Liam Byrne
MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North · Labour · United Kingdom
“The loss of 4,000 jobs at Jaguar Land Rover is a body blow for workers, families and communities across the west midlands, so I commend Richard Parker, the Mayor of the West Midlands, for moving quickly on Monday to put £500,000 on the table to help ensure that everybody gets back to work.”
“I wholeheartedly welcome this well-rounded statement from the Foreign Secretary, and put on record my thanks to the new Prime Minister for the hard yards that I know he has put in over recent days and weeks.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, and I offer my warmest congratulations to her on her appointment to the role; she will be a brilliant Minister.”
“Let me start with a word of thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), who is not in her place, who said quite rightly that an awful lot has changed since the Bill was first introduced to this House. Indeed, a lot has been revealed over the course of the summer.”
“The effect of new clause 34 would be to ban off-ramping, ban new forms of digital currency transactions and ban memecoins, which are exactly the kind of measures that Ministers now need to bring forward. If we want to take the crypto system out of political finance, this is what we need to do.”
“No doubt we will learn that Mr Cottrell was in fact on the electoral register when that money was passed. No doubt we will discover that his mother, Fiona Cottrell, declared and did not disguise the fact that the money had ultimately come from her son.”
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“I do not want to criticise sins of commission today, but I do want to criticise three sins of omissions: in particular, the lack of security in defence for data; the lack of security for our democracy; and the lack of security for those defenders of freedom and those people such as brave journalists who are prepared to name and, where necessary, shame foreign influencers who are at large in our country. Let me start with data, because it is impossible to talk about espionage in this day and age without talking about information and intelligence, and therefore about data and the channels that move that data between our country and foreign players—the companies that are on the cutting edge of the technology revolution.”
“I apologise to the Home Secretary, who is not in her place, for missing the first 11 minutes of her opening speech. As I think the Minister will have spotted, there is wide consensus across the House about many of the provisions in this Bill that is matched only by a level of frustration that the Bill has been an awful long time coming. We have been debating the risks of hybrid warfare, from Russia and from others, in this Chamber for at least four or five years. Therefore, having waited so long and having debated so much, I think we are within our rights to have expected a rather more substantial package from the Government. In the spirit of consensus, which I see is running large in the House today, I hope that we will be able to add substantially to the provisions in the Bill.”
“I would like to see a duty on Ministers to report to the House on companies of concern, particularly those operating from countries where we have arms embargoes, with clear measures to control them.”
“I am afraid that we are now at risk of a control gap, and we are still behaving as if we believe in free movement of weapons-grade intelligence. That is presumably why individuals such as Clive Woodley, funded by the UK university system and the Ministry of Defence, are still wandering around organising conferences on weapons in China. Given the poor job that the National Security Council did on co-ordinating complex operations such as the evacuation from Afghanistan, I am seriously concerned that the Government lack the capacity to co-ordinate the Treasury, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the Department for International Trade, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the intelligence agencies in controlling what needs to be controlled.”
“When I tabled parliamentary questions on those eight different measures to the Government asking where our similar framework was, I got a lot of waffle from the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully). I then asked the Government what controls are in place on nine of the 1,100 key companies now controlled in some way, shape or form in the United States: those such as Huawei, ZTE, Hikvision, Hytera and Alibaba through to China Unicom—I will not go through them all. Despite our adding China to the UK arms embargo list earlier this year, the only one company that the Minister could name that is subject to UK controls was Huawei.”
“Our American allies now have: provisions for delisting Chinese firms, which they have applied to companies such as Sina Weibo; an investment prohibition list that has now hit 59 Chinese firms; a ban on share trading; export bans and restrictions that have added scores of Chinese entities to the unverified list, which therefore have tougher rules on receiving shipments from US exporters; an export ban; provisions for revocation of trading licences; data controls, which first President Trump and then President Biden ordered; and, of course, targeted sanctions. My question for the Minister is: where is the similar framework for the United Kingdom? We are now in grave jeopardy of a control gap emerging between the United Kingdom and our closest ally.”
“The right hon. Member puts his finger on precisely the lesson that we should draw from allies such as the United States. Today, the United States has a battery of eight types of controls and measures that are regulating and controlling the export of—or, frankly, efforts to steal—technology and data to countries such as China. The Bill says that it will be an offence to engage in “conduct…that it is reasonably possible may…assist a foreign intelligence service”. I am afraid that negligence must be part of that conduct.”
