Extract from
PMQs
(South Thanet) (Con): I
have a serious matter affecting every constituency to bring to my
right hon. Friend’s attention. Amazon has been facilitating the
sale of counterfeit postage stamps from China, which are
virtually perfect except for the barcode. I have contacted the
National Crime
Agency and National Trading Standards, and I am afraid
that I have received woeful responses. I have now sent my
concerns to the Serious Fraud Office and the City of London
police’s economic crime unit. Amazon is patently facilitating
remittances of illegally gotten cash, and I believe this is in
contravention of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981. Will he
assist me in taking this further?
The Deputy Prime Minister (): May I pay tribute to my
hon. Friend? I know how hard he has been campaigning on this
important issue. The Home Secretary will have heard his remarks.
The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill will put
duties on those platforms. Ultimately, if fraud is being
perpetrated, the police should take action.
Lords repeat of Commons
Urgent Question on National Crime Agency Investigation: Javad
Marandi
The following Answer to an Urgent Question was given in the House
of Commons on Tuesday 16 May.
“The honourable Lady asks about a law enforcement operation, and
she and the House know that the Government do not and cannot
comment on investigations being undertaken by law enforcement.
This Chamber and this Dispatch Box are not the place, cannot and
should not be the place, and never have been the place to comment
on live investigations by law enforcement. That remains as much
the case today as it has been for the last several decades.
UK electoral law sets out a stringent regime of donation controls
to ensure that only those with a legitimate interest can make
donations, and that those donations are transparent. Permissible
donors include registered electors, UK-registered companies
carrying out business in the UK, trade unions and other UK-based
entities. I remind the House that this Government have taken
significant steps to strengthen the integrity of our elections
and to update electoral law to ensure that our democracy remains
secure, modern, transparent and fair.
This includes reforms to election finance. The Elections Act 2022
introduced a restriction on foreign third-party campaigning at
elections. It is an important and existing principle that only
those with a legitimate interest in UK elections can spend money
to seek to influence the electorate. The Act, moreover,
strengthened transparency in the political finance framework by
introducing a new requirement for political parties with assets
and liabilities above £500, which of course includes the SNP, to
produce an assets and liabilities declaration upon registration.
It also introduced a new, lower, registration threshold for
third-party campaigners spending more than £10,000 during the
regulated period before an election.
The Government are developing a new anti-corruption strategy,
which we plan to launch later this year, which seeks to address
the impact of corruption on our national security and to
strengthen trust in our institutions. The Government are
committed to the fight against corruption, and since 2010 the
United Kingdom has led international efforts to combat corruption
through the delivery of the 2017 to 2022 anti-corruption
strategy, on which we will continue to build.”
16:04:00
(Lab)
My Lords, the National Crime
Agency investigation into the Azerbaijan laundromat is
extremely serious, with an alleged $2.9 billion in stolen money
laundered through UK companies. An individual with alleged links
to this is also being investigated—an individual who gave
three-quarters of a million pounds to the Conservative Party and
who got an OBE and access to government Ministers. Can the
Minister confirm whether this is accurate? In the other place,
the Minister said that the National Security Bill is to be
considered again in the Lords on ping-pong, as we know, and we
may see it return to us. In the light of this investigation, what
amendments are the Government going to support in the Lords, or
what amendments are they going to bring forward themselves, in
order to deal with this and ensure that we all have confidence
that there is no dirty money in our politics and that this issue
will be addressed at last?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office () (Con)
The noble Lord will be aware that I cannot comment on ongoing
investigations; no Minister at the Dispatch Box would. With
regard to Mr Marandi’s status in the United Kingdom, he is a
citizen of this country, as I am sure the noble Lord is aware,
and his honours and so on are a matter of public record. As for
political donations, UK electoral law already sets out a robust
regime of donations and controls to ensure that only those with a
legitimate interest in UK elections can make political donations,
and that political donations are transparent. It is an offence to
attempt to evade the rules on donations by concealing
information, giving false information, or knowingly facilitating
the making of an impermissible donation. I think this structure
is pretty robust already, and a large number of various Bills,
strategies and so on have recently been published which
contribute to this debate.
(LD)
My Lords, all political parties have had problems with political
donations. For that reason, the Liberal Democrats have put in
place a stringent, robust system to protect our integrity. I
think the Minister was referring to an Answer given by the
Minister in the House of Commons, when he said that our
“electoral law sets out a stringent regime of donation
controls”.—[Official Report, Commons, 16/5/23; col. 701.]
Manifestly, it does not do that. It specifies who can give
donations but not where that money might come from. So far from
being stringent, there is now a danger that laundered money may
have been introduced into our democratic processes. If the system
is as stringent as the Government make out, how was it possible
for the Conservative Party to accept donations from this
individual while the laundromat investigation was ongoing?
