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(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
The Minister for Housing (Stuart Andrew)
Since 2010, more than 758,000 households have been helped to purchase a home through Government-backed schemes, including Help to Buy and Right to Buy. In the levelling-up White Paper, we included this mission:
“By 2030, renters will have a secure path to ownership with the number of first-time buyers increasing in all areas”.
Mr Dhesi
Conservative choices have created a housing crisis by allowing developers to maximise profit, building housing for investment rather than good-quality, safe, secure, affordable homes. However, building more homes will not in itself solve the housing crisis if those homes are bought off plan by foreign investors before local people such as my constituents can even get a look in. In order to ensure that first-time buyers are not squeezed out by foreign investors and second home owners, will the Government support Labour’s proposal to allow them first dibs on new homes?
Stuart Andrew
Let me first make it clear that it is my keen ambition in this role to do everything I can to help more people on to the housing ladder. We have produced a great many schemes that help to achieve that purpose. We already have the First Homes scheme, which provides a 30% discount for local people, for whom those homes remain in perpetuity.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend join me in welcoming the fact that last year saw the highest number of first-time buyers in two decades, under this Government, and will he pledge to do everything he can to increase that number in future years?
Stuart Andrew
My hon. Friend is right to highlight the increase in the number of first-time buyers. We are keen to ensure that it continues, and the levelling-up White Paper will be key to delivering that for as many people as possible throughout the country.
Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
The Opposition have repeatedly criticised the Government’s First Homes scheme on the grounds that, by top-slicing section 106 funding, it drastically reduces the number of social and affordable rented homes that are being built, but we also have concerns that the scheme is failing in practice to help large numbers of first-time buyers across the country. Given that the new build premium is continuing to rise, and given that UK house price index data suggest that average house prices in England have increased by 18% since the scheme was first consulted on, can the Minister tell us in how many local authority areas the discount on those homes has not already been entirely eroded?
Stuart Andrew
I accept that there are a number of things that we need to do in relation to the First Homes scheme. Homes England’s early delivery programme will provide a further 1,500 homes, but of course we will monitor these developments and do everything we can to help people get on to the property ladder. After all, achieving that has always been a huge principle of the Conservative party.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Despite the covid pandemic, more than 800 new homes were built in my constituency last year, many of them affordable for first-time buyers. More than 800 houses were built during the previous year, and more than 800 will be built this year. Does the Minister agree that the best thing we can do for first-time buyers is ensure that all constituencies build an ample number of high-quality, affordable homes?
Stuart Andrew
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Having local authorities with well-developed local plans to ensure that they are ready and prepared to build the houses that their local area needs is incredibly important. The affordable homes programme that the Government have announced, with £11.5 billion-worth of investment, will help to secure that, so that we can try to deliver the 180,000 homes that that is expected to deliver.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Neil O’Brien)
The Secretary of State met the then First Minister of Northern Ireland when the levelling-up White Paper was published to discuss the many opportunities for Northern Ireland as part of that agenda, and I met Conor Murphy, the Minister of Finance, last Thursday to discuss the delivery of the UK shared prosperity fund in Northern Ireland. I look forward to working closely with the Northern Ireland Executive on this in the coming months.
Ian Paisley
I thank the Minister for meeting me last week to discuss these important opportunities for regions such as Northern Ireland. The levelling-up White Paper identified hydrogen bus development as a key economic boost. So far, five strategic schemes have been put in place for zero-emission buses across the UK, and all five are very welcome but they are battery electric. Will the next five schemes be driven by hydrogen? Can the Minister ensure that there is joined-up thinking on this across the Departments?
Neil O’Brien
The hon. Gentleman is right to identify an important opportunity for Northern Ireland through the hydrogen agenda. As part of all the things we are doing on levelling up, including the third increase in research and development spending outside the greater south-east, the strengthening places agenda, or the many things we are doing with higher and further education in Northern Ireland, there are many opportunities to advance the important agenda that he has prioritised.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
Until recently, European aid was the main means of regenerating communities in some of the devolved nations, but that European aid was restricted to certain parts of the nations. Now, the levelling-up fund and the shared prosperity fund will give us the opportunity to regenerate other parts of the UK, particularly those areas that did not qualify for European aid. When the next window opens for the levelling-up fund, will the Minister pay particular attention to communities such as Barry, which now qualify for the levelling-up fund but did not previously qualify for European aid?
Neil O’Brien
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right; the next round of levelling-up funding will be opening shortly. He is also right to draw attention to the fact that outside the European Union we have a lot more flexibility about how we spend, and we can use that to pick up some of those exciting opportunities in other places.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)
The Minister for Levelling Up Communities (Kemi Badenoch)
Next year’s local government finance settlement makes available an additional £3.7 billion to councils, including funding for adult social care reform. This is an increase in funding of more than 4.5% in real terms and it will ensure that councils across the country have the resources they need to deliver key services.
Barbara Keeley
Salford City Council has had its core funding from central Government cut by 53% since 2010-11. The local government finance settlement that the Minister has just mentioned does not reverse that decade of cuts, and nor does it help enough to provide the £7.6 million needed to pay for increases in costs from national insurance, the national minimum wage, employer pensions and inflation. However, the most critical pressure is on adult social care, where the city council faces increased demand and increased costs. How on earth can councils be expected to deliver vital social care services adequately when this Government’s solution is to make councils fund them from regressive taxes such as council tax and a social care levy of up to 14%?
Kemi Badenoch
We recognise that councils have financial pressures and we are doing everything we can to support them. Salford receives up to an additional £19.2 million in core spending power, which is a cash-terms increase of 7.8%. That excludes other funding that we have given to the hon. Lady’s council to assist with the pressures she has raised.
Liz Twist
The levelling-up White Paper made no mention of funding for local councils, despite the fact that it is local authorities that deliver the kind of change to local communities that the White Paper claims to be aiming for. Does the Minister think that after 12 years of extraordinary cuts to local authority funding, councils across the country are in a good position to deliver levelling up without any new funding?
Kemi Badenoch
I disagree with the hon. Lady. The levelling-up White Paper did make reference to council funding, and the financial settlement that I referred to earlier mentioned the cash increase. She will know that Gateshead receives 8.1% and that the Northumberland part of her constituency receives 8%. The fact is that we have given additional funding for levelling up. This includes £2.1 million from the community renewal fund and a £358,000 allocation from the welcome back fund. There is money going into her constituency and we are here to support as much as we can.
Paula Barker
Local government finance has been ravaged over the last decade under the mantra of austerity. Councils in the north have lost up to 50% of their core funding, and some have lost even more. The Secretary of State has said, “If you leave the free-play market forces entirely to themselves, then what you see is inequality growing, in particular geographical inequality”. Those were fine words, spoken at the convention of the north in my home city. When will the Department drop the spin on local government finance and genuinely improve councils’ core spending powers by factoring in inflation and national insurance increases, for which our cash-strapped local authorities are picking up the tab?
Kemi Badenoch
Labour Members continue to talk about losses in funding, but they forget to remind everyone of how we arrived in this position. It is because of their disgraceful management of the public finances. We have spent the last 10 years repairing the public finances, which is why we have been able to give the real-terms increase that will support all Labour councils.
Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)
Stroud District Council is on the record as saying how generous and supportive the Government were during the pandemic. We established holiday camps and a range of activities that were not there before, we are bidding for £20 million from the levelling-up fund and we are working closely with our GFirst local enterprise partnership, which is keen to know the timeline for the shared prosperity fund. Is the Minister able to give us any more information? This is another round of funding that is available to our local authorities.
Kemi Badenoch
I recognise my hon. Friend’s concerns. All I can tell her is that we will be providing further details very shortly.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State and all the Ministers and officials in the Department for moving at pace to tackle the growing humanitarian crisis in Ukraine. We have heard from the Government that those with family links and those with sponsorship will get support. Many local authorities are under huge financial pressure, so will the Minister say what further help could be given to local authorities that want to house refugees not only from Ukraine but from Afghanistan? Finally, can she give more detail on the announcement, or non-announcement, of a third track for refugees?
Kemi Badenoch
I cannot answer all my right hon. Friend’s questions, but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is having discussions with councils on this very issue. As soon as we are able to provide further details, we will do so.
Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the reorganisation of local authority areas can reduce the financial pressure on councils? Will she meet me to discuss how Southport would benefit from being in a new council area?
Kemi Badenoch
Yes, it is true that reorganisation can sometimes assist. I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss this issue.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
Members on both sides of the Chamber have said that any levelling up will ultimately be delivered by local authorities improving lives in their communities, but councils have faced and continue to face, despite the spin, serious shortfalls thanks to draconian Government cuts, including a 2% real-terms cut this year. Can the Minister explain how taking away £88 million from Burnley Borough Council in Lancashire over the last 10 years, even after taking into account the levelling-up funding, is fair? How is that levelling up? How will a £102 million shortfall over the next three years for Essex County Council—the Minister’s own county council—level up adult social care? Is it not time for Ministers to cut the spin, cut the claptrap and provide some substance and genuine levelling up for our hard-pressed councils?
Kemi Badenoch
I completely reject the hon. Gentleman’s numbers. As I said, we have given a 4.5% increase in the local government finance settlement. We are here to provide support to all local authorities. We are not going to engage in agreeing with the false numbers provided by the Opposition.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Eddie Hughes)
We have committed more than £800 million to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping in this year alone. That includes the investment of £202 million through the rough sleeping initiative fund, which provides 14,500 bed spaces and approximately 2,700 staff throughout the country. We are also helping people to find longer-term accommodation, including through the £433 million rough sleeping accommodation programme, which we expect to provide 6,000 new homes before the end of this Parliament. So far, we seem to be having some success, because the rough sleeping snapshot taken in November and announced a couple of weeks ago shows that numbers have fallen for eight years in a row.
Steve Brine
Trinity Winchester is not just a homeless shelter or day centre for rough sleepers but provides practical and emotional support to people experiencing the effects of homelessness and vulnerability. Its new Bradbury View accommodation provides homes for people who are rough sleeping repeatedly. The model is unique and I am glad that the Secretary of State has agreed to visit Winchester as soon as we can fix that up—
Steve Brine
He is giving me a thumbs up—excellent.