“There are also no constraints on what parties can spend in between elections, which allows people to surge investments in politics between elections, and there is no control to stop unlimited donations to political parties from abroad if they are laundered through the bank account of a British citizen.”
“I leave that to the judgment of the House in the debates that we have, but we must make the framework coherent, because, frankly, it is not coherent today. My second point is about the defence of our democracy. The Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), was absolutely right to flag the fact that we have needed a defence of the integrity of our democracy at the core of our strategy for a long time. I called for it back in 2018, but right now, neither the Electoral Commission, nor the Advertising Standards Authority nor Ofcom has the power to regulate adverts placed on social media. People can therefore get away with ads on social media that could never be placed on television. Facebook, as all of us know, is like a wild west.”
“We are in new times, and the return of great power competition is upon us. We need new defences, and this Bill is a chance to make good some of those defences now.”
“No doubt Mr Sheleg is an honourable man, but the Sheleg manoeuvre could be exploited by all kinds of bad actors. Finally, we in this House have defended a number of extremely brave journalists and former colleagues, such as Catherine Belton, Tom Burgis, Arabella Pike and Charlotte Leslie, who have all risked everything to raise a red flag about bad actors and threats of foreign influence, yet their thanks have been to be hounded in court by oligarchs who seek to rack up hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal bills to deter such people from telling the truth. If we are to defend whistleblowers, and I am pleased to see that provision in the Bill, surely this is the moment for the House to unite in refining, if not legislating for, a defence for people who make arguments that need such a defence.”
“The New York Times reported that Barclays flagged the SAR with this statement: “We are able to trace a clear line back from this donation to its ultimate source… Kopytov”— the father-in-law— “can be stated with considerable certainty to have been the true source of the donation.” Along with a number of other hon. and right hon. Members, I flagged this to the National Crime Agency. A day or two later—the NCA did not spend an awful lot of time looking at this—a letter came back from Steve Rodhouse, its director of operations, which stated: “As you will be aware, provided a donation comes from a permissible source, and was the decision of the donor themselves, it is permitted under PPERA. This remains the case even if the donor’s funds derived from a gift from an overseas individual.” That is utter nonsense. It is completely ridiculous.”
“Perhaps no one in this House has done more than the hon. Gentleman to expose the hybrid warfare and divide-and-rule tactics of Russia, but we are wide open to them, not least because a person can give unlimited amounts of money to political parties if they are laundered through the bank account of a UK citizen. Call it, if you will, the Sheleg manoeuvre. Ehud Sheleg, no doubt an honourable man, has given £3.3 million to the Conservative party, yet The New York Times revealed that a suspicious activity report from Barclays flagged that £2.5 million moved to Mr Sheleg from his father-in-law in Russia wound up in a UK account that then shifted £450,000 to the Conservative party.”
“I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, and appreciate the way in which he is stepping through these points. Is an offence created by the provider of a social media platform if it enables someone to spread harmful messages? Does it count as a proxy, in effect?”
“Did my hon. Friend watch the coverage of the occupation of Mr Deripaska’s mansion yesterday? None of us condones that kind of behaviour, but there were more Crown servants there yesterday than there are in the Treasury asset freezing team. Surely, for too long now, we have been soft on oligarchs and soft on the causes of oligarchs, and what we now need are proper sanction powers to go after the properties and to actually seize, not merely freeze, the assets.”
“I, too, want to thank the Secretary of State for Defence. It is now very clear that we need to re-contain Russia, which will mean resupplying Ukrainian forces, refortifying our frontline, and, crucially, repressing the Russian economy. At the moment, nobody can recognise the 275 figure that is being used for the number of sanctions that have been issued. The Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday heard evidence that the Government simply were not ready. Even today, the family of the founder of the Wagner Group have still not been sanctioned here, even though they have been sanctioned in Europe. When the Secretary of State sees the Foreign Secretary later today, can he ask her to get her act together?”
“Does the hon. Lady share my concern that there are still 11,000 companies at Companies House that do not have a person of significant control registered, yet there have been only 119 prosecutions? Surely we have to transform the regulatory power of Companies House to get rid of this nonsense.”
