNP has long been pushing for a Marshall fund to aid the reconstruction of Ukraine. We have also been pushing for greater financial transparency within the UK’s financial sector. That is a good thing in and of itself, but the crisis in Ukraine has brought an urgency to the need to deal with the UK’s long-standing problem of dirty money. We want to see action, so I hope the Minister is taking good note of the constructive pressure she is feeling today. We want to see more, better, faster and broader action than we have seen to date.

I appreciate that it is difficult. I am a financial services lawyer—if we go back far enough—so I know that we are dealing with some of the slippiest, best advised and best resourced people in the world, who are very able to exploit loopholes wherever they exist, but there is a unanimity here and there is a will. I implore the Minister to do better than we have seen to date.

The London laundromat has been a long-standing problem for national security. My predecessor in this role was Stephen Gethins, who is well known to many colleagues as the former Member for North East Fife and who is now a professor of international relations at the University of St Andrews. He has put it very well:

“For years we have turned a blind eye to Putin’s dirty money, propaganda and influence in our democracy. Those who called out the corruption were badged as anti-Russian when it was the Russians who were Putin’s first victims. It is a shame that many are only paying attention to his crimes after such grave events. I hope that real action will be taken. After years of inaction we owe the people of Ukraine and Putin’s other victims at least that.”

As we have heard in the many excellent speeches this afternoon, the scale of reconstruction required in Ukraine is vast. Estimates vary from €600 billion to upwards of €1 trillion, but who can calculate it while the conflict is ongoing? It is going to be a major financial exercise in reconstruction, but the wider moral principle is surely that it should be Russian dirty money that pays. If Russian dirty money is good enough to be sequestrated, it is good enough to be requisitioned for reconstruction.

This has been a constructive debate. Let me give some examples of how other states are dealing with the issue. Estonia’s Government have declared a blueprint for the legal seizure of frozen Russian assets. The Frozen Assets Repurposing Bill is working its way through the Canadian Parliament. There is a Swiss law on asset recovery. Today, the European Parliament is debating precisely how to tackle the issue. I associate myself with other hon. Members’ comments that we need an internationally co-ordinated effort, because any loopholes that are allowed to exist will be exploited. I particularly commend the actions of the Italian state: the Guardia di Finanza has made strong strides in seizing assets.

There is a wider lesson for us all. I very much appreciate the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) about properly resourcing the new financial transparency regime that is working its way through this House. The Guardia di Finanza proves that if there is a strong and properly resourced domestic enforcement mechanism, we will see better results; I strongly believe that the Government could take that on board. Likewise, the Dutch Parliament has already created a trust fund that will be funded by assets in due course, and is working out how it can legally seize them. There is a huge willingness to see the Government do more and do better.

Let me end with a couple of, I hope, constructive points. First, we want to see a wider coalition: we have already seen a coalition in support of Ukraine, but we also need to see a coalition in support of these legal measures. I should be grateful for an assurance from the Minister that the overseas territories will be very much part of the UK’s new regime in this regard, because we are seeing pretty significant evidence that they are being exploited through these loopholes. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] I am glad to hear some support from the Conservative Benches.

My second point raises what is, perhaps, a broader issue. A number of the UK’s allies are actively engaged in assisting the Russian state and the oligarchs themselves to get around these systems, and they will be the source of the loopholes that will be exploited. Surely the UK is in a diplomatic position to put considerable pressure on those allies.

Having made those two points, and having referred to the unanimity we have seen today, I add my own salutations to our Ukrainian colleagues. There is a coalition of the willing in this House, and I hope the Government can rise to the opportunity that it presents.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

I call the Opposition spokesman.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Debate between Roger Gale and Alyn Smith

Report stage
Wednesday 18th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash). Bluntly, we do not agree on much, but I do not doubt his enthusiasm for the subject. If what he is on comes in powder form, I would be grateful if he could slip me over some wraps—I think I am missing out on quite a journey.

Much as we disagree with the substance and content of the Bill, it is a pleasure to speak in the debate. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara), who did much of the heavy lifting throughout its earlier stages and who, for his troubles, was rewarded by metamorphosing into our Chief Whip so he cannot be here today. I am pleased to carry on his work. The fact that he has maintained his sunny disposition and sanity during the process is testament to his fortitude, because when I read the earlier proceedings, I could not help thinking that they were some sort of satirical effort written by Armando Iannucci, Ian Hislop, Paul Foot or—to go back a bit further—Jonathan Swift or Lewis Carroll; I very much enjoyed “Nusrat in Wonderland” during the Minister’s opening speech.

I will focus on our amendments 29, 30, 31 and 33. We will press amendment 28 to a vote, because we believe that it is worth checking the mood of House. I will come on to the detail of that in due course.

I will speak about our philosophy and approach to the Bill, and about its import. I have never been more conscious of the difference in world view between Government Members and my party and country. We did not see the EU as a prison to leave or as undemocratic. EU laws were passed in conjunction with the democratically elected UK Government and democratically elected MEPs in the Council. The hon. Member for Stone talked about the codified basis of EU legislation, and he is right about that in codified jurisdictions, but to enter into the domestic legal framework of these islands, it had to be dealt with via statutory instrument. I really do not think, therefore, that the starting point of the Bill is correct.

I will give our bona fides. SNP Members deeply regret leaving the EU, as does my country, which voted against it. We in Scotland were taken out against our democratic will, so although the hon. Gentleman talks about a democratic deficit, Government Members should worry far more about the democratic deficit in the UK than the one in the EU. I see their smirks, as ever, but it is not just us that they are denigrating—it is the people of Scotland. In the last opinion poll, 72% of the people of Scotland wanted to go back into the European Union. We hear that Brexit has been such a success, but in 2016, the UK economy was 90% the size of the German economy and it is now 70%. If anybody would like to prove me wrong about that, they can try. These are facts.