Does the Minister agree that we have to borrow what works—Winchester is happy to show what works in this regard—and then scale it up throughout the country? At the end of the day, it is wraparound care that is going to break the cycle.
Eddie Hughes
I guess that is the point: we need to legislate nationally and provide funding but trust local authorities, local areas and the excellent services of Trinity Winchester and others of that ilk to provide a bespoke service based on local demands. I am delighted that the Secretary of State is going to visit that scheme.
Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)
The Government’s rough sleeping snapshot recorded 2,440 people sleeping rough throughout the whole UK in the autumn. The Minister will know that the flawed method of data collection captures just a fraction of those without a home to sleep in. Those who are not represented in the figures include people who slept on public transport, who found a bed in a night shelter, who walked around at night and slept rough during the day, or who went under the local authority’s radar completely for any number of reasons. The reality of rough sleeping is far worse than the figures imply, so will the Minister tell me whether his Department is on track to deliver on its promise to truly end rough sleeping by 2024? If it is not, will it consider seizing the mansions of Russian oligarchs and putting those empty bedrooms to good use, once and for all?
Eddie Hughes
To a degree, I understand part of the hon. Lady’s point. It is clearly difficult to capture that information, which is why we trust local councils and charities to do it. We have the figures validated by Homeless Link. The hon. Lady may have missed the fact that we are publishing more data so that it will be available monthly and working with local councils to make sure that that data is used appropriately to reduce the number of rough sleepers. I look forward to working with her to that end.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
Suzanne Webb (Stourbridge) (Con)
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations (Michael Gove)
The proposals in the levelling-up White Paper are already reducing regional inequality. Whether it is through urban regeneration in Wolverhampton and Sheffield, new education investment areas across the country, or a commitment to addressing the health inequality that holds so many people back, this Government are making progress to make opportunity more equal for all.
Jason McCartney
I have been supporting the levelling-up fund bid by my hon. Friends the Members for Dewsbury (Mark Eastwood) and for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates) to upgrade the Huddersfield-Penistone-Sheffield railway line. I have also been working on my own bid to regenerate disused mills in my Colne Valley constituency. Will the Secretary of State please tell me when we will get more details on the next round of levelling-up fund bids, which are transforming our constituencies?
Michael Gove
Colne Valley, and indeed Kirklees more broadly, has no more effective advocate than my hon. Friend, and the bid he has put forward has much to commend it. I will discuss with the Secretary of State for Transport and the Chancellor of the Exchequer what we can do, but more detail will be shared when the Chancellor makes his spring statement.
Suzanne Webb
Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council and I are currently working on a masterplan for an area called Lye, an historic market town in my constituency that is in much need of regeneration. The intention is to put in a bid for the levelling-up fund. Will my right hon. Friend support me in encouraging my constituents to put themselves forward and have their say in the consultation? There is of course an open door and my right hon. Friend is welcome to come to my constituency to see exactly what regeneration is needed.
Michael Gove
There are few more attractive parts of the Black Country and the west midlands than my hon. Friend’s constituency. I have not yet visited the community of Lye—I am sure that all sorts of puns could follow—but the proposition that she puts forwards, which is increased community involvement in town masterplanning, is at the heart of our approach towards redevelopment.
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
I am delighted that the UK Government have recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Wrexham and Denbighshire councils in order to allow the first phase of the £13.3 million levelling-up projects in Clwyd South to progress. Will my right hon. Friend provide further detail on how he sees these levelling-up fund projects addressing regional inequality in my part of north Wales?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. North Wales has been neglected under previous Labour Governments. It is only this Conservative Administration who are making sure that communities such as Wrexham and Llangollen get the investment they deserve. He and my hon. Friend the estimable Member for Wrexham (Sarah Atherton) have put forward exciting propositions and we want to make sure that the whole north Wales corridor, from Ynys Môn, over the border into Liverpool and Chester, becomes a supercharged corridor for growth, and that will only happen under this Government.
Mr Speaker
I call the Chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
The Government’s White Paper is rightly ambitious. I think there will be general support for that ambition across the House, and rightly so, because we have some of the most unequal economies and societies among any developed countries. Is the Secretary of State not slightly concerned, however, that the tools he has at his disposal to address this are actually a small number of separate spending pots, completely disjointed and unconnected, and distributed according to a completely inappropriate bidding process? Does the Secretary of State not really want to see a review of total Government spending, of where it is spent in the country, and then the allocation and more control over that to local councils and local mayors so that it can be spent in the interests of local communities?
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
My constituents in Fleetwood hear about levelling up an awful lot, but they are not really seeing the benefits of it. Applications by Wyre Borough Council for the future high streets fund and the levelling-up fund have been knocked back, so can the Minister tell my Fleetwood constituents when they can expect to get this levelling up?
Michael Gove
Absolutely. I am more than happy to talk to Lancashire County Council and, indeed, to the hon. Lady about how we can ensure that levelling-up funds and UK shared prosperity and other funds flow to her constituents.
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)
There was much to welcome in the White Paper, but, as we have just heard, we now need to see the investment to match that ambition. I understand that the Secretary of State might be in my neck of the woods in the very near future. He will be warmly welcome, particularly if he brings the Treasury cheque book with him. May I ask him specifically for an update on the £900 million that I have requested for South Yorkshire to match the shared prosperity fund commitments that the Government have rightly made to Cornwall?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the points that he makes. He is absolutely right: we need to make sure that the replacements for EU funding are distributed equitably and efficiently across the country. I completely understand the desire that he and others in South Yorkshire have to see that money out of the door as quickly as possible and in communities making a difference. We will be updating the House on our progress towards ensuring that that money is available along the timeline of the spring statement.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
The reality is that the rhetoric is just not matching up to what the Government say they want it to deliver, but those analysts at Oxford Economics are not fooled. They say the levelling-up White Paper contains
little that is new or significant.
They say that there is nothing to cause them to revise their national and regional growth forecast, and they call its targets and missions either “pre-existing or “vague”. That is a damning indictment. What we needed was a plan to bring good jobs back to all communities to breathe life into our high streets and to transfer power from Whitehall to local communities. This White Paper is not going to address regional inequalities, is it?
Michael Gove
The hon. Gentleman said that the rhetoric is not matching up to the delivery, which suggests, actually, that we are underselling what we are doing. I think what he meant to say, if he had written out his question more clearly, is that the delivery is not matching up to the rhetoric. I have to disagree with him on that, because a plethora of organisations from Onward to the Institute for Public Policy Research have pointed out that everything in the levelling-up White Paper is what Labour should have been doing when it was in power.
Mr Speaker
I call the Scottish National party spokesperson, Patricia Gibson.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Scotland was promised £1.5 billion a year when the UK left the European Union, as part of a so-called Brexit bonanza. In reality, only £172 million has been announced so far. That means that, for every pound promised to Scotland, only 11p has been committed. Can the Secretary of State explain why Scotland is being short-changed by 89%, and will he tell us when that shortfall will be addressed?
Michael Gove
It is the case that we want to welcome more bids to the levelling up fund from Scotland; indeed, we are in discussion with Scottish local authorities and others about the distribution of the UK shared prosperity fund. However, I hope I can avoid provoking a blush on the hon. Lady’s cheek if I say that her local authority of North Ayrshire, North Ayrshire’s Member of the Scottish Parliament and the hon. Lady herself have been uniquely successful in securing funding from the levelling-up fund. I encourage other Members of the Scottish National party to be as energetic, co-ordinated and effective as she, the MSP for North Ayrshire and North Ayrshire Council have been.
Ruth Edwards (Rushcliffe) (Con)
The Minister for Housing (Stuart Andrew)
Ministers from our Department engage regularly with those from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on flood risk. That includes the publication of our joint “Review of policy for development in areas at flood risk”, which looked at that very issue, and the updating of the flood risk policies in the national planning policy framework in 2021.
Ruth Edwards
Much of the flooding in villages across Rushcliffe has been linked to new developments built without increasing local sewerage and drainage capacity. How does my right hon. Friend think we can best address that problem through the planning system, to ensure not only that water companies are forced to take new development into account when assessing their infrastructure, but that developers are forced to pay their fair share? If we do not get this right, it will be all our constituents who continue to suffer.
Stuart Andrew
My hon. Friend is right, and she is a superb advocate for her constituents, having already raised a number of issues with me since I have been in this post. The national planning policy framework is clear that local plans and planning decisions should consider flood risk from all sources, including overwhelmed sewers and drainage systems. Water and sewage companies are statutory consultees for local plans that set out an area’s development requirements, and can comment on planning applications. However, she is right that the right infrastructure must be put in place for the developments we see in our country.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
Flooding is undoubtedly an important issue to be taken into account in the planning process, but there are other issues, one of which is the gender bias that exists in planning. I will be presenting a Bill tomorrow to attack that very thing. Are the Government considering as part of the planning in the levelling-up process how to ensure that gender neutrality is at the heart of major development designing?
Stuart Andrew
There will be a lot of announcements to come in the near future about our plans for planning, but the hon. Lady is right to talk about that whole aspect of it. My hon. Friend the Minister for Levelling Up Communities, the hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch) has just assured me that all equality issues are looked at in this area.
Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
We have the same problems in North East Hertfordshire, with towns such as Watton-at-Stone having flooding problems because of many new houses, inadequate storm drains and not enough balancing ponds. Will my right hon. Friend redouble his efforts in talking to DEFRA to ensure that we get better storm drainage for the future?
Stuart Andrew
My right hon. and learned Friend is right to raise that important issue. As we prepare all developments to ensure that they are tackling climate change, we should also look at the points he raises. I commit to him that I will speak on a regular basis with my colleagues in DEFRA.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations (Michael Gove)
The Government are ensuring that industry and those responsible pay to fix the current crisis. I refer the hon. Lady and the House to the letter I sent to the Home Builders Federation, published earlier today, which followed proposals sent to me by developers. While I welcome progress, developers have not yet gone far enough. I expect them to agree a fully funded plan to fix unsafe buildings by the end of this month or, reluctantly, we will have to impose a solution in law.
