Economic Crime: Law Enforcement

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

I will keep it tight.

It is shocking but true that it was the tragedy of the war in Ukraine that got our Government to start thinking about the serious threat that the country faces, in both our economy and our society, from the spiralling menace of illicit finance and all that goes with it. I have said many times in the House, and I repeat today, that we will never enjoy sustained, good economic prosperity on the back of dirty money. We earned the reputation on which our superb, successful financial sector was built by being a trusted jurisdiction, and we must maintain that. Today, we are in danger of losing that trust.

The US sees us as a high-risk jurisdiction similar to Cyprus, and Londongrad is becoming a popular term among many. We have moved off our perch as the world’s leaders in fighting economic crime. Moody’s has downgraded us, and we are slipping down the ranks of Transparency International’s corruption perception index. Everything is moving in the wrong direction. That is no surprise because, as the hon. Member said, economic crime is now massive. It costs the country £290 billion annually—more than a quarter of the Government’s total public expenditure—and all of us who are concerned with this area know that that figure is conservative. The latest figures from UK Finance that came out last week suggest that in 2020 there was an 8% increase in fraud, which of course is the biggest component of economic crime.

Much illicit finance, but not all, comes from Russia, through Russian companies and Russian individuals. As various Select Committee reports on the subject show, for too long we have turned a blind eye to the threat that Putin’s kleptocratic regime poses to our economy. Why did we do nothing after the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006, or after the poisoning of Sergei Skripal in 2018? Those were two brutal attacks on British soil.

We must add to that the findings of a recent report by Buzzfeed News investigations, which established that between 2003 and 2016, there were 14 more suspicious deaths in the UK of individuals who were hostile to the Russian state. I will mention just three of them. Stephen Curtis, the British lawyer who helped the laundering of money—potentially billions of pounds—in the UK for wealthy Russian oligarchs, died in a helicopter crash in 2004. Alexander Perepilichnyy blew the whistle on a multimillion-pound Government fraud in Russia. He flew to Britain, and died of a so-called heart attack when jogging near his home in Surrey in 2012. The coroner’s inquest said that he died of natural causes, but evidence given, I gather, behind closed doors for national security reasons said that there was no natural cause determined. Some suspect that he was poisoned. Boris Berezovsky, who made his wealth during the collapse of the Soviet Union, was famous because he was key in supporting Putin and getting him into power in Russia. In 2013, he was found hanged in his home.

Those are only three of 14 cases, but in all of them the police concluded that the deaths were not suspicious. There was no investigation, or indeed any suggestion that those were Russian state-sanctioned murders, although the US intelligence services told our police that they thought the deaths were likely sanctioned by the Kremlin. Were the police just incompetent? I doubt it. Was there pressure from somewhere else—from either our security services or our Government—to turn a blind eye to the possibility that those were state-sanctioned murders? American intelligence officials told Buzzfeed journalists that Russian killers had been able to kill in Britain with impunity. They said that one of the reasons for the reticence of enforcement agencies to act was

“a desire to preserve the billions of pounds of Russian money that pour into British banks and properties each year.”

As we debate the failures of our enforcement agencies in tackling illicit wealth, we should bear in mind that the problem goes well beyond the funding, the skills and the effectiveness of the enforcement agency. If we are really to eradicate dirty money, we require action on a wide number of fronts, as the all-party parliamentary group for fair business banking and the all-party parliamentary group on anti-corruption and responsible tax have said. We have put together a good manifesto that could form the start of concerted action to rid us of this terribly bad thing. We talk in the manifesto about action on four fronts. We need smart regulation, much greater transparency, proper accountability and enforcement. We are debating enforcement today.

All those measures are interdependent, and I worry a lot that the Government’s response through the economic crime Bill, which should be with us in the autumn, will be too little and too fragmented. Reform of Companies House, for which we have argued for a long time, is necessary but not sufficient. So are reform of anti-money laundering regulations, and an open register of property owned by foreign countries. We need co-ordinated action on many fronts if we are to clean up dirty Britain.

Today, we are focusing on enforcement. Our performance is abysmal, our record in successfully bringing bad players to account is miserable and our commitment to doing the job properly is questionable. The evidence—the hon. Member already talked about some of it—is overwhelming. The Bribery Act was introduced in 2010, and in the UK we have had 99 criminal convictions and six deferred prosecution agreements. The USA, with a similar legislative framework, has had 236 convictions in the same period. As I understand it—I could not find one, but if I am wrong, I stand to be corrected—we have never pursued a criminal prosecution against a bank for money laundering or sanctions busting. We use civil measures, but never criminal ones. In 2019, we had civil fines of £260 million. In the same year, the Americans pursued criminal action against and secured £2.5 billion from just six banks, and they secured £5 billion in civil fines.

