The Economic Secretary to the Treasury ():...The money laundering
regulations support our overall efforts. As the UK’s core
legislative framework for tackling money laundering and terrorist
financing, they set out various measures that businesses must
take to protect the UK from illicit financial flows. Under the
regulations, businesses are required to conduct enhanced checks
on business relationships and transactions with high-risk third
countries, and that brings us to the point of today’s measure.
These are countries identified as having strategic deficiencies
in their own anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist
financing regimes. The statutory instrument amends the money
laundering regulations to update the UK’s list of high-risk third
countries, and removes Cambodia and Morocco
from that list to reflect the significant progress made by these
countries in addressing their anti-money laundering deficiencies
and to reflect similar changes to its list agreed by the global
anti-money laundering standard setter that the UK is part of,
that is, the Financial Action Task Force...
(Hampstead and Kilburn)
(Lab):...The Labour party is completely committed to supporting
the global effort to combat money laundering and the financing of
terrorism. We will support the draft regulations today to remove
Cambodia and Morocco
from the list of high-risk third countries, reflecting the same
changes made to the Financial Action Task Force’s list...
(East Dunbartonshire) (SNP):
We on the SNP Benches support this necessary update to the money
laundering and terrorist financing regulations to remove Cambodia
and Morocco from
the list of high-risk third countries in the context of the
enhanced due diligence requirements. It is also worth flagging
up, given that the Minister raised the Economic Crime and
Corporate Transparency Bill, that it is unfortunate that the
Government have failed to grasp the opportunity to make that Bill
as strong as it could have been, and I ask the Minister why he
chose not to accept the SNP amendment upholding the integrity of
the Companies House register.
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