Vicky Foxcroft
I have met dozens of freeholders and leaseholders in my constituency who are worried about the escalating costs of fire safety remediation. The Hyde Group recently billed tenants £9,000 a year for waking watch, although, thankfully, it rescinded it. Leaseholders from the Renaissance buildings may be liable for £500,000 of costs relating to external wall investigations and the building safety fund application. What reassurances can the Secretary of State give my constituents while they wait anxiously for the Government to decide who is liable for those huge bills?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for articulating so clearly the concerns that so many of her constituents have. I am glad that the request for funding for waking watch has been removed. That follows on from the announcement that we made on building safety a little earlier this year. As she rightly points out, with regard to the allocation of costs and responsibilities, more needs to be done. I hope that by the end of this month the clarity that she seeks and the safe passage of the Building Safety Bill will provide the constituents for whom she speaks with the reassurance they deserve.
Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Eddie Hughes)
This Government are committed to driving improvements in both social and private rented homes. This spring we will publish our White Paper setting out our ambitious proposals to reform the private rented sector, including exploring a legally binding decent homes standard as well as a landlord register. We are driving forward reform of social housing quality through our social housing White Paper commitments, including a review of the decent homes standard.
Ian Byrne
One in four properties in the private rented sector are classed as non-decent. Every day that the Government delay their White Paper is a day that millions spend in cold, insecure, unsafe and unaffordable homes. The words “levelling up” will ring hollow in the minds of millions of tenants living in these awful, awful conditions. Will the Minister commit that the White Paper will actually have teeth to resolve the crisis that we are seeing in our communities and hold rogue landlords to account, which is not happening now?
Eddie Hughes
I have tremendous respect for the hon. Gentleman and his work, and the work of the Select Committee in total. I will be working very closely with them to ensure that the White Paper does indeed have teeth and that our collective efforts drive down the number of non-decent homes. The target set in the levelling-up White Paper was to reduce the number by 50% by 2030.
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
The Minister for Levelling Up Communities (Kemi Badenoch)
The anti-Muslim hatred working group has played a valuable role as the Government’s forum for discussing and advising on anti-Muslim hatred and the challenges faced by Britain’s Muslim communities. While the group was paused during the pandemic they continued their important work through a series of webinars, including an event addressing the fears and myths about the covid-19 vaccination programme. The Secretary of State and I will be meeting the leadership of the group in the next few weeks to discuss the current issues facing Muslim communities and the best way for us to support the group’s work.
Afzal Khan
Islamophobia remains in all elements of our society, and that includes our major political parties. The difference is that while the Labour party has taken decisive and swift action, the Government have not delivered on any of their promises. The anti-Muslim hatred working group’s own Qari Asim has been critical of the Government’s failure to take tangible action. Will the Minister now follow in the footsteps of the Labour party and take steps to tackle Islamophobia in the UK, starting with a truly independent investigation into the Conservative party? Will she outline when the UK last submitted a report to the UN’s International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, as required of all signatories to the convention?
Kemi Badenoch
The Government do remain committed to stamping out anti-Muslim hatred and all forms of religious prejudice. I have had conversations with the hon. Gentleman and I am due to meet the all-party parliamentary group on British Muslims very shortly. We will outline our next steps in due course but we are actively working on this.
Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
I have listened to the Minister, but the tragic reality is that Islamophobia is on the rise and is rife in our society today. If anyone is in any doubt, they should speak to the Muslim communities up and down this country who have to face this evil on a daily basis. How can my constituents have any confidence in a Government who cannot even tackle Islamophobia in their own ranks?
Kemi Badenoch
I completely reject the accusation made by the hon. Gentleman—it is completely untrue. We are doing everything we can to tackle not just anti-Muslim hatred but all forms of prejudice in our society. On this issue, we have supported Tell MAMA with just over £4 million between 2016 and 2022 to monitor and combat anti-Muslim hatred. Over the past five years of the places of worship grant scheme we have awarded 241 grants worth approximately £5 million to places of worship. In November 2020 we awarded £1.8 million through the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s faith, race and hate crime grant scheme.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Neil O'Brien)
Investment in rail is a very important part of the levelling-up agenda. As well as the £2 billion for Network Rail in Wales over this control period, more than £340 million has been provided for enhancements in Welsh rail from 2019 to 2024. What is more, the UK Government are investing £30 million in the Global Centre of Rail Excellence, supporting about 120 jobs in Wales.
Geraint Davies
It takes three hours to get from London to Swansea; it takes three hours to get from London to Edinburgh. The reason is that only 1.5% of UK rail enhancement funding goes to Wales, even though it has 5% of the population and 11% of the railway lines. Will the Minister—with the support of the Secretary of State—urge the Treasury to provide funding as a share of HS2 to Wales on the same basis as it provides it to Scotland, given that HS2 is north-south, which would give us an extra £4.6 billion to level up and connect the Union?
Neil O'Brien
The 1% figure that the hon. Gentleman quotes is from a Welsh Government report, which looks only at a very small part of rail investment and does not give a correct picture of the wider investment in Wales that I described. HS2 will of course provide huge benefits to the people of north Wales, who will be connected much more rapidly to the rest of the country.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister for Housing (Stuart Andrew)
Data on second homes in Devon and Cornwall can be found on the Government’s council taxbase website. The number of second homes for council tax purposes was 28,126 in 2010, and is at 26,853 this year. The Government recognise the adverse effects that large numbers of second homes can have on some areas, and we have introduced a number of measures to mitigate those effects, including high rates of stamp duty tax for those purchasing additional properties.
Luke Pollard
More west country families are being turfed out of their homes through no-fault evictions, only to find those homes appearing on Airbnb a few days later. Every west country family should have a first home, but we are becoming known as a region of second homes and holiday lets. Will the Minister meet a delegation from the First Homes not Second Homes campaign so that we can look at how the Government can adopt Welsh Labour’s proposal to charge 300% council tax on empty properties and second homes that are empty for much of the year, and ensure that every family can have a first home?
Stuart Andrew
The hon. Gentleman is right to raise this issue, which was one of the main topics that came up when I met several of my colleagues just last week. I am more than happy to meet the delegation, as the hon. Gentleman suggests, and will try to arrange that as quickly as possible.
Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
The Minister for Levelling Up Communities (Kemi Badenoch)
The Localism Act 2011 sets out a robust framework for local authority standards and accountability. All local authorities must adopt a code of conduct, with sanctions when members do not adhere. I recently met the chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life to reaffirm that the Government will respond shortly to his committee’s report on this issue, when we will set out further steps to improve the system.
Mr Whittingdale
Does my hon. Friend agree that as the Government strengthen locally elected institutions, bodies and individuals as part of the levelling-up agenda, it becomes all the more important that they are properly held to account by local media—newspapers, radio and television? Will she look at what more can be done to sustain local media, which is under terrific pressure?
Kemi Badenoch
My right hon. Friend is right. Local news providers remain uniquely placed to undertake the investigative journalism and scrutiny of public institutions that is vital to ensuring a healthy democracy at local level. This is primarily a matter for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, but I am happy to meet my right hon. Friend to find out more about it.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Am I living in a parallel universe? [Hon. Members: “Yes!”] Listening to some Government Members talk about their experience of their local authorities and their local situation, I feel I must be in a different world. The fact of the matter is that the morale of local authorities and local councillors is at rock bottom, because during these years and years of Conservative Government there have been so few resources for local authorities to actually do their job. They want to do their job—they would love to level up—but just like the northern powerhouse, this all looks like pie in the sky to my constituents.
Kemi Badenoch
I did not hear a question, so I will just disagree with the hon. Gentleman.
Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
Accountability in local government includes participation from the widest corners of our society. As the Disability Policy Centre highlighted in its recent report, “Breaking Down Barriers”, accessibility of local authority buildings is still a major issue for disabled people. Only two in five of local authority homepages on the web are accessible. What work will the Government do to ensure we can open up local democracy to more people with disabilities?
Kemi Badenoch
My right hon. and learned Friend raises a very important issue. Officials are consistently looking at ways to ensure we comply with the Equality Act 2010. If there is a specific example he would like to give me, I would appreciate it if he wrote to me, and then I can provide him with a more comprehensive response.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations (Michael Gove)
Levelling-up funding is distributed using both competitive and formula-based models as appropriate across the United Kingdom. The methodology, assessment and decision-making processes involved are published on gov.uk.
Joanna Cherry
I have no objection to the Secretary of State redistributing wealth by giving my constituents and other Scottish taxpayers their hard-earned cash back, but the Scotland Act 1998 should be respected. In January, the House of Lords Constitution Committee said that the Government’s approach was “unhelpful” and has undermined the trust of the devolved Governments in this Government. Can he tell us when the Government will start to properly respect the devolved settlements?
Michael Gove
I respectfully disagree with the hon. and learned Lady. Not only are we respecting the devolution settlement; we are enhancing it. Only the other week, I had the chance to speak to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, which, as she will know, is the successor body to the oldest local government organisation in the world. There was a huge welcome from the Scottish National party, Conservative, independent, Liberal Democrat and Labour councillors in Scotland for the approach that we were taking in the UK Government. [Interruption.] There is a straightforward division between us. I prefer to trust locally elected councillors in Scotland, whereas she prefers the view of the House of Lords. You know:
“Ye see yon birkie, ca’d a lord…A Man’s a Man for a’ That”.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations (Michael Gove)
The situation in Ukraine is at the forefront of the minds of us all in this House, and I am grateful for the immensely hard work of civil servants across Government, and of those in local government, as well as those involved in diplomatic and humanitarian efforts at this time.
My Department has two specific roles in supporting cross-Government work. The first is exploring how we can support the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and other Departments with a sanctions regime that meets the needs of the hour, and in particular how we can target the property and assets of those in this country who have been supporting the Putin regime. We are also responsible for ensuring that we can provide appropriate support for refugees arriving in this country. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has already expanded the family sponsorship system, and we have an existing humanitarian sponsorship scheme, which is being expanded now to ensure that local authorities and others can play their part in ensuring a warm and safe welcome for those fleeing persecution.
Munira Wilson
More than 2,100 residents have signed my petition to see the former Teddington police station site repurposed for community use and affordable housing. The Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the hon. Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien), confirmed last week that there is nothing in law or guidance that says the Mayor of London has to sell the site to the highest bidder, as he claims, and he has reportedly rejected a bid for a new home for Park Road GP surgery and affordable homes because he is insisting on getting the highest price—probably from luxury developers. Will the Minister join me in calling on the Mayor to reconsider this decision, as Teddington residents are demanding?
Michael Gove
I know how determined the hon. Lady has been to represent the residents of Teddington in this matter, and I know she has raised it in a Westminster Hall debate with my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary. I will seek to ensure that my ministerial team are closely engaged with the hon. Lady to ensure that we can come to a fair and equitable solution for her residents.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
It is three months since Russian troops massed at the Ukraine border and not a single detail has been published about the community sponsorship scheme that the Secretary of State is supposedly leading. We stand alone among European countries in insisting on a visa that takes months while desperate people are being turned back at Calais. Nearly 2 million people have fled Ukraine and only 50 visas have been granted. Will he really ask desperate people to wait months for his Department to get its act together or will he pick up the phone to the Home Secretary, cut out the bureaucracy and help people now?
Michael Gove
I agree with the hon. Lady that it is vital to provide the fastest and safest route for those fleeing persecution and we are working with our partners on the ground in Poland and elsewhere to do just that. We are processing more than 14,000 applications under the family scheme at the moment. Of course, as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary outlined last week, that scheme has been significantly expanded. There is an existing community sponsorship scheme and the details are available on gov.uk for those who wish to help through it, but we are expanding it and more details will be announced later today and later this week.
Lisa Nandy
I point the Secretary of State to last year’s inspectorate report that highlighted that his existing scheme is an absolute shambles. People are being asked to wait months on end to access it and still not a single detail has been published. I cannot bear to listen to that with the scenes that we are seeing unfolding in front of our eyes—it is too slow. While he quarrels with the Home Office, we are turning away refugees and, worse, letting oligarchs off the hook.
Seriously, how can the Housing Secretary sit there without any sense of shame while, just down the road, Russian oligarchs linked to the Kremlin are offloading millions of pounds from the UK property market in a fire sale? That is the dark money that sustains the Putin regime. He could set that right this afternoon through amendments tabled by his Back Benchers and by Labour that would start to put an end to the shameful situation that his party has presided over for too long. Will he back those amendments?
Michael Gove
Again, I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising two important questions. On the need to ensure that we have a rapid expansion of the scheme, we need to use the existing community sponsorship scheme, which has been successful, to—[Interruption.] She has already asked her question, and I can answer. If she wants to try to rewrite her original question, she is welcome to do so. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. No more chuntering. Answer the question quickly; I have lots of Members to get in.
Michael Gove
Thank you very much for ensuring order, Mr Speaker. The scheme that we are expanding will ensure that we meet the needs of the hour and that all those who need humanitarian resettlement find it. As to the hon. Lady’s point about the steps required to ensure that the assets of oligarchs and others are addressed, the legislation that we are bringing forward will mean that we have the strongest sanctions regime in the world.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
Michael Gove
I will make two points in response to my hon. Friend. First, I thank his constituents for their amazing work, which reflects the commitment and compassion of many people across the country. The single most important thing that any individual can do at the moment is donate to the Disasters Emergency Committee. It is understandable that people want to see goods of a humanitarian nature flow to the Polish border, but the nature of the support that we need to give means that it is actually more effective to raise money to give to the DEC and others. With respect to the expansion of the humanitarian sponsorship scheme, there are more details to come.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Transparency International recently estimated that more than £1.5 billion-worth of UK property was bought by Russian oligarchs accused of corruption or links to the Kremlin between 2016 and 2021, of which £1 billion is in London. Can the Secretary of State assure that House that the UK will bring forward emergency legislation to repossess Kremlin-linked properties in London, which he reportedly favours, and does he agree that using the proceeds from those properties to offer further support to humanitarian efforts in Ukraine would be entirely appropriate and desirable?
Michael Gove
For the second time today, I must praise the hon. Lady for a gift of clairvoyance that few hon. Members enjoy.
Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Neil O’Brien)
Some £20 million is potentially available to Keighley and Ilkley through the levelling-up fund. Bradford is in a top priority category, and I really hope that it will bid so that we can build on the tens of millions of investment already being put into Keighley through the towns fund.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
Mr Speaker
Order. Can I just ask why Members do not want other Members to get in? It is totally unfair if you take up all the time.
Michael Gove
I think the hon. Lady said the shambolic response from the European Government and that she probably meant the United Kingdom Government, but not to worry. I respectfully disagree. More details on how we will help not just the devolved Administrations but local government to accept a higher proportion of humanitarian refugees will follow shortly.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
Neil O’Brien
My hon. Friend is completely correct. Some £19.4 million was allocated to projects in Bognor Regis and Littlehampton through round 1 of the levelling-up fund, in addition to the £21.1 million allocated to Crawley. I look forward to working with people in West Sussex to do more through round 2 of the levelling-up fund as well as the UK shared prosperity fund.
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Eddie Hughes)
We need to introduce the White Paper, which will be published in the spring, first. I look forward to discussing its terms with the hon. Lady so we can ensure that the legislation subsequently introduced is fit for purpose.
Suzanne Webb (Stourbridge) (Con)
The Minister for Housing (Stuart Andrew)
Due to my role in planning, I cannot comment on specific plans, but national park policy empowers local communities by making it clear that they can designate areas of importance as local green space through their local plans. Such designations ensure that these important assets are provided with protection, reflecting their importance.
Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)
Michael Gove
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that, and I will look closely, with my colleague the Home Secretary, at that proposition. It is important that we have appropriate biometric checks, for reasons that are well understood, but I appreciate the generosity of the offer, and indeed we have been talking to the Welsh Government about how we can co-ordinate our efforts.
Sir Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
Many people are still planning to staycation this year. Would the Secretary of State extend the scheme that worked so well during the pandemic, and allow permitted development rights to be relaxed so that pop-up campsites can allow people to have holidays in places such as North Yorkshire?
Michael Gove
I now know what my Easter plans will be. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that making sure, through the exercise of permitted development rights, that we can provide people with the opportunity to holiday in places as beautiful as North Yorkshire is an entirely welcome development.
Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Lab)
Reported cases of antisemitism continue to rise, with the Community Security Trust recording a record 2,255 cases in 2021. The Government have funded the security at Jewish locations, including synagogues and schools, and this, unfortunately, is vital to ensuring the safety of the Jewish community. Will the Secretary of State commit to the continuation of this funding next year, as well as ensuring that it is adjusted for the increased cost associated with inflation?
Michael Gove
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. As the Minister who, as Secretary of State for Education, initiated that scheme, I will do everything I can to ensure it continues. But I would make one additional point: one of the things we can all do across this House in order to tackle the evil of antisemitism is stand against the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign, and that is why when we bring forward legislation to outlaw BDS at local government level I hope we can count on the hon. Gentleman’s formidable voice pressing on those on his Front Bench the importance of supporting that legislation and not, as they did in the past, abstaining.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
Levelling up is crucial to rejuvenating our high streets and making sure we do not have buildings collecting dust and not in use, which has often been the case in Ipswich. In Carr Street, however, that is not the case: we have micro-shops there now: fantastic businesses such as Trini Flava, Central Vintage, and the Juice Mix bar. Does my right hon. Friend agree that to do this we need not only funding but a local council with a bit of a proactive, can-do attitude to bring such premises back into use?
Michael Gove
Yes, we need a council that is composed of simulacra or clones of my hon. Friend. If every Ipswich councillor was as ambitious for Ipswich as he is, Ipswich would not only be in the premier league for football—which it is not at the moment of course—but in the premier league of places to visit in the United Kingdom.
Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)
Seven out of 10 of the most deprived areas in Wales, six out of 10 in Scotland and three out of 10 in England have not received any levelling-up funding. When will the right hon. Gentleman give them that opportunity—when will he publish the timetable and the criteria for the second tranche of money?
Michael Gove
It is coming in the spring statement, but I should say to the hon. Gentleman, whom I count as a friend and much admire, that he should have a word with the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), who seems not to want this money to go to Scotland because she believes it works against devolution. The hon. Gentleman wants that money to come to Scotland; can the Scottish National party please make up its mind?
Sarah Atherton (Wrexham) (Con)
In the past week I have worked with Anna Buckley from Wrexham’s Polish integration support centre to logistically manage the unprecedented UK response to her call for donations. Businesses and people across Wrexham have answered that call, with hundreds of volunteers sorting through five warehouses full of donations going to Poland. Will the Secretary of State congratulate Anna and the community spirit of Wrexham?
Michael Gove
Anna, the Polish community and indeed the wider citizens of Wrexham set a brilliant example, as so many do, of community action to support those in need. I congratulate her and my hon. Friend.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State speak to his colleague the Home Secretary and make her aware that only issuing up until now 50 visas for Ukrainian refugees is quite wrong and brings shame upon this country?
Michael Gove
I talk to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary every day. The Home Secretary was in Poland at the border talking to those who were working with refugees: she was delivering while others, I am afraid, seek to make political points. We have a Home Secretary who is energetic, determined, on the job, talking to those on the frontline, making a difference, and I am afraid that when people want unity, purpose and delivery they will say to the right hon. Lady—
Mr Speaker
Order. This is unacceptable; these are topicals. The Secretary of State can go on a rant, but not on my watch.
One more question; Matt Hancock.
Matt Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State confirm that when it comes to local plans the idea that we need exactly the same proportion of extra housing in every part of every council area is wrong, and instead the different needs of different communities, as in my constituency in Haverhill, Brandon and Newmarket, can be treated differently, not with a one-size-fits-all approach?
