Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the (a) effect of the Criminal Justice and Data Protection Regulations 2014 have had in assisting enforcement agencies in EU member states to recover money laundered abroad and (b) potential effect of the UK leaving the EU on the UK's ability to tackle money laundering internationally.

The Criminal Justice and Data Protection Regulations 2014 implement two EU Framework Decisions on the mutual recognition of freezing orders (freezing evidence, the proceeds of crime or the instrumentalities of crime) and confiscation orders. The Regulations provide that these orders are sent under a certificate with the presumption that an order issued in one EU Member State will be recognised and enforced quickly against relevant property in another Member State, with a limited ability to refuse to cooperate.

The UK believes that the ability to recognise and enforce such orders quickly is an important tool for seizing criminal assets, and the UK has strongly encouraged other Member States to implement these decisions to allow them to be used to recover criminal assets across the EU. The process for leaving the EU is set out in Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union. The process is unprecedented. There is more detail set out in the Government’s White Paper on the process for withdrawing from the EU, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/504216/The_process_for_withdrawing_from_the_EU_print_ready.pdf