Illegal Migration Bill

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Having safe and legal routes, capped and legitimised through a decision by Parliament, is the right way to support people seeking refuge in this country—not perpetuating an evil trade in people smuggling.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Afghan refugee children who were about to take their GCSEs in schools in my constituency have been forced to move 200 miles from the hotel they have spent the last 18 months in to other hotels. No school places were arranged for them in the places where they were going, and the Home Office initially denied that they had been moved at all. Is that the level of competence the Home Secretary is happy with? Will she look at those cases and at her whole policy on immigration, which is just failing?

[Suella Braverman]

When we introduced measures to streamline our asylum process and hasten decision making, the Labour party voted against them. Seriously, the hon. Gentleman cannot now complain when there are challenges with accommodating people, because they are waiting for an asylum decision and they are being housed in hotels.

Unaccompanied Asylum-seeking Children

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

Yes.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

We persuaded the Home Office that the accommodation in which it placed asylum seekers in my constituency was below acceptable standards, and it moved them earlier this month. However, it failed to give the asylum seekers any notice or tell them where they were going, and some absconded out of fear of that. Will the Minister look at the poor standards and poor treatment of asylum seekers by the Home Office and its contractors, which is at the root of this problem?

[Robert Jenrick]

As the hon. Member may recall, one of my first priorities was to ensure that the Home Office engaged better with local authorities, and although there is always room for improvement, the level of engagement is now enhanced from where it was at the end of last year. I continue to push officials to do more and to give local authorities more notice, either of new hotels opening up or of changes to the hotels. I have also recently met the providers and told them that we expect these hotels to be run professionally and appropriately with decent standards of accommodation and food, and that we will be making unannounced visits to the hotels to ensure that those standards are upheld. If the hon. Member has any matters he wants to bring to my attention, he should please do so.

Independent Cultural Review of London Fire Brigade

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. On confidence, the commissioner of the London Fire Brigade has committed to implementing all 23 recommendations. From memory, one of those is to introduce body-worn cameras, so I believe that is something that the London Fire Brigade intends to introduce. It is vital that the public have confidence in our firefighters, who work bravely on a daily basis to keep us safe. The public must understand, however, that they do that without any bias or prejudice, which is why it is critical to implement the recommendations.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The circumstances and findings of the report are appalling, and troubling for those of us who have worked closely with the London Fire Brigade in the aftermath of the Grenfell fire, particularly on product and building safety. Poorer and ethnic minority communities are more at risk, so what will the Government do as part of their response to Grenfell in the light of that? I am also now totally confused about where the Government are on a national inquiry. Yesterday, the Transport Secretary said that he did not want people

“setting up inquiries all over the place.”

Will the Minister confirm from the Dispatch Box that there will be a national inquiry?

[Chris Philp]

No: to be completely clear, for I think the third time, I have said that I will ask His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services to take a look at these issues. It obviously inspects the 44 fire and rescue services and the 43 police forces regularly. It can also—if it chooses, because it is independent of course—conduct thematic reviews on issues such as this, and I will be raising the issue with it.

Manston Update

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is not only diphtheria; asylum seekers with other urgent health needs have been placed, without notice, in hotels in my constituency, and without proper clothing, such as shoes and winter clothes. I would like an assurance that those disgraceful practices will also stop. With all due respect to the Minister, I would like that assurance from the Home Secretary. Why is she never here to answer questions on what should be her No. 1 priority?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am the Minister for Immigration, so it is perfectly logical that I come to the House and answer questions on this area. We provide clothing to migrants when they arrive at Western Jet Foil and while they are at Manston, so it is not correct that migrants would ever go to an area of the country, such as the one that the hon. Gentleman represents, without clothing. I have seen that clothing and it is perfectly acceptable. I am not quite sure what he is expecting us to provide to migrants over and above that—we look after people to the absolute best of our ability.

On a number of visits I have gone into great detail about the quality of care that we provide to migrants and seen incredibly hard-working people, from Border Force and our agencies, going above and beyond, providing Aptamil baby milk and powder, so that young mums can look after their children, providing a broad range of sanitary products for women, and ensuring that men have all the necessary items they need to shave and look after their health and wellbeing. The quality of care is good.