Mr Speaker
Excellent. If every question and answer were like that, it would be wonderful.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill: Allocation of time
Ordered,
That the following provisions shall apply to the proceedings on the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill—
Timetable
(1)(a) Proceedings on Second Reading and in Committee of the whole House, any proceedings on Consideration and proceedings on Third Reading shall be taken at today’s sitting in accordance with this Order.
(b) Proceedings on Second Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion four hours after the commencement of proceedings on the Motion for this Order.
(c) Proceedings in Committee of the whole House, any proceedings on Consideration and proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion six hours after the commencement of proceedings on the Motion for this Order.
Timing of proceedings and Questions to be put
(2) When the Bill has been read a second time:
(a) it shall, despite Standing Order No. 63 (Committal of bills not subject to a programme order), stand committed to a Committee of the whole House without any Question being put;
(b) proceedings on the Bill shall stand postponed while the Question is put, in accordance with Standing Order No. 52(1) (Money resolutions and ways and means resolutions in connection with bills), on any financial resolution relating to the Bill;
(c) on the conclusion of proceedings on any financial resolution relating to the Bill, proceedings on the Bill shall be resumed and the Speaker shall leave the chair whether or not notice of an Instruction has been given.
(3)(a) On the conclusion of proceedings in Committee of the whole House, the Chair shall report the Bill to the House without putting any Question.
(b) If the Bill is reported with amendments, the House shall proceed to consider the Bill as amended without any Question being put.
(4) For the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph (1), the Chair or Speaker shall forthwith put the following Questions in the same order as they would fall to be put if this Order did not apply:
(a) any Question already proposed from the chair;
(b) any Question necessary to bring to a decision a Question so proposed;
(c) the Question on any amendment, new Clause or new Schedule selected by the Chair or Speaker for separate decision;
(d) the Question on any amendment moved or Motion made by a Minister of the Crown;
(e) any other Question necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded;
and shall not put any other questions, other than the question on any motion described in paragraph (15)(a) of this Order.
(5) On a Motion so made for a new Clause or a new Schedule, the Chair or Speaker shall put only the Question that the Clause or Schedule be added to the Bill.
(6) If two or more Questions would fall to be put under paragraph (4)(d) on successive amendments moved or Motions made by a Minister of the Crown, the Chair or Speaker shall instead put a single Question in relation to those amendments or Motions.
(7) If two or more Questions would fall to be put under paragraph (4)(e) in relation to successive provisions of the Bill, the Chair shall instead put a single Question in relation to those provisions, except that the Question shall be put separately on any Clause of or Schedule to the Bill which a Minister of the Crown has signified an intention to leave out.
Consideration of Lords Amendments
(8)(a) Any Lords Amendments to the Bill may be considered forthwith without any Question being put; and any proceedings interrupted for that purpose shall be suspended accordingly.
(b) Proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement; and any proceedings suspended under sub-paragraph (a) shall thereupon be resumed.
(9) Paragraphs (2) to (7) of Standing Order No. 83F (Programme orders: conclusion of proceedings on consideration of Lords amendments) apply for the purposes of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph (8) of this Order.
Subsequent stages
(10)(a) Any further Message from the Lords on the Bill may be considered forthwith without any Question being put; and any proceedings interrupted for that purpose shall be suspended accordingly.
(b) Proceedings on any further Message from the Lords shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement; and any proceedings suspended under sub-paragraph (a) shall thereupon be resumed.
(11) Paragraphs (2) to (5) of Standing Order No. 83G (Programme orders: conclusion of proceedings on further messages from the Lords) apply for the purposes of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph (10) of this Order.
Reasons Committee
(12) Paragraphs (2) to (6) of Standing Order No. 83H (Programme orders: reasons committee) apply in relation to any committee to be appointed to draw up reasons after proceedings have been brought to a conclusion in accordance with this Order.
Miscellaneous
(13) Standing Order No. 15(1) (Exempted business) shall apply to proceedings on the Bill.
(14) Standing Order No. 82 (Business Committee) shall not apply in relation to any proceedings to which this Order applies.
(15)(a) No Motion shall be made, except by a Minister of the Crown, to alter the order in which any proceedings on the Bill are taken, to recommit the Bill or to vary or supplement the provisions of this Order.
(b) No notice shall be required of such a Motion.
(c) Such a Motion may be considered forthwith without any Question being put; and any proceedings interrupted for that purpose shall be suspended accordingly.
(d) The Question on such a Motion shall be put forthwith; and any proceedings suspended under sub-paragraph (c) shall thereupon be resumed.
(e) Standing Order No. 15(1) (Exempted business) shall apply to proceedings on such a Motion.
(16)(a) No dilatory Motion shall be made in relation to proceedings to which this Order applies except by a Minister of the Crown.
(b) The Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.
(17)(a) The start of any debate under Standing Order No. 24 (Emergency debates) to be held on a day on which the Bill has been set down to be taken as an Order of the Day shall be postponed until the conclusion of any proceedings on that day to which this Order applies.
(b) Standing Order No. 15(1) (Exempted business) shall apply in respect of any such debate.
(18) Proceedings to which this Order applies shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.
(19)(a) Any private business which has been set down for consideration at a time falling after the commencement of proceedings on this Order or on the Bill on a day on which the Bill has been set down to be taken as an Order of the Day shall, instead of being considered as provided by Standing Orders or by any Order of the House, be considered at the conclusion of the proceedings on the Bill on that day.
(b) Standing Order No. 15(1) (Exempted business) shall apply to the private business so far as necessary for the purpose of securing that the business may be considered for a period of three hours.—(Priti Patel.)
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill
Monday 7th March 2022
(2 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022 View all Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 7 March 2022 - (7 Mar 2022)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Priti Patel)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The United Kingdom is united in opposition to Putin’s horrific, unjust war on Ukraine. The depth of that feeling was seen in how the entire House rose to applaud the Ukrainian ambassador at Prime Minister’s questions last Wednesday. Mr Speaker, that you allowed that rare intervention in our parliamentary proceedings speaks for the unity of the House. Putin must fail, and the Government are taking a wide range of actions to that end along with an extensive package of support for the heroic Ukrainian people. Putin is a gangster.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
As the Home Secretary is straying to points outwith the Bill, I want to address how the airwaves at the weekend were full of criticism—both internal and external to the United Kingdom—of her scheme to help Ukrainian refugees. When will she announce something to speed up the scheme and give it the degree of urgency that their dreadful plight necessitates?
Priti Patel
I am grateful to the hon. and learned Lady for her question, because it gives me the chance to clarify what is happening in a fast-moving picture. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said, I was in Poland on Friday. This is a rapidly moving picture, and it is important for all colleagues in the House to know that the first quality-assured figures on the Ukraine family scheme will be published this evening. I want to make it abundantly clear that the figures that are now public are absolutely inaccurate and have not been assured by the Home Office.
The hon. and learned Lady also asked about our scheme. Before I return to my remarks, it is absolutely right to say that our scheme is the first of its kind in the world, and we cannot measure it against that of any other country. We have already had 14,000 people apply, and we also have a sponsorship scheme that will be announced later on. Of course, the extended family route was announced on Friday.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
Will the Home Secretary clarify whether the Home Office has set up a visa application centre in Calais, or are people still being sent on journeys of hundreds of miles back to Paris or Brussels for the checks that they need to get safely into this country?
Priti Patel
Again, for clarification, as I set out in the House last week, we are surging capacity across our VACs to ensure that as many people as possible are getting access. Let me—[Interruption.] If the right hon. Member would like to listen to my response rather than shout from her seat, it is absolutely right that we have already had people in Calais. Let me therefore again clarify—I said this over the weekend—that we have staff in Calais and support on the ground. It is wrong to say that we are just turning people back; we are absolutely not. We are supporting those who have been coming to Calais. It is also important that we do not create choke points in Calais but encourage a smooth flow of people. In particular, I confirm that we have set up a bespoke VAC en route to Calais but away from the port because we have to prevent that surge from taking place.
Mr Speaker, this does not relate to the Bill, but there is another issue about our checks that the House should know about. Not only are people-smuggling gangs roaming around Calais but, over the weekend and today before coming to the House, I have been on calls about the human trafficking cases that are manifesting at the border. It is therefore right that we have the right process in place to check people and to safeguard them.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Secretary of State for what she is doing and the staff put in place to try to help move things on. However, only 50 people have been processed so far, and my constituent, whom I spoke about in the Chamber last week, is in Ukraine today to collect her son and daughter but uncertain about how to bring them home. I seek the Secretary of State’s clarification on how we can make the process better for people with families here who are going through Poland or Romania to come here.
Priti Patel
The hon. Member makes an important point. Having been to Poland myself and seen the processes—I am also due to speak to my Romanian counterpart later today—I know that they have issues about capacity. We have had requests for technical capacity and support not just through our VACs but to help the host countries to do a lot more work at the borders. We are doing everything that we can.
The hon. Member also mentioned his constituent. If they are in Poland, we have got a huge amount of capacity and plenty of spaces for people to be processed, but they do need to come to our centres. If he would give me their details, I will ensure that we are joining that up in country.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
The Home Secretary has a lot of support on the Government Benches for the compassionate and sensible way in which she is going about this. Will she confirm that she is listening both to what the refugees want, which is often not a long-term settlement a long way from Ukraine, and with regard to the security issues that this all poses?
Priti Patel
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I must emphasise that every single crisis requires a bespoke and unique response. There are two very big calls coming from the region and from our counterparts. First and foremost, they are asking for help on security measures right now; that consistent theme is coming over. That comes down to checks—they are undertaking checks—but they are also very concerned about wider security issues, some of which I simply cannot discuss in this House, for clear reasons. The second point—even the Ukrainian ambassador made this point to me yesterday and I hear it every single day from my counterparts—is that there is a call to keep people in region. There is a big demand for that, and that is where the wider aid effort has to focus, in addition to the work that we are doing on humanitarianism.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I do not wish to disturb the flow of the Secretary of State’s speech for very long, but I want to make one point. We all know that some of the brightest minds in the City of London are, at this moment, burning the midnight oil and finding ways to dodge anything that this Government, with the support of the Opposition, are bringing in. Is it not a fact that we need rapid action—as rapid as any of the other countries that are taking out sanctions—and will she promise me that it will be fast, furious and efficient?
