Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Egmont Group in promoting and enabling international co-operation between financial intelligence units.

A full impact assessment has been conducted on Council Decision 2000/642/JHA. Details of this assessment can be found in Command Paper 8897

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/326698/41670_Cm_8897_Accessible.pdf, published on 3 July 2014.

The alternative methods open to the UK to exchange information with other EU member states on relevant financial matters are not considered to be as effective as cooperation under the measure.

The UK is an active participant in the Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) and shares information with other Egmont members. The UKFIU experience in sharing financial intelligence through Egmont is positive and is viewed as vital in the fight against money laundering, terrorism financing and
other predicate offences.

However, Council Decision 2000/642/JHA provides additional benefits that are not available to Egmont members. For example, if we ceased to be bound by the Framework Decision we might lose access to FIU.net, the IT network that facilitates information exchange between EU FIUs.

The number of requests made via Council decision 2000/642/JHA and by other means over the last five years is not available. However, the figures for the period 2011-2013 were as follows: