My Lords, as noble Lords will be aware, on 26 April Her Majesty’s Government laid these regulations under the powers provided by the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018. These regulations were made on 23 April.
As has been noted many times in your Lordships’ House, corruption is one of the key drivers undermining human rights, democracy, development and the rule of law around the world. It undermines global trade and prosperity. The World Economic Forum estimates that corruption increases the cost of doing business for individual companies by as much as 10%, distorting markets and deterring trade and investment. Corruption also undermines our national security, by exacerbating conflict and facilitating serious and organised crime. This new sanctions regime is a significant step forward for the UK’s global leadership in combating corruption around the world.
The instrument before the House will enable us to prevent and combat serious corruption around the world by imposing asset freezes and travel bans on individuals and organisations involved. The scope of the regime is deliberately targeted to combat corruption around the world, and to prevent corrupt actors and their enablers using the UK as a haven for dirty money. Its scope also draws on the corrupt practices that almost all countries in the world have agreed to combat through the UN Convention against Corruption.
As set out in the regulations, the activities which come into the scope of the regime are bribery and misappropriation. The regulations define bribery as both the giving of a financial or other advantage to a foreign public official and the receipt by a foreign public official of a financial or other advantage. They define misappropriation of property as improper diversion by foreign public officials of property entrusted to them in their official role, for their own benefit or that of a third person. Property can include anything of value, including contracts, licences or concessions.
The regulations also enable us to target those involved in corrupt acts in other ways, such as those who facilitate, profit from, conceal, transfer or launder the proceeds of serious corruption and those who obstruct justice relating to serious corruption. As my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary noted in his April Statement:
“whatever the particular circumstances, at the heart of this lies the same debilitating cycle of behaviour: corrupt officials ripping off their own people”.—[Official Report, Commons, 26/4/21; col. 58.]
These sanctions send a clear message to those involved in serious corruption around the world: that the UK will not tolerate them, or the proceeds of their corruption, coming into our country.
In the interests of clarity and transparency we have published a policy note which sets out how we will consider designations under these regulations, as well as an information note designed to help NGOs engage with the sanctions regime. As required by the sanctions Act, we have also published two statutory reports: one under Section 2 of that Act about the purposes of the regulations, and another under Section 18 setting out the criminal offences created by them. As with all UK sanctions, we adhere to rigorous due process and protections so that the rights of others are respected. This means that those designated under the sanctions regime will be able to request that a Minister reviews the decision and can subsequently apply to challenge that decision in UK courts.
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his very clear explanation of what is a highly complex matter. In the past, I criticised what appeared to be a long delay between the passing of the 2018 Act and the regulations in respect of human rights. When I saw those regulations and the extreme care and complexity, I fully understood the delay, and I congratulate the parliamentary draftsmen on their work on those regulations and on these ones.
The final page of the document accompanying the regulations boldly states:
“The Regulations will have strong cross-party support in principle”—
and, I add, in practice. This was clear from the principal Act, the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 —SAMLA—and the Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations 2020, which were debated in your Lordships’ House on 29 July 2020.
This was pressed by a very much cross-party coalition in the other place: Andrew Mitchell and Margaret Hodge, who were joined by a then Back-Bencher called Dominic Raab, who has not lost his zeal in this respect—I congratulate him on this. In your Lordships’ House, my noble friend Lord Collins has been extremely active in this respect, and the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, who regrets that she cannot be here on this occasion, has helped to lead the campaign.
The mischief is very clear: the poisoning of the well of good governance, and indeed corporate governance, by corruption. The report under the terms of the Act puts it this way:
“Corruption undermines democracy, human rights and the rule of law. It undermines good governance and the functioning of public institutions and international organisations, as well as trust in their integrity.”
Of course, there is a nexus between these regulations and the human rights regulations that we debated in July last year. This is easily shown by looking at the history of Sergei Magnitsky: there were those who were responsible for his torture and murder in that Russian prison who had been dealt with by the human rights regulations, and there were the tax officials in Russia who were responsible for misappropriating the funds of the organisation that employed him.
My Lords, I begin by declaring an interest in that some of the casework I do in my private practice at the Bar involves acting for the Serious Fraud Office, which deals with cases involving complex financial crime, not least corruption. From time to time I have also advised others who may have thought about behaving corruptly or have been accused of it.
I have a small procedural point on these regulations, which, as my noble friend clearly and carefully explained at the outset of our debate, came into force just a month or so ago. Is there some magic in that they came into force before this House had an opportunity to discuss them? I fully accept that politically and in practical terms they are wholly uncontroversial, but I wonder whether there is some magic in our receiving them a month after the other place, or whether that is just one of those things.