Sir Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
I was contacted on Saturday by a former constituent who had escaped from Ukraine with his Ukrainian wife. He contacted me again last night to say that I did not need to help him—he had been to our embassy in Berlin and expected that everything would be sorted out today, and that he would come to the UK this week—so I reassure her that, actually, the system is working and people are getting the help they need.
Priti Patel
I thank my right hon. Friend for the example that he shared with the House. That is really important, because we have surge staff across every EU visa application centre. I came to the House last week and said that we absolutely would do that and we are indeed doing it.
Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)
I have been told that people arriving at Calais are being told that they have to go to Paris or Brussels to get visas. Is that correct or not? If it is not, will my right hon. Friend please tell me why it is being said? In 1972, we took into Kent thousands of Ugandan Asians. We did it almost overnight and without any difficulty at all. Last Monday, my right hon. Friend told me that she would cut away the red tape. Why are we not doing that?
Priti Patel
I have already made it clear, in terms of the visa application centre that has now been set up en route to Calais, that we have staff in Calais, and, importantly, people have been coming to the UK from Calais. I am afraid that there has been a lot of misinformation about all this, and I have clarified our position today.
Priti Patel
I will not; I need to make progress and I have been generous with interventions. In addition, on the point that my right hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) made, I did say that we would cut away process, but he has already heard me say that there are security concerns and considerations—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. There are just too many conversations going on. I am struggling to hear.
Priti Patel
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.
Putin is a gangster and his regime is underpinned by a mob of oligarchs and kleptocrats who have abused the financial system and the rule of law for too long. Putin’s cronies have hidden dirty money in the UK and across the west, and we do not want it here. Expediting this legislation, which I know the whole House supports, will mean that we can crack down on the people who abuse the UK’s open society.
Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
I am delighted that my right hon. Friend is bringing up not only the oligarchs, but the enablers and facilitators. What do the Government think about various potential bad actors in the House of Lords and what should we be doing about them?
Priti Patel
My hon. Friend and I spent some time on the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, which looked at that very issue. He is right to highlight enablers and, with them, many other associates. It is right that through the Bill and the changes we are bringing in, we find a way to capture as many of them as possible. That is what the Bill seeks to do.
Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)
Further to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely), would the Government be willing to adapt the language of the Titles Deprivation Act 1917, which was used to withdraw peerages from peers who gave succour to Germany in the first world war, after proper investigation by the Privy Council?
Priti Patel
We will look at the issue, as we have said consistently. Part 1 of the Bill, which I will expand on shortly, is only one of the measures that we are taking, but we have to rule nothing out.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
Across the House, we all want to see these bandits nailed. Is the Home Secretary content that the Bill will actually stop the disposal of properties? In my view, the register may not succeed in inhibiting that. We want to stop people getting away with it and disposing of assets. Will the Bill do that?
Priti Patel
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to raise that point and to highlight the legal basis on which we can confiscate assets, property and so on. Unexplained wealth orders are one of several tools we can use that are covered in the Bill.
Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)
A lot of houses are owned by criminal gangs for money laundering purposes, often in rural areas, and left empty. If people do not register, will the Bill allow us not only to impose a fine on them, but sell those properties so that they can go back to the community rather than be left there to rot?
Priti Patel
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I said that unexplained wealth orders were one of several tools, but we have other tools that have to be deployed. Registration, beneficial ownership—all those aspects are covered in the legislation, and rightly so. By accelerating the legislation, we are concentrating on the sharpest tools we can use and the powers we can bring into force in the most focused time. Expediting this legislation will send a very strong signal that the UK will not be a home for corruption.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Priti Patel
I will give way shortly, but first I will make some progress, if I may.
This will be about hurting Putin and his vicious regime, which has robbed the Russian people of their chance for democracy, peace and prosperity—not only that, but even their own wealth has been used and abused by these kleptocrats and oligarchs. The reforms in the Bill will give us greater power and more information to identify and investigate the illicit wealth of Russian criminals, their allies and their proxies. The new property register will have an immediate effect, dissuading those intending to buy UK property with illicit funds. Oligarchs could be slapped with an unexplained wealth order—one of the tools that we will have at our disposal—and the Treasury will be better able to act when financial sanctions are breached. We are implementing the most severe package of sanctions ever imposed on Russia or on any major economy.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
The right hon. Lady spoke about unexplained wealth orders. Does she have a commitment from the Treasury to ensure that the National Crime Agency and other agencies that deal with those orders are well financed?
Priti Patel
The right hon. Gentleman makes a very important point; I am pretty certain that he has raised several times in this House the need for legal protections, finance and an approach that gives law enforcement the tools it needs. The Bill is doing that, and we are acting not only through legislation, but through the wider way we help agencies and law enforcement to function, operate and go after those who have been undermining our system.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
Following on from that point, the Bill is very welcome, but many of us believe it could go further, which is why we have supported and tabled various amendments. Legislation and regulations are worth their salt only if they are properly enforced. The National Crime Agency, for example, has had cuts to its funding in recent years. Will the Bill put that right not just for the NCA, but for all enforcement agencies?
Priti Patel
That is a really important point. This is about how we operationalise the Bill—how we use the tools that we are giving our agencies. Yes, resourcing is required. We have already stepped up with a new kleptocracy unit in the NCA and have put more resources into it. We are absolutely not going to stop—we cannot stop. We are catching up in many quarters, we really are, and we want to use the full force of legislation and the full force of the law to go after many of these individuals.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for and congratulate her on driving this Bill forward so quickly, co-operating with all sides to get it on to the statute book. I wish to raise one point. I noticed that in the original draft, although there has been a slew of amendments since, there were all sorts of little caveats. For example, it let people off the hook if they did not “knowingly or recklessly” give the wrong information. I hope she will agree with an amendment I have put my name to and we will strike that out. There is no excuse on “knowingly or recklessly”; someone either did or did not co-operate, and if they did not, they should get the full force of the law.
Priti Patel
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and he has also pointed out the vast drafting that has taken place over the weekend, with various amendments. I am grateful to all colleagues, on both sides of the House, for their co-operation on many of those amendments. He is absolutely right to say that people have an intent, which is what we are going after.
Mr David Davis
The Russia sanctions regime is across eight different sets of regulations, and even the Commons Library could not disentangle them for me. In some cases, simply stopping people using their assets does not go far enough. For those found to be working on behalf of Putin and his elite, we should be expropriating their assets. Does this Bill simply allow freezing or does it actually allow us to confiscate assets?
Priti Patel
My right hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head, and I am going to come to some of that in my remarks shortly. If he will just bear with me, I would like to make some progress. I am conscious of the protected time we have today, so I ask all colleagues to bear with me.
This legislation is concise and tight for very good reasons, hence the number of amendments that have been made; we want to move at pace. But we cannot stop there, and for the benefit of this House—I know colleagues are aware of this—let me say that there will be a second economic crime Bill, a follow-on Bill in the next parliamentary Session, with further measures. We simply cannot get all the measures in right now. We have focused on the ones that will have the greatest impact and enablement.
Matt Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)
In respect of the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018, many of the problems that we face today are due to amendments made in the other place, and it has subsequently come to light that many of those amendments came from those who are acting for oligarchs and then legislating for loopholes. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the other place should listen very carefully to the elected House on this matter and make sure that this Bill, with these amendments, gets sent back here forthwith, without more loopholes being put in place by the other place, as they were years ago?
Priti Patel
I wholeheartedly agree with my right hon. Friend on that. We could do a rerun of exactly what happened back in 2018, but, in the interests of time, we want to crack on with where we are going with this Bill. It will enable the greatest changes to the companies register since it was established nearly 200 years ago. Companies House will be reformed and we will verify the identity of every company director and beneficial owner. I know that Members of this House have been calling for that for a considerable time. No criminal or kleptocrat will be able to hide behind a UK shell company ever again—those infamous brass plates will go. This will be a boost to all legitimate businesses in the UK and, importantly, it will make it easier for them to get the information they need.
The next Bill will bring forward reforms to prevent the abuse of limited partnerships; new powers to seize crypto-assets from criminals—that is a new and emerging area where we have so much more to do; and measures to give businesses more confidence to share information on suspected money laundering. It will be a very substantial piece of legislation. I assure the House that we are already drafting that legislation and it will be brought forward as soon as we are able to do so and we can get the time in the House. Today’s Bill and our commitment to a second Bill will show that in this Government, we are all acting collectively and unitedly to root out the dirty money in our economy and, importantly, to hobble Putin and his cronies.
Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)
I welcome the indications that the Home Secretary has given of what will be in the Bill that will arrive, I hope, early in the next Session, but will she also consider the role of the enablers—lawyers, accountants, banks and others—who either condone or themselves facilitate much of the money laundering and financial crime?
Priti Patel
I agree with the right hon. Lady, and I am also grateful to other Members who have not just highlighted this issue but given specific examples. A great deal of work is being done. It is important that we take a collective approach institutionally, and that our legal basis is sound and solid.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
The Home Secretary is very generous in allowing so many interventions.
During the 2017 Parliament, the then Prime Minister appointed a tsar—for want of a better word—to fight corruption within the House, but over the years that role has become less effective. Does the Home Secretary think it should be re-established and refreshed, so that someone could really call out many of the issues that we know to be a problem in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords?
Priti Patel
I thank the hon. Lady for highlighting the role of our anti-corruption tsar, my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose), who has been supporting the Government at every level. He has also supported me by helping with much of our work on illicit finance and economic crime. He comes to our roundtables, and spends a great deal of time dealing with matters concerning the City and transparency. I can therefore assure the House that we have that function up and running. We have a superb colleague supporting the Government on all those measures, and I am very grateful to him for his work.
