Contributions
663 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDEconomic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (Second sitting)Q Yes, so we may have to beef up the verification requirements for Companies House. Simon Welch: As an ex-policeman, I will always say yes to that, but obviously there are…25 Oct 2022HANSARDEconomic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (Second sitting)Q Understood. Nik, you also said that you were watching criminals move assets into proxies, basically, in order to safeguard them. We heard this morning that the Bill will not…25 Oct 2022HANSARDEconomic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (Second sitting)Q Yes—but Simon, what is the National Police Chiefs’ Council perspective on that? Simon Welch: As Mr Adams says, we could always do with more people—if you ask, we will always say…25 Oct 2022HANSARDEconomic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (Second sitting)Q Simon, is it the position of the National Police Chiefs’ Council that more resources are needed to tackle economic crime? Do you have a gut feel for the order of magnitude of…25 Oct 2022HANSARDEconomic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (Second sitting)Q Nik, I want to crystallise a couple of things. Is it your impression that economic crime is growing? Commander Adams: I am not sure that my impression is the thing to take as…25 Oct 2022HANSARDEconomic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (Second sitting)Okay. Thanks, Chair.25 Oct 2022HANSARDEconomic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (Second sitting)Q And the Department shares your excitement so much that it has failed to agree your budget for next year. Martin Swain: I have not said they failed to agree it. We have not got…25 Oct 2022HANSARDEconomic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (Second sitting)Q Okay. It is obviously a matter of great national shame that UK corporate structures have been used so extensively for money laundering—not just the Azerbaijani laundromat, but…25 Oct 2022HANSARDEconomic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (Second sitting)Q An extra 100 people. So you think you need at least an extra 100 people in order to operationalise the measures in the Bill. Martin Swain: That was our assessment at the time.…25 Oct 2022HANSARDEconomic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (Second sitting)Q And how much is that? Martin Swain: I cannot give you a figure on the budget, but in terms of numbers of people, it was in excess of an extra 100 people.25 Oct 2022HANSARDEconomic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (Second sitting)Q What advice have you given to colleagues about what your budget should be in order to fully operationalise the measures in the Bill to a gold standard? Martin Swain: It would be…25 Oct 2022HANSARDEconomic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (Second sitting)Q Martin, has your budget been agreed for 2023-24? Martin Swain: Not yet, to my knowledge. We have had the confirmation of part of our £63 million, but we are in conversations…25 Oct 2022HANSARDEconomic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (First sitting)Q We have just heard some very powerful evidence about the relationship between organised crime groups operating in this sphere of crime, and state threats. Have you any other…25 Oct 2022HANSARDEconomic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (First sitting)Q So is there now a blurring of a national security threat and economic crime? Andy Gould: Yes, definitely.25 Oct 2022HANSARDEconomic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (First sitting)Q You just said that some of those organised crime groups have connections to hostile states—presumably such as North Korea, Iran and Russia. Andy Gould: Yes, that is right.25 Oct 2022HANSARDEconomic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (First sitting)Q What is the criminal structure in this market? Is it teenage hackers in their bedroom or sophisticated organised crime groups? Andy Gould: It is both. There is a real mixture.…25 Oct 2022HANSARDEconomic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (First sitting)Q Is cyber-crime and cryptocurrency-based crime growing quickly? Andy Gould: It is really hard to say, because it is so hard to identify or report at scale. However, I would say…25 Oct 2022HANSARDEconomic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (First sitting)Q And are we investing enough in tackling that kind of crime? Andy Gould: I think that a lot more has been invested. I think—25 Oct 2022HANSARDEconomic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (First sitting)Q But this Bill does not help you in that squaring of the circle. Nigel Kirby: Not in the sense of prioritising what the highest threats are and where we should be. That is to the…25 Oct 2022HANSARDEconomic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (First sitting)Q The second problem that is often described by banks to me is that they have to spread their compliance resource very thinly across a large customer base, rather than focusing it…25 Oct 2022