“We can see that the sanctions regulations will become much stronger, but our sanctions regime is still a long way short of the kind of sanctions that have been imposed on, for example, Iran, whereby we are able to sanction secondary entities trading with sanctioned companies. Does this legislation allow us to enforce Iran-like sanctions on Russia, because ultimately, that is what will be needed?”
“Somebody has very kindly shared with me a list of candidates that the Minister might want to consider: the My Solaris, owned by Roman Abramovich; the Eclipse, which is sailing in the north Atlantic and which the Government would have no means of either seizing or freezing as an asset if it docked at a UK port; the Valerie, owned by Sergey Chemezov, which is currently in Barcelona; the Lady Anastasia, which is currently in Mallorca in Spain; the Tango, which is also in Mallorca; the Palladium, which is currently in Barcelona; the Aurora, in Barcelona; Here Comes the Sun, in Mallorca; Ice, in Genoa; the Ragnar, in Narvik; Sailing Yacht A, owned by Melnichenko—”
“Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), is incredibly important, but I push the Minister to go further. We need to be able not only to freeze assets, but to seize them. Paragraph 3.1.3 of the UK financial sanctions guidance in December 2020 says that the use of an asset, even when it is frozen, is not prohibited. The Minister will forgive the Opposition for growing frustrated over the years at the economic policy that the Government have pursued, which has created a country of haves, have-nots and have-yachts. He can imagine how frustrated we are that the Government will not even seize the yachts when they belong to oligarchs.”
“An answer to the same question came back from the Minister for Security and Borders. In a way, I admire the number of tropes folded into his answer: “The National Crime Agency welcomes the announcement on the Combatting Kleptocracy Cell…They have already surged additional officers to support existing efforts and will”— wait for it— “move at pace to enhance the unit further”. I put the same question to the Treasury. The Treasury being the Treasury, it said: “The staff in post in OFSI was 37.8 FTE…This information can be found in HM Treasury’s Outcome Delivery Plan”. That is the level of precision that we ask of every Department. Frankly, the silence tells us that all is not well. That is why new clause 2 is so very important. New clause 29, tabled by the right hon.”
“Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) read out in the House the week before last, the UK has sanctioned just eight; the EU has sanctioned 19. However, what really troubles me is the question of resources, because that is obviously the core problem. When I submitted parliamentary questions to the Foreign Office, the Treasury and the Home Office last week, I was frankly horrified. My question to the Foreign Office, which leads on sanctioning policy, was pretty straightforward: how much money is devoted to sanctioning, and how many civil servants are working on it? The answer from the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), was about 16 lines long and did not mention either how many civil servants are working on sanctioning or how much money is being spent.”
“Otherwise, frankly, we will stand by and watch the richest people on earth driving a coach and horses through our legislation. My second point is about new clause 2. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) said, the heart of our problem with sanctioning—our frankly embarrassing performance on it—is that as well as not having the right powers, we just do not have the right resources in place. The fact that the Government took away the title of Minister for Economic Crime tells us everything we need to know about their performance and attitude hitherto. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said, the United Kingdom has sanctioned 34 individuals and entities since the extension of the invasion; the EU has sanctioned more than 500. Of the Navalny list of 35 that the hon.”
“The Minister has it in his power to drive those through tonight so that by the time the sun rises tomorrow, we would have in our country a much stronger framework for tackling economic crime to take to the other place. I want to speak to the two amendments in my name—amendments 37 and 38—and weigh in on the debate on amendment 26 and new clauses 2 and 29. Let me start with amendment 26, because I was a Home Office Minister for a couple of years, and I have won and lost many cases as a Home Office Minister. I have to say to the Minister that the failure to remove the words “knowingly or recklessly” from the Bill is frankly the oligarchs’ loophole—their “Get out of trouble free” card. I add my plea to those of other hon. Members that we remove those words.”
“Thank you for calling me to speak, Dame Eleanor. I thank the Minister for his presentation to the House and for the spirit that I thought he brought to his remarks at the outset. He slightly walked back from some of that consensus, but I make the point to him that many of us across the House think that the Government’s approach to tackling economic crime is all holes and no net. We have tried, in 27 pages of amendments, to turn what should be a net into some snares. That is why we cannot understand why the Government are not taking on board some of the smaller, technical drafting amendments that we proposed tonight—and frankly, some of the bigger moves.”