Let me now explain the measures in the Bill in more detail. It sets a new global standard for transparency, which is thanks to the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare, but it also takes the whole-of-Government approach that many Select Committee reports have called for—I think it fair to say that I have read a few of those reports produced by colleagues and friends—in that it contains several measures from several Departments. It creates a register of overseas entities to crack down on foreign criminals who use the UK property market to launder money. A foreign company that wishes to own land in the UK will be required to identify its beneficial owners and to register them with Companies House. Once a company is registered, an overseas entity identity number will be provided, and that entity will be required to update its information annually.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
I welcome the measures that my right hon. Friend is introducing, but many Members fear that people who have already bought their properties through a discreet structure will sell them before the measures take effect. Will she look carefully at amendment 64, which Mr Speaker has graciously accepted—a manuscript amendment—and which would effectively prevent people from doing that by means of a prohibition through the Land Registry?
Priti Patel
I thank my hon. Friend for amendment 64. He was in touch with me about it over the weekend. He is absolutely right, and we are looking at the details of that proposal.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
As the right hon. Lady knows, the Bill provides exemptions that Secretaries of State would be able to use in order not to require an entity to be on the register. One of them relates to
“the economic wellbeing of the United Kingdom”.
Many of us, across parties—and I thank Ministers for being so constructive in this regard—fear that that could drive a coach and horses through the entire legislation. Is this another amendment that the right hon. Lady is looking at, or would she care to simply accept it?
Priti Patel
At this stage, I am outlining the measures in the Bill. We have a Committee stage coming up, and we are considering all the details, because we absolutely must get this right and ensure that all the measures will be effective.
Overseas entities will be required to verify information regarding beneficial owners and managing officers before making an application for registering, or updating or amending information held on the register. That is very important, because the current system is out of date. We need to be able to keep the information fresh and agile, and ensure that the right checks and balances are constantly applied. They will have to provide evidence to underpin that verification, and Companies House will be able to query all information under the broader powers we will create in the second Bill. If a foreign company does not comply with the new obligations, or if it submits false filings, its managing officers can face criminal sanctions or civil sanctions. Criminal penalties in England and Wales could, depending on the offence committed, be a prison sentence of up to five years, or a fine. We are also introducing a mechanism by which financial penalties can be enforced without the need for criminal prosecution. More importantly, overseas companies will be restricted in their ability to sell or lease their land if they do not comply with the requirements.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I am grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way. This is naughty of me, as I have been in the Foreign Affairs Committee and I have not heard all that she has said. Would she acknowledge that clause 31 seems to set a very high bar by saying that it is an offence to give false information only if someone does so “knowingly or recklessly”? I apologise again for arriving late.
Priti Patel
The hon. Gentleman has clearly been occupied elsewhere, and we did cover this point earlier on.
Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
I have been in the Chamber since my right hon. Friend started speaking. She might be aware that over many years one of the problems with Companies House has been the capability of a small business to register a name, take our money by selling us something, not deliver the goods, then go into liquidation and set up again the next day with almost the same name, perhaps with “and sons” at the end of it. Can she reassure me that this Bill will deal with that issue, in the changes to Companies House?
Priti Patel
My right hon. Friend has made an incredibly important point and used a good example to show how the system is being used and abused. I want to reiterate to the House that this is a two-stage Bill. The first stage will deal with many aspects of this, but the full Companies House reform will come in the second economic crime Bill, where that detail will all be worked through. It is important to say this is the first step to making a clean sweep in terms of how we update, in terms of accountability, and in terms of holding individuals and their enablers—their managers and all the others responsible—to account. The House has just heard me speak about the penalties.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
There seems to be bit of a gap between the Home Secretary’s rhetoric and the reality. Last week, the Government were briefing the press that they were drawing up plans to seize British property and use it to house Ukrainians fleeing their homeland. Well, if there are only 50 Ukrainians, that is probably only one property. However, where is the freezing and seizing of assets here? All that this Bill is proposing is a relatively generous time limit on the publication of information. When are we going to get the steps that actually bite?
Priti Patel
I have been speaking for a while and I would have hoped that the hon. Gentleman was listening to my remarks about the many tools that this Bill will bring in to enable asset confiscation, freezing and so on.
That brings me neatly on to unexplained wealth orders. The Bill removes key barriers to the use of unexplained wealth orders. Let me make it clear to people who think they can obstruct law enforcement investigations that that will end now through this Bill. I have already touched on the work of the National Crime Agency. Yes, we will be resourcing it and yes, there is more to do; we are very open and honest about that, and we have to be. We will reform the costs rule so that agencies acting to protect the public will be protected from substantial legal costs when they have acted reasonably in their investigation. The maximum period that a property can be frozen while unexplained wealth orders are in place will be extended, allowing the full force of the law and proper investigation.
Unexplained wealth orders will also be more effective against those who hold property in the UK through trusts. That is another complex entity that tends to lead to complex ownership schemes. Individuals will no longer be able to hide behind opaque shell companies, trusts and foundations. We will do everything in our power to counter the unwillingness of kleptocrats to provide reliable information. These reforms will have an immediate dissuasive effect.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I support the measures in this Bill, but it all hinges on enforcement. Can my right hon. Friend explain why unexplained wealth orders have been used so little? What research has she done with other countries? The Criminal Assets Bureau in Ireland, in particular, has a much higher success rate in pursuing unexplained wealth orders, tracking down these people and prosecuting them.
Priti Patel
We cannot compare London with certain other countries and economies, and there are well-known barriers to the application and utilisation of unexplained wealth orders. Much of the wealth is legal, and individuals tie our law enforcement system in knots, exposing it to huge costs, including legal costs. The purpose of this reform is to change the entire way in which UWOs are operationalised, and to give law enforcement agencies the legal basis, legal powers and protections they need to go after many of these individuals, as the current system has stopped them doing so.
Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
I understand that the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has put forward the idea of having an enforcement unit at Companies House. Will that be available for individuals who want to make allegations of false information on the register, or is there some other mechanism by which we will be able to investigate and press the case?
Priti Patel
With this Bill, we are speaking very clearly about known individuals, known oligarchs. This legislation enables the Government, the NCA and other agencies and aspects of Government to focus on those individuals, which is our priority. The second economic crime Bill is currently being drafted. It links to Companies House reform, which will take slightly longer, and will cover many of those wider issues about reporting and how to join up Companies House and law enforcement.
Several hon. Members rose—
Priti Patel
I will make progress. I have taken plenty of interventions, and I am conscious of the protected time for subsequent stages.
This Bill also toughens up the enforcement of financial sanctions, making it easier for the Treasury to impose significant fines. Even where it has not imposed a fine, the Treasury will have the power to publicly name those who have breached financial sanctions. That will both sanction them and deter others, and we are expanding the information-sharing powers to help the Government shine a much brighter light on malign actors who abuse the financial system. Of course, all this will be a major boon to the Treasury’s ability to clamp down on financial sanctions breaches, and that work will be done with the financial institutions, our economic crime tsar and across the Government. We have to work with the financial sector, too.
We are, of course, working closely with the devolved Administrations on this legislation. The Bill contains provisions relating to the register of overseas entities and unexplained wealth orders, which engage devolved powers in both Scotland and Northern Ireland. We are moving together as one country, and I am confident that we can rely on their support as we continue to expedite legislative consent. I emphasise that we are doing this together in lockstep, and I am grateful to all colleagues across the DAs for their support.
The Government have consulted and engaged widely on the measures in this Bill. The new property register has been designed carefully, drawing on extensive discussions, to balance the need to clamp down on misuse while protecting the ease of doing business. The unexplained wealth order reforms have been designed in close consultation with law enforcement agencies such as the NCA, the Crown Prosecution Service, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and, of course, the Serious Fraud Office. We have also engaged widely with representatives of the accountancy, financial and legal sectors, and with others. Colleagues have raised the issue of enablers many times, and enablers are at the forefront of much of our work.
The Treasury will engage and consult on updated civil monetary penalty guidance for financial sanctions before the reform comes into effect. We are acting decisively, but we are getting the balance right. I urge both sides of the House to support this Bill and to work with us on some of the technicalities in how we kick dirty money out of our country and make it harder for Putin and his associates by bringing this into legislation so that we can operationalise it as soon as possible.
Priti Patel
Not just yet.
As I have said, further measures are coming shortly in other legislation and some of them will take more time to be developed.
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
On the vexed issue of trusts, whether they be domestic or, more likely, foreign, if they are of a discretionary nature, there is no absolute beneficiary, by their very definition. They may be tucked away in a trust deed in some foreign jurisdiction of which we do not have details. I have looked through the legislation and can see no way in which we can penetrate some of those trusts. I do not even know whether we should, because of the nature of discretionary trusts, for which there will be a list of potential beneficiaries but no absolute beneficiary. The legislation will catch absolute beneficiaries, but I cannot see how discretionary trusts can be caught or, frankly, ever could be.
Priti Patel
My hon. Friend makes an important and significant point. That is exactly the work in which the transparency tsar has been heavily involved, giving the Government advice on that work across Government Departments. All this has to be looked at. I come back to the point that, in recognition that this is expedited legislation, we have not only to consider carefully but to work through the practicalities and how we operationalise the legislation.
The Government are also amending the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018, which has been referred to many times. We are streamlining the existing legislation so that we can move more swiftly and effectively to sanctions oligarchs and businessmen associated with the Russian Government. The amendments we have tabled will remove the statutory test of appropriateness in the designation of individuals and entities, thereby speeding up designations. It is important that we do that in real time and in fast time, because of some of the related complications.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Priti Patel
I am not going to give way, because there is protected time and the hon. Gentleman will get to speak later.
We will remove some of the constraints on designations by description, so that the Government can designate groups of individuals more quickly. That means there will be more agility and flexibility so that we can act. It will help to quickly list members of defined political bodies—such as the Russian Duma, which has been highlighted, and the Russian Federation Council—by body rather than by individual names, all of which can run into the hundreds. We will have the power to apply the legislation to groups. That will ensure that the Foreign Secretary can mirror the listings that have already been adopted by our allies, but via urgent designation procedures. The United States, Canada, Australia and the EU are listed on the face of the Bill for that purpose. Others may be added, by a power, as needed. That will facilitate the closest possible international co-ordination on sanctions. I emphasise the co-ordinated approach we are seeking to take at a time of crisis and conflict. It will help us to strip back unnecessary requirements regarding the making and amending of regulations under the 2018 Act, to streamline the process of establishing or augmenting the sanctions regime.
