Extract from Home
Office Questions: Economic Crime
(Thirsk and Malton)
(Con)
11. What recent steps her Department has taken to tackle economic
crime. (906552)
The Minister for Security and Borders ()
Tackling economic crime is a key Government priority. We have
expedited legislation—the Economic Crime (Transparency and
Enforcement) Act 2022—to crack down on Russian dirty money and
corrupt elites in the UK. We have also set up a new dedicated
kleptocracy cell in the National Crime
Agency to target sanctions evasion and corrupt
assets hidden in the UK.
I thank the Minister for that answer. GPT Special Project
Management was fined roughly £28 million by Southwark Crown Court
last year for bribery offences. The key whistleblower in that
case was my constituent, Ian Foxley. He has had 11 years without
a single penny in income because he blew that whistle, as nobody
will employ him now, of course. Does my right hon. Friend agree
that if we want to crack economic crime, we must incentivise
whistleblowers to come forward, and protect them when they do?
Will he listen carefully what my hon. Friend the Member for
Cheadle () says tomorrow in introducing
her 10-minute rule Bill, when she will set out the case for
whistleblower reform?
My hon. Friend is right about the value of whistleblowers, who
should be able to come forward without fear of recrimination. We
have continued to improve the whistleblowing framework, including
by extending eligibility for protections and introducing a
reporting requirement for prescribed persons—the bodies to whom
people can make a whistleblowing disclosure. My hon. Friend has
campaigned consistently on this matter and is expert in it, and I
am keen to meet him to discuss his points further.
Extract from Lords
motion to consider the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing
(High-Risk Countries) (Amendment) Regulations 2022
(Con):...We are particularly
starving Russia’s access to finance, with asset freezes on major
banks including Russia’s largest bank and the removal of selected
banks from SWIFT. We have sanctioned Russia’s largest banks with
global assets worth £500 billion pre-invasion. Since the
invasion, we have also sanctioned well over 1,400 high-value
individuals, entities and subsidiaries. However, we are not
complacent and will continue to revise and reform our response to
illicit finance to ensure that, as illicit finance threats
evolve, our response does too. As the noble Lord noted, we
brought forward the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement)
Act and we are preparing a wider economic crime Bill at pace.
This is alongside a new kleptocracy cell in the National Crime
Agency to target sanctions evasion and corrupt
Russian assets hidden in the UK. That means that oligarchs in
London will have nowhere to hide...
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