These sanctions are designed to capture individuals or entities profiting from bribery or misappropriation of state funds from any country outside the United Kingdom, as well as colluding with terrorists and drug traffickers. Those who are caught by these sanctions will be prevented from entering the United Kingdom, opening bank accounts here or doing business with any United Kingdom businesses. Any assets they hold in this country are also frozen.
My noble friend mentioned the 22 designations that have already been made. They are very welcome in themselves but also because, as the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Swansea, indicated—perhaps my noble friend the Minister did as well—they create a form of alignment and demonstrate that our sanctions regime, underpinned by the 2018 Act, is moving closer to those of the United States and Canadian, which, I think it is fair to say, are a great deal more effective than what we used to have in this country. This shift of approach is to be welcomed, and I hope that the European Union as an institution and its nation states will look carefully at what is being done in this country and in the United States and Canada to see whether there is room for closer alignment between their regimes and what is now in force here.
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, who brings his lawyerly expertise to the issue. Like him, I welcome these regulations, which are already being put to use.
Outside the EU, the UK needs its own regime to deal with corruption on the global stage, and we are getting there. Being able to freeze the assets of guilty parties and prevent them travelling to the UK has the capacity to inflict real pain on those guilty of corruption. We know that those who amass fortunes from corrupt behaviour enjoy displaying their wealth via lavish London homes, expensive public school educations for their offspring and the best private health treatment when required. Preventing them having access to that will cause genuine pain.
The instrument covers people deemed to be involved in the most harmful types of corruption. I applaud the intention but have a couple of specific questions, apart from the one raised already about the definition of serious corruption. For instance, I wonder whether the Minister can help me with Regulation 6(2)(d), which says that those covered by the regulations include a person who is
“a member of, or associated with, a person who is or has been … involved”
in serious corruption. The term “associated with” is very loose. Is there a clearer definition that could be applied?
Similarly, in Regulation 6(3)(c), a person is deemed to be
“involved in serious corruption if … the person profits financially or obtains any other benefit from serious corruption”.
I can envisage scenarios in which somebody benefits without being aware of the corruption involved in bringing that financial benefit to them. Can we not be a little more specific?
Otherwise, I welcome these regulations. There was an impassioned debate in this House following the death of Sergei Magnitsky in a Russian jail. As others have commented, he had been uncovering a massive financial fraud in his capacity as a lawyer for Bill Browder. After his death the US instituted the Magnitsky law, and I am delighted that the UK has moved to implement similar legislation. As the Minister pointed out, the anti-corruption regulations have already been used against 14 Russians implicated in the $230 million fraud that Magnitsky uncovered.
My Lords, I want to be crystal clear: Dominic Raab deserves considerable praise for his actions leading to this statutory instrument, and I have no problems with it at all. Unlike his two predecessor Foreign Secretaries, he actually understood the process and the need for the Magnitsky sanctions, having been a leading MP in the Commons campaigning to get Bill Browder’s suggestions on to the statute book. Indeed, I was present when he received a reward for this work from my noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws.
Bill Browder, a one-man human rights sanctions corporation, has now secured such sanctions around the world; hardly a month goes by without some new country adopting them. As he said earlier today, in an interview on the BBC’s “Today” programme, the need is to go after the officials and oligarchs via their money; it is much more effective than sanctioning a country and its people. I am in total support of this view and this statutory instrument.
There was no problem in finding out about this instrument, by the way, if you googled it. The legal brief from the legal companies in London—experts in this area, on both sides, I regret to say—was majestic in its numbers.
I want to raise one issue that Nick Cohen raised in the Observer on 9 May, in his column. I will not go over it all—it is just one paragraph on the use of London courts by foreign perpetrators campaigning against investigative journalists. He wrote:
“One official, Pavel Karpov, sued Browder for libel in London. Browder won, but Karpov stayed in Moscow and refused to pay Browder’s costs of £600,000. In other words, Russia, an actively hostile foreign power, appeared able to use the English legal system to impose the punishment of a huge fine on one of its most effective critics.”
Furthermore, at the end of his column, he makes the point that the Foreign Policy Centre has described the UK as
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and I echo his support for these measures. I thank my noble friend for his clear explanation of this instrument, and congratulate the Government on this new sanctions regime, specifically targeting corruption. The way in which the measures will enhance the UK’s standing in the community of global democracies is most welcome. They complement the UK’s global human rights sanctions regime and our 2020 regulations, as has already been noted, and the UK will be able to take a targeted approach to combating serious corruption.