Of course, there are things that we could do better, but we should not make the UK out to be a villain here. In fact the advice from the UKHSA is that the vast majority of the individuals who have infectious diseases contracted them overseas. It may well be the case that many of them picked them up in the genuinely disgraceful conditions in some of the camps in northern France.

Hotel Asylum Accommodation: Local Authority Consultation

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

We are providing local authorities with a per capita grant of £3,500 for any asylum seeker in their local authority area, which provides a base for the support they will need to give them. The hotels and other contingency accommodation are fully funded, in the sense that the provider should be providing food and other services, as well as basic security, for the site. We put in place a significant package around children. We are reviewing whether that is sufficient, given that we are finding it hard to get local authorities to take children out of hotels.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Last week, the Secretary of State placed 90 asylum seekers in two unsuitable hotels in Shepherds Bush. She did not tell the local authority. Some had immediate medical needs, some had no proper clothing, and they all had health and welfare needs. The council and local charities have stepped up now and are providing appropriate support—they are good at that and they care about vulnerable people. In future, can we have a week’s notice? Can we be consulted on the numbers, the locations and the needs of the people involved? We are quite prepared to do our fair share, but we need that notice.

[Robert Jenrick]

I had a very productive meeting with London Councils. It raised questions, such as the one the hon. Gentleman raises. We will now be providing a full set of information about who is coming, what their prior medical conditions are, what nationalities they are and other matters that will be useful to local authorities. We are setting a minimum engagement period of 24 hours, but quite clearly that needs to be significantly more in future—at least a week—and I hope we can reach that within a matter of months.

Migration

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point and speaks for the British public, millions of whom ask exactly the same question. We are pursuing returns agreements with safe countries and have secured one in the last 12 months with Albania. One thousand Albanians have already been removed under that agreement. Clearly, I would like that number to be significantly higher and we are reviewing what further steps we can take. We would like to secure a returns agreement with France. The agreement we reached this week is a good first step, but the Home Secretary will be meeting other northern European Interior Ministers through the Calais group shortly to discuss what the next steps might be. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is prioritising the issue and the broader relationship with France, as we can see in the positive conversations he has had thus far. If it is possible to take the agreement further, we will certainly try to.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

On Monday, as part of Parliament Week, I spoke to a group of 100 asylum seekers and refugees who are learning English at Hammersmith & Fulham College. Some had been in local budget hotel rooms with their families for a year and a half, having had no Home Office interview since they arrived. All are willing and able to work but are prevented from doing so. Does the Minister realise that, along with indefinite detention, this is a failed policy, which is not only cruel and inhumane, but hugely wasteful of public money?

[Robert Jenrick]

I respectfully disagree about indefinite detention. There is an important role for detaining individuals, particularly foreign national offenders, while they are here in the UK and until we can remove them from our shores. If we had further capacity, we might detain more people, frankly.

As for whether migrants whose asylum claims are being processed should be able to work, there are arguments—and differing opinions—on both sides of the House. On balance, I take the view that it is not wise to enable asylum seekers to work because there are already significant pull factors to the UK as a result of the relative ease of working here, access to public services and the fact that we have relatively high approval rates for asylum seekers. I am not persuaded that it would be wise to add a further pull factor to the mix.

Asylum Seekers Accommodation and Safeguarding

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend has spoken on this on a number of occasions, and she draws on her own experience at the Home Office and elsewhere. She is right that modern slavery laws, while important and well meant, are now being abused, particularly by males who are here for economic migration purposes. We have seen many cases in which young males from countries such as Albania, as she says, have their asylum claims processed. Those claims are rejected, quite rightly, so then they immediately make a claim under modern slavery laws. That is wrong, and we intend to review it, as she says, and make any changes that we need to make.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

What the Minister said to my hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, and what the Home Secretary told the House last week balanced breaking the law by leaving asylum seekers in Manston for weeks against breaking the law by abandoning them on the streets without means, and then—Victoria station aside—they decided to commit the first piece of law breaking. Will the Minister publish the advice that led him to that unusual legal opinion?

[Robert Jenrick]

It is not the convention for the Government to publish legal advice, but I have made it clear today and in other public appearances that it is absolutely essential that Manston, like other sites, operates within the law. In this case, that means ensuring that individuals are treated decently and humanely there and stay for 24 hours unless there are exceptional reasons to the contrary. In this case, it was right that the Home Secretary balanced that among wider concerns to leave individuals destitute. It was also the case that this is a site that took at short notice large numbers of migrants who crossed the channel illegally, which put huge pressure on our facilities there. We also had to deal with the aftermath of what is now being treated as a terrorist incident, which led to 700 individuals being evacuated to the site. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we have made huge progress over the course of the week. We are now at the right level of capacity and we are working to ensure that individuals do not stay there any longer than 24 hours.

National Security

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat]

The right hon. Gentleman has made an extremely valid point. I can assure him that any requests from parliamentary security and the excellent lead that we have in the person who currently holds the role will be looked at with extreme willingness. Any request to defend our democracy by those of us who have been privileged to be elected to this House, or indeed those who have been privileged to be elected to others, will be taken extremely seriously. The same, by the way, applies to academic freedom and to many other institutions. They are absolutely fundamental to the liberties of our country.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

In her resignation letter, the Home Secretary said:

“As soon as I realised my mistake, I rapidly reported this on official channels, and informed the Cabinet Secretary.”

Nothing in that statement is correct, according to the Home Secretary’s own account when she wrote to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee yesterday. She waited several hours, she was confronted rather than volunteering information, and she finally reported her breach of security not to the Cabinet Secretary but to her special adviser. If we are being charitable, there is a conflict between the Home Secretary’s versions of events, and surely that merits an independent investigation if we are to have confidence in the person who is primarily responsible for our national security.

[Tom Tugendhat]

The hon. Gentleman has made his points, and the Home Secretary answered yesterday.

Western Jet Foil and Manston Asylum Processing Centres

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. He identifies exactly the problem we are dealing with, and it needs a multifaceted approach that includes deploying and operationalising our returns agreement with Albania and ensuring we take robust action against the many people coming here from Albania with illegitimate aims.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary is a security risk. She said more than once in her letter to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, that 19 October was the only time she used her personal email to send Home Office documents to people outside Government. Does that include other, non-secure networks such as messaging services? Does it include any insecure communication inside Government? And does it include the time she spent in other Departments, especially her tenure as Attorney General, which lasted over a year compared with the few chaotic weeks she has been Home Secretary?

[Suella Braverman]

I refer the hon. Gentleman to the letter I sent today, which sets out all the details of the actions, the decisions and the rationale behind the events of 19 October. I have apologised for the mistake and taken responsibility, which is why I resigned.

The hon. Gentleman’s party has no solutions for the problem we are dealing with. If Labour was in charge, it would be allowing all the Albanian criminals to come to this country. It would be allowing all the small boats to come to the UK, it would open our borders and totally undermine the trust of the British people in controlling our sovereignty.

Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 13th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Suella Braverman)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Following Putin’s unconscionable invasion of Ukraine we acted immediately, cracking down on dirty money in the UK by passing the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022. I am very grateful for the way that the whole House got behind that effort and I hope we can come together on this Bill, too. I am very grateful to the shadow Front Bench for its constructive engagement on the Bill and to party colleagues for their considerable input. I hope we can send a united message that dirty money, fraudsters and gangsters are not welcome in the UK.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I just wonder why it took a war in Europe for action to take place on this matter, why for years and years and years the right hon. and learned Lady’s Government and their predecessors did nothing about it, and whether it had anything to do with the millions going into Tory party coffers from Russian oligarchs?

[Suella Braverman]

I am not sure what point the hon. Gentleman is making. Important strides are being taken forward in the Bill and we should all be getting behind the swift action the Government took in response to the invasion of Ukraine. I am very grateful that we were able to pass that legislation and take powers in the Act earlier this year, which included taking the groundbreaking action of sanctioning hundreds if not thousands of Russian individuals and entities, freezing assets and really excluding the influence of Russian finance in the UK. I am proud of that effort and I hope that he is too.

--- Later in debate ---

[Suella Braverman]

I am going to continue.

The Bill will tackle the misuse of limited partnerships, including Scottish limited partnerships, and will modernise the law governing them. We will tighten registration requirements and will additionally require limited partnerships to demonstrate a firmer connection to the UK. Transparency requirements will be increased. The registrar will be able to de-register limited partnerships if they are dissolved or no longer carrying on business, or if a court orders that it is in the public interest.

Nor does the Bill overlook cryptoassets. It will give additional powers to law enforcement bodies so that they can more quickly and easily seize, freeze and recover cryptoassets that are the proceeds of crime or are connected with illicit activity. That will ensure that cryptoassets cannot be a conduit for money laundering, fraud, ransomware attacks or terrorist financing. Most notably, it will mitigate the risk posed by those who cannot be prosecuted but who nevertheless use their funds for criminal purposes. I am sorry to say that cryptoassets are increasingly being used to fund terrorism; we will crack down on that by introducing an amendment to counter-terrorism legislation that reflects those changes.

I turn to anti-money laundering. We will enable better sharing of information about suspected money laundering, fraud and other economic crimes between certain regulated businesses, allowing them to take a more proactive approach to preventing economic crime. As a result, businesses will be better able to detect crime taking place across multiple businesses and to prevent criminals from exploiting information gaps between them. We will also reduce the reporting burdens on businesses, enabling the private sector and law enforcement to focus their existing resources on tackling high-value and priority activity.

Threats evolve and are changing, so the Bill includes a measure to streamline and allow faster updates to the UK’s high-risk third country list. The list will be updated and published on gov.uk for everyone to see, reflecting updates from the Financial Action Task Force, the international standard setter, when it identifies countries with weak anti-money laundering, counter-terrorist financing and counter-proliferation financing controls. By removing the need to lay a statutory instrument before Parliament every time the list needs to be updated, we will reduce delays in updating the list and free up parliamentary time.

The Bill will add a regulatory objective to the Legal Services Act 2007:

“promoting the prevention and detection of economic crime.”

It affirms that it is the legal duty of legal regulators and professionals to uphold the economic crime regime. That will reduce the risk of lengthy and expensive challenges from regulated members over enforcement action. It will improve the ability of the Legal Services Board, as the oversight regulator, to manage the performance of frontline regulators in meeting that objective.

The Bill will remove the statutory cap on the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s financial penalty powers for disciplinary matters relating to economic crime. That will align the SRA with other regulators that have such flexibility. Fewer cases will be referred to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, resulting in faster enforcement. There will be a credible deterrent and a more coherent response to breaches of economic crime rules.

The Bill will enable the Serious Fraud Office to use its powers under section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1987 at the pre-investigation stage in any SFO case, including a fraud case—an ability that is currently limited to cases of international bribery and corruption. This measure will mean that the SFO can more quickly gather the information that it needs to allow its director to decide whether to take on a case.

Cracking down on economic crime is a major plank of the Government’s beating crime plan.

[Andy Slaughter]

I am grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way; I know that she is about to finish her speech. There are 22 professional bodies overseeing compliance with anti-money laundering rules. Is the Home Secretary going to do anything about the resulting confusion, and the inadequacy of some of those bodies? May I also ask whether she intends to introduce—as her colleague the Secretary of State for Wales hinted earlier this week—a new offence of failure to prevent offences from being committed? I do not know whether she welcomes her colleague commenting on her brief, but as the Welsh Secretary has raised the question, perhaps she could respond to it.

[Suella Braverman]

The hon. Gentleman raises two issues concerning the regulators. We need to ensure that they strike the right balance in terms of their investigatory or prosecutorial powers, but also do not overstretch themselves to become a burden on legitimate and bona fide enterprise. This is a balance that legislation constantly seeks to strike. As for the offence of failure to prevent offences, it is something that we consider all the time, and I am always open to considering such possibilities.