I accept the democratic mandate that some hon. Members talk about, but in terms of where we are coming from with the Bill, I hope that Government Members respect our pro-EU sentiment, because it is deeply felt. To be clear, this is a matter of deep sadness and anger for us, but I am not interested in fighting old battles. I am interested in fighting future ones, however, and we will have plenty of those.

I say to Government Members: “If you will do this damn silly thing, don’t do it in this damn silly way.” I do not agree with the premise or the intent of this legislation, but it is the content that will quickly come back to haunt the Government, in exactly the same way that many other mistakes that were harrumphed to the rafters in this House came back to haunt the Government who tried to deny that they had anything to do with them.

Council of Europe

Debate between Roger Gale and Alyn Smith

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to wind up for the SNP. It has been interesting to hear the various worldviews expressed across the Chamber. From the SNP perspective, I am glad to hear the cross-party support for the Council of Europe, and I very much associate myself with it.

I was a Member of the European Parliament for 16 years. I spent 192 weeks in Strasbourg over those years, so the Council of Europe is close to my heart, and I suffered a terrible thing in losing such a wonderful environment and great colleagues at the Council. I was always struck by the genius of the twin-track mechanism whereby the Council of Europe focuses on the citizens and empowering their legal rights against their own Governments and states, and the EU is a more overtly political and trade union.

It will surprise nobody that it grieves me deeply that the UK has withdrawn from that co-operation in the European Union. I am not in the business of fighting old battles, but Scotland wants to be back in that co-operation; the SNP is an internationalist party, and we want co-operation and multilateralism in all its forms and in all forums. Scotland’s best future is, from my party’s perspective, as an independent state in the European Union. I will come back to that point.

That withdrawal, or retreat, from the international multilateral co-operation of the EU—which the UK has taken Scotland out of—is precisely what makes the co-operation with the framework of the Council of Europe all the more vital. I applaud the work of the delegation. It has had enthusiastic SNP support. My hon. Friends the Members for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) and for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) are enthusiastic members of the delegation. As long as the SNP is part of this House, that co-operation will continue. It suits our worldview to co-operate internationally and to be part of a multilateral enforcement of decency and human rights.

I have been glad to hear the support from across the House for the work of the Council. We need to bear in mind that it needs to be intellectually consistent, so that we work with and support the Council when it is difficult to do so, as well as when it suits us. I have been uneasy about some of the comment and debate, especially in today’s papers. It is not just about the European Union; I see the same ingredients in the public discourse about the European Court of Justice, the European convention on human rights and the European Council.

I say to Conservative Members present—although I exclude most of them from this criticism—that some of their colleagues are quite specifically trying to undermine the work of the Council. Perhaps they are doing so from a position of ignorance, as we have heard, but it is also possible that they are doing so quite deliberately.

[Sir Roger Gale]

We are in the presence of a PPS from the Home Office and a Minister from the Foreign Office. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that a knee-jerk, dog-whistle reaction to the Rwanda decision, and any attempt to attack the European convention on human rights and the European Court of Justice, would be a grave mistake?

[Alyn Smith]

I genuinely thank the right hon. Member for his intervention, and I could not agree with him more. One of the things that has struck me since I got to this House is that we are not all goodies and baddies, and there are a number of shades of grey within. I acknowledge the governing party on this issue. I very much agree with his point. Happily, it is on my page of notes, so we can all look forward to that.

That criticism of the framework is ahistoric. As we have heard, the Council of Europe came from a speech that Winston Churchill made in Zurich in 1946. It was formed by the London Statute, signed in this city in 1949. I am a proud member of the Scottish National party; I have a different worldview from many on the Government Benches and many of the Members of this House, but I celebrate the work of the English and Scottish lawyers in drawing up this international framework of decency historically. To withdraw from that would be deeply ahistoric and an act of nihilism and vandalism, which I would deeply regret. The part that the UK has played in the growth and development of the Council of Europe is an example of global Britain that we can actually be proud of, because it has effected real change in the real world, on our European continent. To walk away from it would be an act of great harm, not only to the wider continent but to us at home.

I pay tribute to that proud history, but I also have to list a few of the things, as mentioned by some Members, that we see currently. When we talk about grievous international acts of criminality in Ukraine, the Donbas, or Cyprus or elsewhere, we need to be consistent at home. So loose chatter—in the Queen’s Speech, no less—about a British Bill of rights, as if somehow the European convention on human rights does not work for us uniquely, is an absurdity. In fact, I would say that it is a deeply, deeply regrettable policy trend.

Loose talk of breaking international law—a solemn international commitment, only recently signed—over the Northern Ireland protocol, when there are dispute resolution mechanisms within the protocol itself, is setting the worst possible international example to those who would seek to do bad things internationally. How can we possibly look Mr Putin in the eye with any credibility when we are ourselves talking about breaching international law, as if it is a mere bagatelle? The odious reaction that we have seen to the European Court of Human Rights quite rightly stopping the odious policy of offshoring refugees to Rwanda is deeply dangerous. We are also seeing the limiting of rights to protest and indeed to vote at home; we can look forward to the Court’s judgments on those issues, too.

There is also talk in some quarters—not by everyone, but in some quarters—about “unelected foreign judges”, as if our own judges were elected and as if “foreign” has anything negative to it. The whole framework of extraterritorial judicial scrutiny is the point—it was designed in this city. The point is to ensure the enforcement of decency and proper legal standards. The rule of law is an important thing to observe at home as well as abroad.