Will my noble friend join with me in echoing the words of so many other noble Lords in congratulating Bill Browder on his tireless and fearless determination to pursue justice for his lawyer and friend, Sergei Magnitsky, and to fight corruption around the world? This will result in 14 Russian individuals, allegedly involved in a major fraudulent tax scheme involving Russian state property, which was discovered by Mr Magnitsky, having sanctions imposed on them but giving them potentially the chance to defend themselves. Does my noble friend agree that Bill Browder deserves the highest national honour? His single-handed work has been an inspiration for many campaigning for an improvement in human rights and against global corruption.
I am delighted to see that the regulations are drawn widely to capture many types of corrupt behaviour, which is such a risk to individuals around the world—and, of course, in this country. The serious corruption that should be captured by this legislation includes bribery and misappropriation of assets where there are good grounds for suspicion. I would echo the questions asked of my noble friend as to whether any of this could be amplified somewhat, not least as my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier requested.
It is possible with this legislation to impose asset freezes on entities, but also travel bans and asset freezes on individuals, which can be so much more powerful in deterring this type of activity. This includes both direct and indirect involvement, which again I am delighted to see, because those who facilitate, support, conceal, disguise or fail to prosecute perpetrators, or who interfere with law enforcement, would appear to be covered. So, this covers not just those who profit or benefit from serious corruption. The harm caused by corruption, often to innocent citizens, deprives them of resources and, potentially, the right to a better life that could otherwise be enjoyed. This is profound.
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann. I have three broad questions for the Minister.
As previous speakers have pointed out, the SI does not define “serious corruption”, although I suspect the term is likely to be interpreted by the seven categories specified in the Government’s paper, Global Anti-corruption Sanctions: Consideration of Designations, published on 26 April 2021. One of these states that serious corruption is something that
“undermines a country’s democratic governance, the rule of law and human rights”.
I mention this because the Government have themselves colluded to protect organisations engaged in criminal conduct. During the passage of the Financial Services Act, I provided an example relating to HSBC which, by its own admission, was engaged in “criminal conduct” in the US. The Bank of England, the financial regulator and the then Chancellor secretly intervened and urged the US authorities to go easy on HSBC. This was done without any statement to Parliament, then or subsequently. I cannot see anything in the SI that will check this kind of corruption and its threat to democratic governance and the rule of law. Can the Minister say whether UK Ministers covering up corrupt practices are subject to this legislation?
Secondly, I am concerned about the poor enforcement already referred to by some previous speakers. The Financial Conduct Authority has yet to secure a criminal conviction. The SFO continues to flounder, and there have been no corporate prosecutions under the Criminal Finances Act 2017. Under the Bribery Act 2010, the Crown Prosecution Service secured one corporate conviction. The SFO has secured just one conviction under that Act and six deferred prosecution agreements. The future prospects of law enforcement in this area are also poor. The City of London Police has now received £1.5 million from Lloyds Bank for combating economic crime. This does not inspire any confidence in the police’s independence.
My Lords, I was going to stand up and say I was going to take a slightly different tack from the presentations other noble Lords had given, but in fact the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, has completely upstaged what I was going to say and I very much look forward to the Government’s response to what he said; I am sure it will take quite a few letters to clear all that up.
I am particularly concerned that we as a nation are pontificating about global corruption when it is clear we have inherent local corruption. When I say “local”, I mean “national”. In a sense, it is brilliant timing, with the evidence Dominic Cummings has been giving today. I have not heard all of it, and it does seem that he is talking more about incompetence than corruption—but we can look at that after this debate. So this does seem a strange piece of legislation to be coming through this House while details are still being released about the Government’s VIP-lane contracts to friends of Ministers and the dubious funding of the Prime Minister’s living arrangements.
These are global anti-corruption sanctions, which the Explanatory Memorandum says are to
“prevent and combat serious corruption.”
I have got the same queries as the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Swansea, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier—and I think the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, mentioned it as well—on the definition of “serious”. That is going to be something I hope the Minister can be helpful on. The Memorandum helpfully defines corruption as
“bribery and misappropriation of property.”
That is very useful, but it is something we see a constant stream of in our media about our Government, so perhaps we should be thinking about how to sort that out as well.