“I will conclude by saying that it is now clear that what our country needs Russia is a recontainment strategy towards Russia. That will entail a refortification of the NATO frontline to the east; resupplying the Ukrainian forces; and suppressing and repressing the Russian economy. Sanctions do not produce instant results—Presidents Mugabe and Maduro presided over economies in ruin for many years—but this would give us progress.”
“The Foreign Secretary later told The Guardian that she had asked Government lawyers to “find literally any way” to crack down on SLAPPs. I would like this Minister’s confirmation that that is indeed going to happen, not in some consultation response to the Human Rights Act, but as a stand-alone piece of legislation, so that we can live in truth in this country. It is outrageous that English courts are being used as a means to silence journalists such as Tom Burgis, Carole Cadwalladr and Catherine Belton. I want great books such as “Butler to the World” by Oliver Bullough to be written with the freedom to tell the truth, and at the moment the oligarchs are denying us that freedom. They are launching a war on free speech in English courts, of all places. That scandal has surely got to stop.”
“I am grateful for your guidance, Dame Eleanor, because I think I have made my point: the Government need to take on more power to seize and freeze these assets. The final point I wish to make is about strategic lawsuits against public participation. We recently had a good debate on lawfare, sponsored by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden and myself. In amendments 37 and 38, we make proposals that the Government could adopt. I do not wish to press them to a vote tonight, but I would like the Minister to confirm what the Foreign Secretary and the Justice Secretary said in the media on Friday. The Justice Secretary told “BBC Breakfast” that SLAPPs were an “abuse of our system and I’m going to be putting forward proposals to deal with that and to prevent that”.”
“I do not just want them frozen; I want them put beyond use.”
“I want to pursue the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), because 23 people on the EU sanctions list are not on the UK sanctions list. There are some surprising omissions—not just the oligarchs on the Navalny list, but the commanders in chief of the Black sea fleet, of Russian aerospace forces and of the Russian navy, and the Russian Defence Minister. We need a timetable for adding these people to the list. Crucially, I want to draw the Minister’s attention to paragraph 3.1.3 of the general guidance on sanctions implementation, which states: “The everyday use by a designated person of their own economic resources for personal consumption is not prohibited.” I would like the Minister to look at how we actually prohibit the use of the mansions, the jets and the economic assets that these people own.”
“My hon. Friend is right. There is a secondary question that the Minister needs to clear up: if a Russian oligarch has a mortgage on a mansion, is the bank that holds the mortgage legally entitled to take debt repayments or not?”
“The right hon. Gentleman is making a brilliant speech. Will he give the House his perspective on the potential weakness in the sanctions regime? Its focus is obviously on asset freezing, but while Abramovich, who is widely regarded as Putin’s cashier, has tried to take pre-emptive measures by transferring control of Chelsea football club to a charitable trust, there is a real issue that the mansions, the jets and the yachts owned by oligarchs will continue to be available for their use because the regulations do not prohibit the use of economic resources for personal consumption.”
“There are 23 serious players on the EU sanction list who are not on the UK list. They are key economic players, such as Mr Kostin, the president and chairman of VTB Bank. Missing from our list are key political figures such as Anton Vaino, chief of staff to President Putin. Missing is Mr Grigorenko, the deputy Prime Minister. Missing are key propagandists such as Margarita Simonyan. Missing, surprisingly, are military figures such as the commander-in-chief of the Black sea fleet, the commander-in-chief of Russian aerospace forces, the commander-in-chief of the Russian army and the Russian Defence Minister. I am well aware that the sanctioning business is not a competition, but I want to know from the Paymaster General why these individuals who are being sanctioned by our neighbours are not in the regulations presented to this House.”
“I said to the House yesterday that we remain troubled that our neighbours are so much further ahead in targeting and sanctioning institutions and individuals. The Foreign Secretary, who is not in her place, said something very strange in response: she said that “this is not a competition”. —[ Official Report , 28 February 2022; Vol. 709, c. 726.] Of course it is not a competition; it is an exercise in not leaving a gap through which bad people escape justice and our campaign. The ban on trading in state bonds is in place in Europe, but not here in the United Kingdom. The ban on import and export from breakaway regions is in place in Europe, but not here in the United Kingdom. The sanctions on state Duma members are in place in Europe, but not here in the United Kingdom.”