Far from being victimless, these crimes bring misery, fund other crimes and undermine our country’s reputation, and Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine raises the stakes even higher. The United Kingdom must ensure that we are doing nothing to aid Putin, and doing everything we can to support the courageous Ukrainian people.

I urge the whole House to get behind the Bill so that we can make sure that the UK is a great place for legitimate business and a no-go area for crooks, and I commend it to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

To listen to the Home Secretary opening the debate, one would think the Government had a good record on tackling economic crime. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) said, there has been not one prosecution of a Russian in the time that the Government have been in power. On the contrary, they have been welcomed into the heart of the establishment, buying their way into it. Only now, after the terrible events in Ukraine took place earlier this year, have we seen a response. The initial response, the first economic crime Bill, was clearly inadequate. We were promised that a second Bill would fill in the gaps and be more comprehensive. It is so far, frankly, a disappointment, for many of the reasons that we have heard.

Yes, the measures in the Bill are welcome, and I do not think anyone has said that they are not, but as has been asked—I do not want to repeat what has been said by people who have greater expertise on this matter than I do—where is the ability to carry this through and where is the funding for Companies House to actually police, rather than simply register? We heard from the shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), that the National Crime Agency is still—unless the Government correct this in today’s debate—facing cuts at a time when we know it has very limited resources.

The Bill has many, many omissions. We have heard about the lack of corporate liability and the lack of provisions on whistleblowers, but we can add to that. As the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) said, we still have nothing on failure to prevent. I asked the Home Secretary about that earlier. Her colleague the Secretary of State for Wales, the right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland), said in a speech earlier this week, if it was correctly reported by the Law Society Gazette:

“What isn’t in the Bill is as interesting as what is. I hope not to prejudice the Government’s position, but amendments”—

to create an offence of—

“failure to prevent economic crime…could be quite a dramatic move by Parliament.”

I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman has a history of supporting that. I asked the Home Secretary about that and she said, “Well, we’re always looking at that.” Surely the Government must know by now whether they are going to include those provisions in the Bill. Perhaps the Minister, in winding up, can enlighten us further.

Where is the anti-SLAPP—strategic lawsuits against public participation—legislation? I did not agree with the former Justice Secretary on much, but he did push forward that agenda. There was a response from the Government earlier this year and we were looking for legislation in the Queen’s Speech. It could have been included in the Bill, and it could still, but where is it? And where is the better organisation of supervisory bodies? The Government are not short of good advice on what to put in the Bill, but let me quote Spotlight on Corruption:

“Anti-money laundering supervision for professionals in the legal and accountancy sector is currently not fit for purpose, with 22 different professional bodies overseeing their compliance with anti-money laundering rules. Last year the Office for Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervision”—

another body—

“found that only 15% of these supervisors were effective ‘in using predictable and proportionate supervisory action’ and that only 19% ‘had implemented an effective risk-based approach’ to supervision.”

That is not really going to intimidate those who wish to commit economic crime if the Government cannot get their tackle in order in that respect.

There are, therefore, many omissions, but in the short time I am going to speak for I want to concentrate on the lack of resources. The shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford, mentioned that she and my boss the shadow Attorney General, my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), have been banging on about this for 10 years. Many of the measures that are still not in the Bill have been called for over that period, yet we are still waiting. We will see what happens in Committee. I do not hold out much hope on that, because it is relatively rare for the Government to introduce many major provisions in Committee, but I hope to be proved wrong.

Let us look at two areas in relation to enforcement: money and staffing. To give an example of another case, in July 2020 the NCA faced a claim for £1.5 million in costs following an adverse ruling in an unexplained wealth order. That was a quarter of its international corruption unit’s annual budget for fighting corruption, whereas the Government had estimated, when they introduced UWOs, that law enforcement would face costs of up to £1.5 million over a 10-year period.