Those were the right words to be using—not the desensitised word “sleaze”, which we see more associated with corrupt behaviour from the British elite. The word “sleaze” is to “corruption” what the word “expat” is to “immigrant”. The words “sleaze” and “expat” are slightly acceptable and not terribly worrying, whereas “corruption” and “immigrant” are things Brits do not do, and therefore we can all take the moral high ground—which of course is complete nonsense. It is what allows the Government to claim, as they do in the Explanatory Memorandum:
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As noble Lords will be aware, the Government made immediate use of this new tool and announced sanctions last month on 22 individuals from six countries who have been involved in serious corruption. These names are published online on the UK’s sanctions list for these regulations. Each designation is underpinned by evidence and meets the tests set out in the sanctions Act and the regulations.
The designations include 14 individuals involved in the diversion of $230 million of Russian state property through a fraudulent tax refund scheme, uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky—one of the largest tax frauds in recent Russian history. We imposed sanctions on Ajay, Atul and Rajesh Gupta, and their associate Salim Essa, who were at the heart of a long-running process of corruption in South Africa which caused significant damage to the economy of that country. We also designated the Sudanese businessman Ashraf Said Ahmed Hussein Ali, widely known as al-Cardinal, for his involvement in the misappropriation of significant amounts of state assets in South Sudan, one of the poorest countries in the world. His actions, in collusion with South Sudanese elites, have contributed to ongoing instability and conflict. Finally, we announced sanctions on several individuals involved in serious corruption in Latin America, including people who had facilitated bribes to support a major drug-trafficking organisation and others who had misappropriated funds which led to citizens being deprived of vital resources for development. This is just the first tranche of designations. Given the sensitivities involved, however, I cannot speculate on whom we may target in future.
All targeted sanctions are most effective when backed by co-ordinated, collective action. The steps that we have taken to expand our sanctions framework, to cover corruption as well as human rights, give us similar powers to the Magnitsky frameworks of the United States of America and Canada. This will enable even closer co-operation and co-ordination with our like-minded friends and partners to combat and prevent corruption and its corrosive effects.
I welcome this opportunity to hear the views of noble Lords on these regulations. I beg to move.
I congratulate Bill Browder and his team on the work that they have done in this respect in honouring the memory of Sergei Magnitsky—and the number of countries that have adopted similar measures since. I had the privilege of watching the Browder team in action; tracing the trail of the corruption in that respect was an enormously complex matter.
Many of the questions that were raised in the debate in July apply, mutatis mutandis—perhaps we are not allowed to say that nowadays—or in similar measure, to today’s debate. First, what is the definition of “serious corruption”? Will guidance be issued by the Government? For example, does it refer to the amount involved or the eminence of the individual who is responsible for them to be a designated person?
Obviously, the sanctions are more powerful in their effect if they are adopted by several countries: then, the regulations act as a protective shield for the one country that may be targeted by Russia or whoever in that way. The Minister has already said that there are similar regulations in the USA and Canada. I understand that there are not yet similar regulations in the European Union. Perhaps he can indicate what progress, if any, has been made in that respect.
I was disappointed that the newly appointed European prosecutor is supported by only 22 of the 27 EU members, when the €800 billion recovery fund must give very much opportunity for corruption. What is the degree of international support for similar measures? Will we in the UK be spreading the word, seeking to proselytise other countries in this respect, giving advice and assistance?
There are also questions relating to evidence: there must be a problem of obtaining evidence sufficient to support a designation in these cases. Presumably, this will involve the criminal standard of proof. Which international organisations and NGOs will be relied upon for evidence? There are to be only two new employees in the FCDO; a very much wider information diaspora is needed to give the information. It is so easy to point the finger at someone, but it is less easy to provide sufficient and objective evidence.
Lastly, there is the question of due process, which was touched upon by the Minister—namely, how to safeguard the integrity of the process. Presumably, the safeguard provisions are included in SAMLA, the principal act of 2018.
This is a major scourge: the Panama papers, for example, illustrate the extent of the problem, as does Misha Glenny’s work. Progress has been made—I can see it in the overseas territories. I noticed what was said about the British Virgin Islands, which did rather well out of their secrecy in the past; they have been leaned upon to act more responsibly.
To conclude, I welcome the Government’s follow-up to SAMLA, the 2018 principal act. I hope that they will now go out and encourage other Governments to follow this precedent and provide, perhaps with the USA and Canada, advice and assistance to those Governments, where necessary.