“Like everyone who has spoken in this debate, I support these regulations, but I want the Paymaster General to become a paymaster for taking on Kremlin paymasters with a lot more force and power behind him. We are now about to see what could be the “Syrianisation” of the conflict in Ukraine. We have seen horrifying pictures of the shelling intensifying this afternoon. We know there are Spetsnaz and paratroopers ready to drop. We know Ramzan Kadyrov has readied thousands of Chechen fighters to go in and pursue a murderous, barbarous campaign. We are on the brink now of a humanitarian disaster in Ukraine. Therefore, what we needed to see from the Government this afternoon was a step change in a plan for economic warfare, targeted to defeat President Putin.”
“I am seriously concerned that, whereas France is talking about taking away assets such as mansions, yachts and jets, paragraph 3.1.3 of the UK financial sanctions guidance in December 2020 does not prohibit the use of assets even if those assets are technically frozen. Are we seriously saying that we will step back and watch people such as Abramovich and Usmanov parade around the world in jets and in yachts and make use of property here in the United Kingdom because we did not tighten up the regulations strongly enough? Are we in this House seriously prepared to stand by and watch that? I do not believe we are.”
“I am grateful for the nuance the hon. Gentleman brings to the debate. Gerasimov was not on the list I cited and I do not believe he is on the EU list either, but what disturbs me, which I have not yet heard an explanation for, is why these individuals are sanctioned across the channel and not yet sanctioned here. That deserves an explanation. My second point is to push the Paymaster General on just what sanctioning means. We have heard a lot of rhetoric over the past week about the biggest and boldest sanctioning regime in living history, going further and faster against the Russians than ever before. Frankly, that does not say much, given the lassitude with which the Government have approached this question over the past few years.”
“My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are now seeing a sanctions gap emerge, where the UK is the soft touch, the weakest link, and the slowest to the punch. None of us in this House wants to be in this position. We all welcome the regulations that the Paymaster General has brought before the House this afternoon, but the question that we put back is: “Tell us what further power and resources you need so that we can genuinely be best in class around the world.””
“The answer that normally comes back—it is getting slightly wearing now—is “Just because there are people with Russian links donating to political parties, not all Russians are bad.” No one is saying that. Stop patronising our intelligence! We have named specific individuals with links to Russia, such as Mohamed Amersi, who, together with his partner, has given £750,000 to the Conservative party, despite making millions of dollars from a deal that involved President Putin’s telecoms Minister. In case anybody is in any doubt about the gravity of the situation, let me quote from a letter from Carter-Ruck that I have been sent in defence of Mohamed Amersi.”
“We need a foreign agents registration Act, an update to GDPR legislation so that abusive data subject access requests can be stopped, and SLAPP-back laws to allow judges to throw out abuses and attempts to silence journalists such as brave Catherine Belton and Tom Burgis. We need updated espionage laws before the House as quickly as possible. I have to say to the Government that there needs to be a ban on political donations from profits earned outside the UK. We need a regime for calling in donations from improper sources for national security assessment. Fortunately enough, the Elections Bill is in the House of Lords, and as it happens I have tabled amendments that would allow us to achieve exactly that.”
“When we consider the £100 billion-plus in economic damage to our country, surely doubling the National Crime Agency’s budget is a very small ask of the Treasury. While we are at it, we need to introduce cost capping orders in relation to unexplained wealth orders, as the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) said, so that the costs of prosecution are that much smaller. Fifthly, we need policy infrastructure such as a register of beneficial ownership of property and a proper targeting system based on our financial information. There is a group of urgently overdue laws that must be introduced over the next couple of months.”
“We have to do away with this nonsense and create a single lead agency that brings to this House a CONTEST-style strategy for taking on economic crime in which we prepare, protect and prevent, and pursue economic criminals to the ends of the earth. Thirdly, there are Government reports that now need to see the light of day, starting with the Home Office’s review of the golden visa scheme. The Home Secretary has said that her ambition is for it to published. Why on earth has it not been published this week? We need to know where the weaknesses are, so let us get the facts on the table. Fourthly, we need to resource the fight against economic crime far more seriously. Lynne Owens, the former director general of the National Crime Agency, is on the record as saying that its budget needs to double.”