(Con)
My Lords, I am going to repeat what I have said: there is a
long-standing principle, first introduced by the Committee on
Standards in Public Life in 1998, that if you are eligible to
vote for a party in an election, you are also eligible to donate
to that party. That includes overseas electors, as noble Lords
will be aware, with reference to the Elections Act. Coming back
to that Act, I remind the House that the Government have already
taken significant steps to strengthen the integrity of our
elections and update our electoral law. This was done to ensure
that our democracy remains secure, modern, transparent and fair.
I could go on in considerable detail about the Elections Act, but
it has been much debated in this House.
(CB)
Is not the case referred to in this Question an illustration of
the opacity, rather than transparency, of the financial system
relating to political parties? Is it not very important that we
should put all protections in place to ensure that political
parties have a well-understood and common system of ensuring that
donations, in particular those emanating from foreign powers, are
dealt with in a proper way? In those circumstances, would the
Minister agree to meet me to discuss the amendment in
lieu—replacing Lords Amendment 22—which I tabled last Friday for
the next stage of the National Security Bill?
(Con)
I would be very happy indeed to meet the noble Lord to discuss
his amendment. I remind noble Lords that, as I say, any suspected
breaches of the law are a matter for the Electoral Commission or
the police. It is not appropriate to comment on individual cases
or ongoing investigations, but if a donation is from a
permissible donor, it is for the recipient to decide whether or
not they want to accept that donation.
(Lab)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware of Operation Branchform, the
Scottish police investigation into the finances of the Scottish
National Party. What he will not be aware of is that earlier
today, , the Conservative Whip
in the Scottish Parliament, wrote to the Presiding Officer
demanding a parliamentary inquiry into that while that
investigation is going on. In a published statement, he said that
such a new committee would
“give the public confidence that the whole truth around this
increasingly murky affair involving Scotland’s ruling party will
be laid bare once and for all”.
What advice would the Minister give his parliamentary colleague,
who speaks for the party: that maybe he should have removed the
plank from his own eye before suggesting that, or that this is a
good idea, and what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the
gander?
(Con)
The noble Lord will not be surprised to know that I was not aware
of the Scottish dimension to this subject, so I will refrain from
further comment.
(CB)
My Lords, I declare an interest as the chair of the Committee on
Standards in Public Life, and I am grateful to the Minister for
his reference to the report made by my predecessors in 1998. I
draw the Minister’s attention to a 2021 report, made by that same
committee, which looked at electoral finance. The Minister may
remember that the committee made a number of recommendations for
reinforcing the provisions to ensure that improper funds were not
coming into the electoral system, and it is a cause of great
regret to myself and the committee that the Government decided
not to take forward any of those recommendations. In the light of
the most recent suggestions that there are problems, might the
Government wish to revisit that decision and take into
consideration more positively the recommendations of the
independent and cross-party Committee on Standards in Public
Life?
(Con)
My Lords, the Government responded to the report published by the
noble Lord’s committee, Regulating Election Finance, in September
2021, and the Elections Act 2022, to which I have already
referred, contains measures which closely link to recommendations
made in the report; for example, the new requirement on political
parties to declare their assets and liabilities over £500 on
registration, and a restriction of third-party campaigning to
UK-based or otherwise eligible campaigners. The Government have
stated that the recommendations in the report deserve full
consideration, electoral law is complex, and more work is
required to consider the implications and practicalities.
(Con)
Just to follow on from that question from the noble Lord, Lord
Evans, does my noble friend accept that all organisations,
however properly conducted, can find themselves in difficulty
over the money laundering regulations—as, for example, happened
with HSBC, of which the noble Lord, Lord Evans, was a
director?
(Con)
Yes; I absolutely accept my noble friend’s point. Certainly, in
relation to the question that has been asked, it is incumbent on
all parties to be vigilant about all donations at all times.
(LD)
My Lords, I am sure that the Minister shares the general concern
about maintaining public confidence in the integrity of our
electoral process, including political finance. He must be aware
that there have been persistent rumours, with a good deal of
circumstantial evidence, that there have been flows of money
indirectly from the Russian state into Conservative Party funds.
So long as that suspicion is maintained and we do not have
transparency about what really happened, there will be questions
about the integrity of our political process. Should the
Government not ensure that there is full transparency about these
various reports and publish some of the redacted parts of the
ISC’s Russia report?
(Con)
My Lords, we have gone back and forth on this issue on a number
of occasions. The noble Lord refers to rumours, but he is prone
to starting some. I remind the noble Lord that, as my right
honourable friend the Policing Minister pointed out in the other
place, an MP from the noble Lord’s party in the other place
accepted sizeable donations from somebody who was later
identified by MI5 as a foreign agent. Those in glass houses.
(Lab)
My Lords, it would be more effective if the political parties had
to repay that money. That might be an incentive not to accept
money that we think is dodgy.
(Con)
My Lords, I do not believe that was a question.
