Draft Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011 (Continuation) order 2016

Debate between Rupa Huq and Keith Vaz

Wednesday 26th October 2016 General Committees

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

This is my second outing as shadow Minister, although it is my first in Committee. The Minister and I faced each other yesterday, and he will be relieved to know that, as with the Criminal Finances Bill, the Opposition support the draft order.

The draft order will renew for a further five years the Secretary of State’s power to issue TPIM notices. Such notices are rarely used, but as was pointed out, they remain a vital last resort in ensuring our national security. As the Minister explained, the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011 enables the Secretary of State to restrict an individual’s freedom of movement, association and financial action where that person is under suspicion but cannot yet be prosecuted or deported. Those powers enable the Government to prevent and investigate terrorist activity and ensure that our security services never have to wait for a terrorism plot to be carried out before they act. The Secretary of State can use such powers by issuing a TPIM, with the approval of the High Court. As has been explained and the Committee is now aware, TPIMs, like all aspects of our counter-terrorism legislation, were reported upon by the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation in 2013. We have had all that explained to us.

I want to touch on the two fundamental things that were changed as a result of those 2013 recommendations. TPIMs were tightened up, so that the Government could restrict where an individual may reside, which had been part of the control order regime. In the original debate in 2011, the Labour party argued that because of Liberal Democrat forces, or something like that, the Government were softer than we were on that issue, but that has been rectified. That recommendation was important, because individuals might find it easier to abscond if they can keep in touch with their former networks and the usual gang. There are two examples of people absconding: Ibrahim Magag and—this is close to home for me—Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed, who, completely coincidentally, visited the mosque right next to our Labour party office in Acton on a Friday and escaped in a burqa. People in Acton still remember that.

[Keith Vaz]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her appointment. She mentioned the so-called burqa case. She will have listened to the Minister’s reply to me that lessons have been learned from how that situation arose. We of course accept the Minister’s assurances that things have been tightened up, but does she agree that given that both cases resulted in statements to the House to inform Members that those individuals had gone missing, the Committee is entitled to know whether they are still at large or have been found? Does she agree that that would reassure the citizens of not just Ealing but the rest of the country?

Criminal Finances Bill

Debate between Rupa Huq and Keith Vaz

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 25th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

This is the first time that I have spoken from the Dispatch Box and I am pleased to find it accommodates even people of Rupa size.

I am pleased to be responding for the Opposition on the Criminal Finances Bill, which touches on issues that have been catapulted into the public eye with both the Panama papers scandal and the anti-corruption summit held here in May under the previous Prime Minister—how long ago that all seems now.

We have had a good debate today, which has strayed into the murky underworld of illicit finance, terrorism and international aid as well as home affairs, and we have had contributions from my right hon. Friends the Members for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), my hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans), the right hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) and the hon. Members for Kingston and Surbiton (James Berry) and for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless) among others.

This Bill seeks to tackle money laundering and corruption, to recover the proceeds of crime and to counteract terrorist financing, all measures Labour supports. This seems like good news in a year in which that has been in short supply on many fronts, but we must temper our reasons to be cheerful by identifying certain omissions and sounding some notes of caution.

First, the green ticks. We welcome the eye-catching unexplained wealth orders, which would force individuals with assets way above their means to account for those possessions, which can now include jewellery and art work as well as property. The new seizure and forfeiture powers will mean that such assets can be frozen and possession of them can be taken. As a London MP, I am all too aware of genuine Londoners who want to get a foot on the property ladder, but the transactions involving the ill-gotten gains of gangsters are messing things up for those people and creating an over-heated property market.

We also commend the fact that the investigatory powers are being extended to politically exposed persons. A thumbs up, too, for the new offence of failure to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion being applied to corporations and regulatory bodies. We also applaud the improved data sharing between the private and public sectors, and the Government’s extension of disclosure orders to money laundering investigations, bringing them into line with corruption and fraud investigations. Also to be commended are the strengthened suspicious activity reports. The period of investigation used to be 31 days. I think that there will now be six extension periods, adding up to 186 extra days. We live in an age when terrorism is probably the biggest threat of our time, so we also welcome the extension of powers to include terrorists’ property and finances.

So, what’s not to like? We acknowledge the steps being taken to tighten the net on corrupt practice, and we shall not seek to divide the House this evening, but more could be done to end the status of the UK as a magnet for dirty money. There should be no safe havens, particularly in our own back yard, where the proceeds of international corruption often turn up. Taken as a package along with its overseas territories and Crown dependencies, the UK constitutes the most secretive tax jurisdiction in the world. That is not a record to be proud of. Good work has been done in the reports produced by the Public Accounts Committee and the Home Affairs Committee, when they were chaired by my right hon. Friends the Members for Barking and for Leicester East, but not all their suggestions have been taken up. Many Members on both sides of the House have flagged up the fact that action must be taken on our overseas territories and Crown dependencies, and we argue that they need public registers of beneficial ownership. The British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands are among the worst offenders, and we administer them. We assert that this is the most gaping hole of all.

A trick has been missed. Applying transparency to those opaque corporate structures is a key part of the solution, but the Bill does not go there. We know that 75% of the corruption cases investigated by the Met police’s proceeds of corruption unit involve companies in secrecy jurisdictions, and that 78% of the companies involved are registered in the UK’s overseas territories or Crown dependencies. We need full transparency, but the Bill does not go far enough. A measure on the failure to prevent economic crime was trumpeted in May 2016, but it is missing from the Bill. Without some degree of transparency in company ownership, we cannot be completely aware of the scale of the problem or the damage that is being done. Kenya, Nigeria and Afghanistan have all conceded this point.

It has been pointed out that the people interpreting the rules need resources, and the weaponry that we use for crime-fighting could do with an update. The National Crime Agency will have more work to do, so the Bill will have cost implications in that regard. The agency is the successor to several bodies that have been merged. Notwithstanding the one-off cash injection that it received in the spending review, it needs consistency in its funding rather than just receiving one-off blockbuster sums. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East eloquently made the point that there were serious question marks over the IT system designed to support the suspicious activity reports regime. It was originally designed to deal with some 20,000 cases, but, as he said, it is currently processing 381,882 of them. It is creaking at the seams. A new system was promised—I think its name is ELMER—and I again ask the Minister to tell us when we can expect it.

[Keith Vaz]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Dr Huq]

Will it come off my time?

[Dr Huq]

Okay. Go ahead.

[Keith Vaz]

I can assure my hon. Friend that I would never want to reduce her time. I congratulate her on making an excellent maiden Front-Bench speech.

The delay in ELMER, and in the new system that the Government will want to put in place as technology moves on, will lead to more criminal activity. The quicker this is done, the better.