“I have been a Minister with a foot in two different Departments, and I can tell the House that it is an absolute nightmare. Surely it is now time to unite the political leadership in a single department for economic warfare that begins to take the fight to President Putin in a far more aggressive way. Secondly, there are 12 different agencies currently tasked with taking on economic crime, and the Government, in their negligence, have not yet appointed a lead authority. Surely that now has to change. The National Crime Agency was bewildered to hear that a kleptocracy cell was being set up, as were the people in the National Economic Crime Centre.”
“I want to pull together some of the brilliant contributions that we have had in this debate over the past few years and, in particular, over the past couple of weeks. If we write down the contributions that we have heard from all hon. Members, we basically get a call on Ministers for a 10-point plan to drive hard behind the powers that are being granted. First, surely it is now time for a Minister for economic warfare. This came up in conversation with the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). We are now settling into what will be a long confrontation with Russia, yet the sanctions team is in the Foreign Office, the instructions to the Bank of England are issued by the Treasury, and the Minister for Security is in the Home Office.”
“That could well be the case, but if the Paymaster General has told us this afternoon that nothing is off the table, then we in this House need to hold him to his word and ask him to come back to us with an explanation, because at the moment the regime prohibits the dealing in economic resources but permits the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation to make available those resources. Personal consumption is not prohibited, according to the regulation. I guess we are asking him please to commit to us today to look at this question and bring back proposals for our urgent consideration, because I believe I speak for the whole House when I say that we will give the green light at a moment’s notice.”
“Many of us have heard time and again how firms such as Mishcon de Reya and Carter-Ruck abuse the legal process in order to create and inflate costs and intimidate others. Frankly, that has to stop. As the hon. Member for Isle of Wight said, it is a tragedy that it has taken a war to bring us together across the House around a plan for tackling economic crime. When the Berlin wall fell, and also on that tragic day of 9/11, I looked out on the world and thought, “We are moving into a different era”, and now I think we are moving into a different era again. We will need to rethink the way in which we fortify our frontline with Russia across the NATO territories, and we will need to get serious about taking on the cancer of economic crime once and for all. If we do that, I believe that we will ultimately prevail.”
“I could go on; I have made previous contributions in the House about the matter. Dmitry Leus—a man whose cheque the Prince’s Foundation has sent back—has given something like £30,000 to the Justice Secretary’s constituency party. Please stop patronising our intelligence, stop telling us that all the donations were given under the rules that existed at the time, stop pretending that we are trying to smear the entire Russian people, look at the people writing the cheques with suspect links, and pay the money back. Let me set out the final couple of points in our 10-point plan. In addition to the five pieces of legislation that need updating, we need to update the regulation of the Solicitors Regulation Authority.”
“The right hon. Gentleman might have had a similar letter. Mine is many, many pages long and must have cost an absolute fortune. It says: “Our client did not know, and cannot reasonably have been expected to know or suspect, that Ms Karimova was the ultimate controller of Takilant Limited”— that was the corrupt telecoms deal that he was involved in. Anybody who was doing business in the country knew that that family were behind pretty much every major industry. Mr Amersi is many things, but he is not stupid. At the bottom of page 4, the letter goes on: “To be clear, all of our client’s…dealings in Russia and the former Soviet Union…were entirely legitimate, lawful and transparent.” Surely this is not the kind of individual that the Conservative and Unionist party should be taking money from.”
“The right hon. Gentleman is right to make this point. Surely we have to get the balance right, though. I say as a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury that we have to guard against the Treasury insisting that Companies House is in some way cost neutral—that it covers its own costs. We want to have good “know your customer” checks in place, but we also want to avoid that cost being loaded on to sky-high fees. I am afraid that resolving that balance might well require the Treasury to think creatively.”
“The whole House will welcome the Foreign Secretary’s ambition this afternoon, but can we speed up the process of hitting the people on the hit list? There are 23 people on the EU sanctions list who are not on the UK sanctions list as of this morning. The ban on trading in state bonds is in place in Europe, but not in the UK. The ban on import and export from breakaway regions is in place in Europe, but not in the UK. The asset freeze and travel ban on Duma members is in place in Europe, but not in the UK. The asset freeze and travel bans in place in Europe number 22, but there are just eight in the UK announced in the past few days. What further power and resources does the Foreign Secretary need for us to catch up with our American and European allies?”