Extracts from Westminster Hall proceedings - Oct 9
Wednesday, 10 October 2018 08:41
Extracts from Westminster Hall debate on Business Banking Fraud Mr
William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con):...The reality is that
white-collar crimes such as this are expensive and difficult to
prosecute, and the agencies responsible for fighting economic crime
simply do not have the necessary resources to tackle complex,
mid-tier banking fraud. The SFO takes on only a small number of
very large cases and has a budget of £53 million. The National
Crime Agency’s economic crime command has a...Request free trial
Extracts from
Westminster Hall debate on Business Banking Fraud
Mr (Hazel Grove)
(Con):...The reality is that white-collar crimes such as
this are expensive and difficult to prosecute, and the agencies
responsible for fighting economic crime simply do not have the
necessary resources to tackle complex, mid-tier banking fraud. The
SFO takes on only a small number of very large cases and has a
budget of £53 million. The National Crime Agency’s economic
crime command has a budget of £10 million, and the newly
established National Economic Crime Centre has a budget of just £6
million. Compared with the sheer scale of fraud in the United
Kingdom, which is estimated at more than £190 billion a year, and
given the potential for consequential losses, these investigative
budgets are, frankly, insignificant...
(Stalybridge and Hyde)
(Lab/Co-op):...The central premise of today’s debate and
of all the speeches has been that there are insufficient resources
available to tackle business banking fraud. Colleagues will be
aware that I agree with that premise. The National Crime Agency, the Serious Fraud Office,
local police forces and the Financial Conduct Authority do not have
sufficient capacity, either individually or collectively, to look
into the matter with the attention that it deserves. I am sure that
the Minister will refer to the new National Economic Crime
Centre—the NECC—a new unit of the National Crime Agency. An initial budget of £6
million does not seem sufficient when compared with, as I
think the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew
Jones) mentioned, the £7 million cost of the Thames Valley police
investigation into HBOS in Reading, and given the scale of the
issues raised today...
To read the whole debate, CLICK
HERE
Extract from
Westminster Hall debate on Modern Day Slavery
(Stoke-on-Trent Central)
(Lab/Co-op):...The National Crime Agency statistics from the
national referral mechanism suggest that roughly 1,600 referrals
are made each quarter. In the first quarter of this year and the
second quarter of last year combined, just over 3,200 referrals
were made. Although the victims predominantly came from the United
Kingdom, they spanned 87 different countries. In the UK, people of
87 nationalities made a referral to the national referral
mechanism. What is good about the Modern Slavery Act is that the
perpetrators are being prosecuted. Only last week, Zakaria Mohammed
was prosecuted under the Act for drug dealing using children and
county lines. Although the act of drug dealing itself should be
punished—I do not think anyone would object to that—the fact that
the use of exploited children in a servitude role was prosecuted
sends a message that we are taking this seriously...
To read the whole debate, CLICK
HERE
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