One benefit is that, unlike most United Kingdom sanctions regulations, which target specific countries or individuals within specific countries, this set of regulations, along with the human rights sanctions that came into force in 2020, focuses on individuals and entities who impact the economy of a country through corrupt practices. As the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, said, this mirrors the approach taken by the American global Magnitsky programme. It is hardly surprising that most, if not all, of the 22 individuals caught by the new announcement on 23 April are already impacted by the American Magnitsky programme.
The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, also mentioned serious corruption. I hope it is not too tedious or lawyerly a point, but Regulation 4(1) says:
“The purposes of the regulations contained in this instrument are to prevent and combat serious corruption.”
So far, so good. Regulation 4(2) then defines corruption as
“bribery; or … misappropriation of property”,
but it does not seek to define “serious corruption” and how it differs, if at all, from any other sort of corruption. All sorts of rather silly jokes were made about serious organised crime and why it had to be “serious”. What was wrong with simply talking about organised crime?
Corruption clearly has a terrible effect, particularly on third-world economies; my noble friend the Minister mentioned this in his opening remarks. It also impacts the cost of doing business for our own businesses within this economy, so I hope I am not making a facile or light point. I think that greater clarity needs to be provided by the Government in relation to the expression “serious corruption”, which is used quite a lot throughout the regulations. Of course corruption is defined, but I wonder whether there is any particular magic, as far as the policy behind these regulations is concerned, in the use of the adjective “serious”.
Finally, I will touch on the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation. This body will be needed, and is needed, to reinforce or underpin the sanctions that these regulations describe. But in the last four years, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation has handed down civil penalties on just four occasions, only two of which exceeded £10,000 in value. I do not know the facts of those cases, but we want to be taken seriously, both in this country and internationally, and to create a regime that deters kleptocrats and international corruption, be it serious or otherwise, and certainly the sort of serious corruption that adversely affects particularly the economies of poor countries. South Sudan was one of the examples; I am not sure about the economies of the South American states that were covered by the examples. If these regulations are to have a deterrent effect on the leaders of Belarus or other kleptocracies, for example, we need to be sure that these new sanctions will be properly underpinned by action by the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation and that this body is given the teeth, or uses the teeth it has, to enforce our anti-corruption policies. I hope my noble friend the Minister can reassure us of that today.
As I say, these are wholly uncontroversial regulations. I see that I have gone well over my allotted time, for which I apologise. With these few brief remarks, even if they were longer than they should have been, I hope that my noble friend will be encouraged by the support he has and is able to provide us with a few brief explanations at the end of the debate.
Corruption and human rights abuses often go hand in hand. The UK’s global human rights sanctions of last year are already being used against around 80 individuals and entities, including four Chinese officials and one Chinese state-run entity for the appalling abuse now taking place in Xinjiang province. These are the first sanctions that the UK has imposed on China since 1989; they should not be the last.
The regulations that we are debating today are designed to penalise those guilty of corruption. Of course, those people are well schooled in money laundering, but I wonder whether we are doing enough to combat money laundering in the UK. In 2018, the National Crime Agency estimated that more than £100 billion a year in illicit funds made its way through the UK every year. Are we doing enough to catch that or to penalise those involved in the process?
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, pointed out that the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation was established in 2016, and yet, up to February last year, it had levied only four fines, three of which were miniscule. The fourth fine was a whopping £20 million-plus against Standard Chartered for violation of EU sanctions rules involving a Russian bank. That sum is enough to make even one of our big banks think hard about their practices and maybe examine them more closely. I do not believe that the crooks have stopped trying to launder their funds, so I wonder whether the Minister can tell the House whether the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation has been a bit more active in the last year. The war against corruption has to be pursued with vigour. Could we do more to combat it?
“‘the most frequent country of origin’ for foreign legal threats against investigative journalists.”
I give notice that I intend to raise this in an Oral Question on 14 June, so I will not go any further now.
I have a couple of detailed questions about the regulations. Can we be assured that the National Crime Agency has been given the necessary resources, at least in line with the paragraph in the de minimis form, which as I understand it was almost a doubling of the existing funds of almost £300,000 and 4.5 full-time staff up to nearly £500,000 and eight full-time staff? This is expensive, but it has to work, and without resources it will not.
Finally, can I ask for an assurance that the sanctions and regulations cover the UK as a whole? I would like to be certain that it is UK-wide and covers UK people involved in efforts that we would want to sanction in UK waters around the islands—and that the extent of it goes offshore slightly. I want an assurance that there is full co-operation with the Scottish Government, given the different legal arrangements in Scotland. As I say, these are UK-wide; it is a reserved matter, but clearly to be operationally successful they must have the support of the UK Government. Can I have an assurance that that is forthcoming?