It is right that there is now a different format for cost orders for UWOs, which gives some cost protection. That is universal in the United States and it would be very useful in this respect. A trend in how the Government are legislating is the increased use of fixed recoverable costs. There are other areas of cost protection, but not unfortunately, in the area of Leveson, on which the Government seem to have a blind spot. However, this is a prime category in which we need some protection for the enforcement agencies. Although this does now apply to UWOs, it does not apply in any other economic crime cases.

That affects the behaviour of enforcement agencies in a number of ways. First, they tend to go after the small fry rather than the bigger fish, because they are worried that the bigger fish will be able to instruct lawyers who will run rings around them and bankrupt them, in the sense that they will use up their whole budget in the way I described. It makes them pusillanimous in their attitude and there is a vicious downward spiral, because when they lose cases—I think, for example, of the SFO in the Serco, Unaoil and ENRC cases—they can be at risk, effectively, for large pots of their budget. It is therefore understandable that they then have to go cap in hand to HMRC or the Government and ask for the money to be used to subsidise their overspends for that year. That is really no way to behave and it is not surprising that the inequality of arms means that the enforcement agencies have low morale and perhaps do not have the motivation to go after crooks in the way that we would like them to.

Another way to deal with the issue would be to fund the agencies better. As I think Spotlight on Corruption said, although enforcement agencies recover limited amounts—because of their limited remit and limited ability, and I do not believe that the enforcement agencies recover as much money as they could—most of that goes to the Treasury. If it went to them instead, their budgets would perhaps be double what they are now. That would be a virtuous circle, because they could then be rather bolder in the prosecutions they take—as the Department of Justice is in America—and achieve better results.

Whether we are talking about cost protection or better funding through the proceeds of crime that the enforcement agencies release, there has to be a way of making them more effective. If that does not happen, frankly, everything else that the Government are trying to do will be a waste of time.

Let me say a bit about staffing. There are a lot of very hard-working staff in the Serious Fraud Office and the National Crime Agency who are doing their best, but there is also a revolving door from the public to the private sector, because remuneration is so much higher in the private solicitor service and elsewhere. Essentially, therefore, the state is funding the training and development of individuals who will work for the SFO or the NCA, only for their expertise to be taken to law firms who specialise in defending against white collar crime prosecution. That is a serious problem and a conflict of interest, and it is seemingly overlooked by the Government, particularly given the rather limited use of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments guidelines by the SFO, in particular.

That is not the SFO’s only problem with staffing. Over the past five years, the number of financial investigators, case progression officers, lawyers and case controllers has grown by just 11 officials, despite the massive increase in economic crime. When I asked the head of the SFO, I was told not only that the SFO is proud of the revolving door because it shows that its staff are attractive to other employers, but that it does not keep any records about the destinations of former staff.

In 10 minutes of research on LinkedIn, I managed to find out that since 2010 the former director Sir David Green, two former general counsel, four former heads or co-heads of the bribery and corruption division, two former heads of the fraud division, the former heads of the assurance division and the international assistance division, and at least 20 more junior staff, have moved on and are now working for legal firms that, on the whole, represent the people who are being prosecuted. The only one who was vetted by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments was Sir David Green; the net effect was that a delay of six months rather than three months was imposed before he could take up his post, and that there were other restrictions on his use of knowledge gained at the SFO. It is a joke.

We are expecting agencies to do a job with one hand—and in some cases both hands—tied behind their back. I recommend that everybody read Oliver Bullough’s excellent book “Butler to the World”, which shows that this has been going on rather longer than we may think; it is not a recent event. In summing up a case that I referred to earlier, which the NCA completely lost on all levels—it lost even the ability to appeal—he writes:

“Reading the final judgment is like reading the report of a match between Manchester City and Hereford FC: the embattled non-league side did its best, but its players were swept aside by superior skills, fitness, knowledge and resources.”

I want our enforcement agencies to have premier league status, rather than being where they are at the moment—no offence to Hereford, who I am sure are an excellent team. I mean no offence either to the people who are doing the best they can to deliver, but how can they deliver unless the Government give them the tools to do the job? I want to believe that the Government are sincere about tackling the issue and have seen the light, even belatedly, but the Bill simply does not deliver the goods.