Of course, we want to protect the public purse by only permitting the payment of damages in connection with designations in the case of bad faith, removing the possibility of damages for negligence. The Bill also provides a power to impose a cap on damages for actions under the 2018 Act. The provisions will apply to any proceedings issued after 4 March, when the amendments were tabled, even if the proceedings relate to designations made previously. That will limit the ability of many of the deep-pocketed oligarchs—we have had this with UWOs—to claim massive pay-outs from sanction challenges. This is a fundamental change to our laws and how we operationalise them. A streamlined review of the reporting requirements under the 2018 Act will follow.
Through this specific legislation, we can focus on Putin and his cronies. We do not choose between a transparent economy and a strong economy: it is transparency that makes our economy, our country and our approach to these issues stronger. The Government are providing our law enforcement agencies with the crucial powers and resources that they need. We want to go after the dirty money and crack down harder on those who violate our financial sanctions and our country. Putin and his band of thugs must not be able to hide their wealth in the UK. This is as much for the sake of ordinary Russians robbed of their wealth as it is for the sake of our country and the west more broadly. We are calling on all countries, all our friends and allies, to take a similarly robust approach. It is by working in co-ordination that we can make a difference. There is overwhelming global condemnation of that regime and the grotesque war that is raging in Ukraine. This Bill is part of our effort, and I commend it to the House.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
I welcome the Bill before us today, at a time when rocket attacks are continuing, when homes, community centres and even kindergartens are being hit, and when families fleeing through the streets of Ukraine are being targeted for attack. The Russian President has launched an illegal war against a democratic state. It is a crime against a brave nation. As we stand united with Ukraine, we know that this is a battle for democracy against despotism.
Our country has to play its part. All of us want to see the strongest economic measures against Russia and against the oligarchs linked to the Russian regime who have made their wealth through corrupt and illicit practices, and against those who made their money not through their own sweat and toil, but through corruption and the concentration of power.
A few years ago, the Intelligence and Security Committee’s Russia report said that the UK has
“offered ideal mechanisms by which illicit finance could be recycled through what has been referred to as the London ‘laundromat’”.
That is damning. It issued this warning nearly three years ago:
“It is not just the oligarchs…the arrival of Russian money has resulted in a growth industry of ‘enablers’”—
individuals and organisations that manage and lobby for the Russian elite. Chatham House has referred to Britain’s “kleptocracy problem”.
The fact that corrupt elites from all over the world can launder their money and their reputations through our capital city is shameful. The fact that an industry of enablers has grown up here to facilitate those corrupt elites, to help them hide their money, evade tax or launder proceeds of crime is deeply damaging to our economy, to our international reputation, to the rule of law and to democracy.
So yes, we welcome the Bill. We welcome the chance of stronger sanctions and measures to make it easier to put pressure now on Russia in the face of this appalling war. We welcome the improvements to unexplained wealth orders, making it easier for the police to use them and harder for those with endless wealth to use their riches to block them, and we welcome the register of overseas entities to get some transparency and to make it harder for corrupt elites to hide their wealth in the UK property market. We will support the Bill today and support the process to get it through Parliament as fast as possible.
Many of these measures should have been introduced some years ago. Some that we need and have long been promised are not yet before us. All of us should accept that some of this action should have taken place earlier, because we had been warned. We had been warned by Transparency International back in 2015; by the evidence from leaked international documents such as the Pandora papers; by the National Crime Agency, which said that unexplained wealth orders were too hard to use; by Members of this House when we confronted the murderous intent and actions by Russian agents on British soil during the Salisbury attack four years ago; and by the damning Russia report. We were promised reforms in many of these areas in 2016. There was a consultation in 2018 and reference to a Bill in the Queen’s speech in 2019. We still do not have the much-needed Companies House reforms before us today.
Catherine West
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, had the Government got a move on with this years ago, we would be able to deal with phoenix companies today, which rip off members of our communities day after day? We could have dealt with that, too, in one blow.
Yvette Cooper
I agree with my hon. Friend that action should have been taken much earlier to address that, which should mean that there is an even greater imperative on us all now to ensure not only that this Bill passes, but that the subsequent economic crime Bill that we badly need is brought forward as swiftly as possible. That is one of the areas where the Opposition have submitted amendments.
Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
Is my right hon. Friend as surprised and worried as I am that the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, which is in the Treasury, has 37.8 full-time equivalent people working in it?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Unless we have the ability to use the powers we have and the powers we are discussing in this Bill, in practice nothing will happen. We know that there is considerably more investment in taking some of these measures in the United States, for example. There are also issues with enforcement resources for the National Crime Agency.
Chris Bryant
The enforcement issue is really important. For instance, following the invasion and annexation of Crimea, we made it a criminal offence to support tourism activities in Crimea. However, Quintessentially, which is run by Ben Elliot, has been providing restaurant recommendations in Crimea to Russian oligarchs. Surely he should be investigated and everybody should be distancing themselves from him now.
Yvette Cooper
I must say that the information my hon. Friend provides is deeply disturbing. There is a huge responsibility on us all, and particularly on the Government, to ensure that there is no conflict of interest in the source of any political donations to the party or any role in the party, and that there is a proper distancing from the appalling activities of corrupt Russian elites.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
At the last election but one, a former intern of mine, now a very wealthy Hollywood lawyer, sent me £5,000. I immediately sent it back because it was a foreign donation. Is that not the sort of example that every Member of this House should set for how to behave when foreign people offer us money?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend makes an important point. For example, there is discussion as part of this Bill about shell companies and ensuring that action is taken on economic crime. However, we had similar discussions about shell companies on the Elections Bill, where the measures taken were not strong enough.
Overall, we welcome this Bill, although we want some of the further measures to be introduced swiftly. We welcome the Government’s agreement to some of our amendments, which have pushed them to go further; we will press them still further in Committee on some of those issues, but we want to continue to work with them, and there are many areas of consensus.
That is why the scale of the Government’s failure to support Ukrainian refugees is so troubling, and I must pick up some of the points the Home Secretary made earlier. She said,
“I confirm that we have set up a bespoke VAC en route to Calais but away from the port”.
No. 10 has said,
“I don’t believe there’s one there now but we’ll keep it under review”.
The Home Office website is still telling people to go to Paris. Journalists in Calais, looking for any centre that there might be, are still unable to find anything; all they can find is a few Home Office staff, in a building with a crisp machine but no visas. One family, who have been there for five days, have been told they cannot get an appointment in Paris until 15 March.
I must ask the Home Secretary what on earth is going on. If she cannot tell us where that visa centre is en route to Calais, then there is no hope or chance of Ukrainian families being able to find it on the way to Calais in order to get sanctuary.
Priti Patel
I think the right hon. Lady did not hear what I said earlier. I said that I can confirm that we are setting up another VAC en route to Calais—I made that quite clear in my remarks earlier on. I also said that it would be away from the port in order to prevent the surge that we do not want to take place. It is news to me that she says that there is a family—[Interruption.] Well, as I said earlier on, we do not want to create choke points in Calais, given the people trafficking and smuggling issues that have been materialising. That is a fact. I am sorry that Opposition Members are very dismissive of this, but I am involved in a lot of engagement on it and I am seeing all sorts of concerning matters. I need to pick up on the right hon. Lady’s point about a family that says they cannot get an appointment at a VAC in Paris. That is news to me. I have not been told that that is the case; I have been told very clearly that there are appointments and people are not having problems accessing appointments. I am very happy to call her office directly later on today and give her the facts on that.
Yvette Cooper
That would be very helpful. But we also need to know when this visa application centre will be set up and operational, because right now this means that people are being turned away from Calais because they do not have the biometrics or the security checks they need and so are being sent back to Paris in order to do so. We need to know when that is going to be in place.
Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
Are not the Government and the Home Secretary absolutely out of step with the British public on this? When bombs are raining down on families across Ukraine, the public want us to open the doors and welcome them in.
Yvette Cooper
I think the public want to see us doing our bit, and that is not what is happening. What people are seeing time and again is families having to leap over additional hurdles—additional bureaucracy. People are being told to wait 72 hours after their security checks are all cleared just because of bureaucracy. Lots of relatives are still being left out. Elderly aunts or 19-year-old nieces are not included and are being turned away. That is the point. [Interruption.] If the Home Secretary says that is not correct, I really urge her to stand up and clarify it, because at the moment her guidance says that elderly aunts and 19-year-old nieces are not included in the family visa scheme.
Priti Patel
I appreciate that this is now becoming a much wider debate, but on Friday we launched an extended family route that covers the very family members that the right hon. Lady is referring to, and people are applying—over 14,000 have applied. That scheme is up and running. I said in my earlier remarks that later on this evening we will be providing assured data and assured numbers on the people who are coming through that route. It is wrong to say that this Government are not welcoming Ukrainian refugees. We have a very unique scheme. As I said, it is the first of its kind in the world and it cannot be measured against that of any other country.
Mr Speaker
I think I need to come in here, just for a minute. At the end of this debate I expect the Minister’s wind-up to pick up on some of the points that have not been answered—that is the idea of having a Minister speak at the end. Hopefully we can make sure that the Government, having been given time to think about the answers, are prepared to respond to some of the questions that have been raised.
Yvette Cooper
I am grateful, Mr Speaker, because there are some very serious questions.
The Home Secretary has just said that elderly aunts are included, but that is not what the website says. Elderly parents are, yes, but elderly aunts are not. We really need to know what the facts are, because right now a lot of families are being turned away. Lots of relatives who are families of Ukrainians working here on healthcare visas or on study visas are also not allowed to come. They are not included in her scheme and families are desperate now.
What is happening is shameful. There are too few relatives arriving and no sign of the sponsorship scheme that the Government have promised will allow those who are not family members to come. Will the Home Secretary please stop claiming that this is all world-beating and world-leading and that she is doing everything possible, and accept that it is not working and things are going wrong? Otherwise, how can we possibly have confidence that she is going to put this right and make sure that refugees can get the sanctuary they need?