I am also delighted that these measures follow the US Biden Government’s use of Executive Order 13818 and the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, with its global sanctions programme. I congratulate the Government too on the fact that US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warmly welcomed our new regime, which complements the US regime and Canada’s Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act. This, again, should enhance our global standing.
I welcome these measures, but I have a couple of questions for my noble friend. Given that the April policy paper identifies some of the factors to be considered under these regulations, and that serious corruption will be assessed, perhaps, by the scale, nature and impact of the corruption, its sophistication and the risks of reprisals or harm to civil society, organisations, whistleblowers, human rights defenders and journalists, can my noble friend provide any further clarification, as requested by my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier and my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft? Is there a monetary amount or type of fraud, or does it depend on international co-operation? Are any more designations for serious corruption expected to follow soon, or plans for further sanctions in the near term? Finally, can my noble friend detail any further plans for widening collective international action and the UK co-operating globally on this matter?
Numerous government and NGO reports have shown that accountants, lawyers, bankers and other professionals profit from corrupt practices, including money laundering, yet 22 of the 25 anti-money laundering regulators are accountancy, law and other trade associations. The director of the Office for Professional Body Anti Money Laundering Supervision, OPBAS, has publicly said that
“the accountancy sector and many smaller professional bodies focus more on representing their members rather than robustly supervising standards. … they believe that their memberships will walk if they come under scrutiny.”
This reliance on multiple regulators and trade associations is not helpful at all. I see no clarity in the SI on enforcement or independence of regulators. Who will be enforcing this SI and prosecuting: the FCA, the Serious Fraud Office, the Crown Prosecution Service, the National Crime Agency, the police, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, or somebody else? How will all these organisations, working to different standards and benchmarks, be co-ordinated and resourced? I hope the Minister can provide some answers.
The regulations are also being introduced without reform of company formation. Anyone from any part of the world can register a company in the UK without any authentication of their identity. Numerous UK- registered companies have fronted bribery, corruption, money laundering and other crimes, and the beneficiaries continue to escape retribution. No checks are made, even when the identity of the criminals is known. A well-known convicted Mafia criminal was once a director of a company called Magnolia Fundaction UK Ltd. Its filings at Companies House show that the name of one of its officers, when translated from Italian into English, was “The Chicken Thief”. The occupation given was “fraudster”, and the address given was “Street of the 40 Thieves in the town of Ali Baba”. Companies House routinely accepted all such returns.
On 14 September 2017, in response to a Written Question from Kelvin Hopkins MP, the Business Secretary answered:
“No action has been taken at this time against the promoters and officers of Magnolia Fundaction UK Ltd for filing inappropriate information in Italian at Companies House.”
In May 2018, I discovered that the same criminal was also a director of Business Bank Italy Ltd, which had a website inviting people to invest. A quick scrutiny of the accounts showed that the whole thing was a sham and a fraud. The matter was raised in the House of Commons by Anneliese Dodds MP. The company was dissolved only in August 2019. The Government’s consultation paper, Corporate Transparency and Register Reform: Powers of the Registrar, does not tackle any of these problems. I very much hope that the Minister will make a statement on this deficiency and how it may obstruct the fight against global corruption.
“HMG is committed to tackling serious corruption, upholding good governance and the rule of law and promoting open societies.”
This is clearly not true when you look at what they are doing in Britain at the moment. The Explanatory Memorandum also recognises that “serious corruption”
“has a range of corrosive effects on states, markets and societies and wherever it occurs”—
and it is occurring in Britain, and it will have a corrosive effect.
This sort of doublespeak actually leads to doublethink. The same Ministers who have been behind VIP contracts to their donors and friends—sleazy behaviour, at best—can see themselves as anti-corruption heroes taking on all the other countries doing exactly the same thing, only we label it “corruption” for them. Domestic law ought to be dealing with this here and clearly it is not. Perhaps the Minister could tell us why. Sleaze becomes just a public reputational thing—public relations, to be dealt with by press officers and spin doctors, with a couple of Ministers perhaps going on the Sunday news shows repeating buzzwords.
Corruption is a serious issue and we ought to be serious about it. The double standard—the way we think about ourselves as being free of corruption, with just a bit of sleaze, yet see other nations as indulging in corruption—is unacceptable. Corruption is corruption, whether it is here in the UK, via Ministers, or anywhere else by some sort of awful regime. So, personally, I look forward to all corrupt politicians facing justice for their misappropriation of public resources and their “corrosive effects” on public life and our respect for democracy.