Money Laundering

John Bercow Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Security and Economic Crime (Mr Ben Wallace)]

I thank the shadow Chancellor for giving the Government the opportunity to come here today to say what they have been doing on dirty money and money laundering in the United Kingdom. It is a long list, Mr Speaker, so I ask you to have a bit of patience and I will try to be as quick as possible in reading it.

We have made it harder for crooks to launder money through property, jewellery and betting. We have reversed the burden of proof so that people we think have links to organised crime have to prove where their assets come from. If they cannot prove it, we will seize the asset and dispose of it, or keep it to distribute it to countries where it may have been stolen. We have, for the first time, through the Magnitsky amendment made it possible to confiscate assets from people guilty of gross human rights abuse. We will complete that with an amendment to the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill currently going through Parliament. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) and the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge), who actually led the campaign on the Magnitsky amendment, not Labour Front Benchers.

We have made it easier to seize criminals’ money from bank accounts. We have introduced new powers to be able to freeze terrorists’ assets, and we did so on the very day that the provision came into force. We have made it a criminal offence to fail to prevent tax evasion, both at home and overseas. We are currently exploring the potential of widening other areas where failure to prevent may apply in economic crime.

We have brought a number of prosecutions under the Bribery Act 2010 of those involved in bribery, and we have had the first conviction of a company for failing to prevent bribery. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is quite a lot of noise. I know that the Minister is keen to rattle through, and we are deeply obliged to him for doing so, but I just say very gently to him that there is no prohibition on breathing during the delivery of an answer to an urgent question.

[Mr Wallace]

We introduced deferred prosecution agreements to ensure that we maximise incentives for companies to face up to fraud and corruption. We are setting up the National Economic Crime Centre within the National Crime Agency. We have brought together the many strands of economic crime under one Minister—namely myself. We have bolstered the Serious Fraud Office by ensuring access to blockbuster funding so as to ensure that big business and overseas oligarchs cannot use their wealth to obstruct justice. The previous Prime Minister, David Cameron, initiated an international anti-corruption summit. In response to the Panama papers, we established a joint financial analysis centre within the NCA. We have established one of the world’s first public registers of beneficial ownership of companies. We have helped to establish in all overseas territories and Crown dependencies a register of beneficial ownership, with mutual and, in some cases, live-time access to law enforcement. We have committed to establishing a public register of overseas owners of property in the United Kingdom.

This Government have taken real steps to tackle criminal finance in this country. Whoever the crooks are, wherever they are from, and no matter what their nationality, we will pursue them and their cash.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. A very large number of hon. and right hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye, but I remind the House that there are two further urgent questions to follow, meaning that there is a premium now upon brevity, which, as always, will be brilliantly exemplified by Sir Desmond Swayne.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

How much have we secured since the implementation of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002?

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I note that Members only on the Opposition Benches—a large number of them—are standing. True to form, I am sure that they will want to behave in a comradely fashion towards one another, recognising that a long question by one will stop another. I am sure that they are not the sort of people who would want that to happen.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Further to the questions that have been asked, the Minister might hide behind operational independence, but what does it say about this country when we are the only one that does not believe the threshold of evidence has been met? What leadership is the Minister providing, so that the UK takes this seriously, as all these other countries are doing?

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[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

I think the point of order appertains to the recent exchanges, and I will therefore take it now.

[John McDonnell]

I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker. We were hoping for a much more bipartisan approach today, but the Minister started off by making a statement in which he implied something that I do not think he wanted to imply, namely that we had not raised the issue recently. He implied that I had not raised it since, I think, 2016.

On 21 March 2017, Mr Speaker, you were kind enough to allow me a very similar urgent question, in which I asked the Government to address the allegations

“that, via an operation referred to as the “global laundromat”, banks based in Britain have been used to launder immense sums of money obtained from criminal activity in Russia linked to the FSB spy agency there.”—[Official Report, 21 March 2017; Vol. 623, c. 777-8.]

I am sure that the Minister would not want in any way to mislead the House, but I think it important for him to correct the record and to confirm that we have raised the matter consistently, not just in that urgent question but time and again during the Committee stage of the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill.

[Mr Speaker]

The right hon. Gentleman has put the position very clearly on the record. The Minister is welcome to reply if he wishes. He is not obliged to do so, but if he does, it will stand in the Official Report.

[Mr Wallace]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Is the Minister bobbing?

[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) for referring to his stance back then. Before coming to the Chamber, I carried out a Hansard search for the word “oligarchs”, to which he has not referred. The only time it came up was in a 2016 report, when the right hon. Gentleman spoke about the schools White Paper. If Hansard was incorrect or I did not see that, I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman, but the clear point that I was trying to make was that Labour was almost entirely silent on all the measures that the Government introduced in the Criminal Finances Act 2017. This is all about something other than money.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the Minister. I simply say to him that Hansard is not incorrect, and it is very important that we acknowledge the magnificent work of those who prepare the Official Report. I am not going to call the right hon. Gentleman the Minister, whom I have known for a long time, a semantic pedant, because that would be unkind, but his point seemed to focus on the use of the word “oligarch”. He has made his own point in his own way, but the shadow Chancellor’s factual recollection is also very clearly on the record.