Criminal Finances Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Rupa Huq and Charlie Elphicke

Committee Debate: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 17th November 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Huq]

I am reassured to hear that tenants’ rights, which are often under-regulated in this country, will be dealt with in the legislation.

I have a question about clause 26, which is on accredited financial investigators. We have had those in this country since 2009. Even though I do not have the exact figures—my iPad is not getting wi-fi—there is evidence that we have not hung on to all of them. People have been trained as specialist investigators out of the public purse. We live in an age where we should justify every pound of public money, and we seem to have lost those people to the private sector. A lot of them have been poached.

[Charlie Elphicke]

This was exactly my concern as I studied the Bill in great detail. However, I feel that my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle, who is extraordinarily able and learned in these matters, answered that question by saying that one should be able to draw on skills across the whole nation by contracting them in. I thought that was quite a powerful point.

[Dr Huq]

It was a powerful point. As I was going to say if the hon. Gentleman had allowed me to finish the sentence I had embarked on, this issue will be addressed at the end in one of our new clauses. Perhaps we could build in some way of, if not exactly giving them golden handcuffs, then retaining them or even getting the cost of the training repaid, whatever that is. We see the same happening across other sectors. We hear of junior doctors being lost to Australia. It would be a tragedy if we trained these people up and then off they went, poached by the private sector. We have heard of examples where they have gone to the gambling industry, which my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East has experience of in her role on the all-party group on fixed odds betting terminals. I flag that issue up now, but we will come back to it later in a new clause.