As the hon. Member said—it is worth repeating, because it is so shocking—the Financial Conduct Authority fined HSBC £64 million in 2021 for AML failures, but nearly a decade before, it was fined £1.4 billion in America for AML offences. Standard Chartered is a British bank, so we ought to be the ones who are really responsible for ensuring that it behaves itself. What do we get from it? Fines for wrongdoing under anti-money laundering regulations of £102 million. What do the Americans get? Over 800% more: £842 million. Yet we know from the FinCEN—the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network—files that too many of our banks and too many individuals who work in our banks either passively collude with economic crime, or actively promote and facilitate money launderings. The banks that are implicated are so often the biggest British-based banks: HSBC, Barclays, Standard Chartered.

What we do in Britain is pursue the little businesses, the little men and women who are trying hard to establish new businesses here. That came home to me very much when I chaired the Public Accounts Committee and we had the leaks relating to HSBC—they were called the Falciani leaks. There were more documents relating to British accounts than, I think, for any other nation. There were 3,600 British accounts. At the time, the tax authorities said to us that there was cause for concern with about a third of those. Out of that third—about 1,200—they finally found 150 cases. How many did they pursue? One individual was charged. I could not find, in my search of Google, whether that individual was ever convicted. Look at how other countries dealt with it: every other country managed to charge more people, fine more people and get some compensation. The only thing that happened with us was that Rona Fairhead, now in the House of Lords, was on the board of HSBC at the time and was responsible for the audit committee. I cannot understand how anybody with that responsibility could not have seen a red flag when looking through the accounts from the Swiss branch of HSBC and seeing the profits being secured. The only thing she said was that she declared that the whistleblower was a criminal and that the only thing that HSBC should do was pursue the whistleblower and try to get him imprisoned.

Fraud is the crime that now affects one in 11 adults in the UK, yet convictions for fraud have collapsed by two-thirds in the past three years—cases up and convictions down. The number of criminal cases the Serious Fraud Office, in which we had great confidence, has under investigation has halved over the past three years. There have been some disastrous failures in the courts through the SFO with Serco and Unaoil, where it lost cases simply because it did not share information in a proper way—it failed to disclose relevant material to the defendants. There are lawyers in the Chamber. I am not one, but I cannot believe that it actually did that.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent analysis of the situation. At the moment, the SFO is itself being investigated by a former Director of Public Prosecutions and being sued by the people it should be investigating. It lacks the money, the personnel and the powers to do its job. It has a £53 million a year budget against hundreds of billions of dirty money. This is a peashooter against an elephant, is it not? This needs reform urgently.

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

I completely agree with those observations, which are so well made.

The National Crime Agency has dropped its prosecutions by 35% in the past five years. The record of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, which we do not often talk about, is equally awful. It sees its purpose entirely as simply getting tax revenues in. That is important, but it also has a duty to ensure that anybody who acts unlawfully in the way that they deal with the revenue authorities—or, more seriously, evade tax—is pursued. Yet it simply does not see that as part of its functions. Compare that to the Department for Work and Pensions, where anybody who has an allegation of fraudulently claiming benefit is pursued with vigour by the authorities in that agency. A similar attitude should be taken to what I consider the serious crime of deliberately avoiding tax and not paying into the common pot for the common good.

There are some egregious cases of schemes dreamt up with no purpose other than to avoid tax. One example was Working Wheels, which hit my desk when I was Chair of the Public Accounts Committee. In that instance, the person who wanted to avoid tax pretended that they were selling second-hand cars. That created money that then whirled through the system to create a debt, which they were able to claim against the tax liability from their legitimate earnings. Chris Moyles was persuaded that he could become a second-hand car dealer. Telling people that you are a second-hand car dealer is fraudulent. It is a fraud. And why that is not pursued with the same vigour as somebody who tries to lie about their circumstances to get a better benefit settlement is beyond belief. One of our recommendations is that HMRC should have an absolute statutory duty to pursue wrongdoing with the same vigour with which it pursues getting money into our coffers.

All the agencies are grossly underfunded. The Government trumpet the £100 million they will get from the economic crime levy, but that is peanuts when set alongside what the banks themselves spend on anti-money laundering and what other countries spend. Under Biden, the Americans have increased their expenditure on enforcement by more than 30%, because they define it as a security issue. What have we done here? We have had a real cut of 4.5%.

We have lots of ideas that would not require a call on taxpayers’ money. We could enable a percentage of the fines collected from successful actions to be used to fund further activity and staffing within the enforcement agency. We could follow the American example and say that costs incurred by the defendant, were we to lose cases, should in no way be met from the public purse. Why should people against whom we allege wrongdoing in relation to Government funding be allowed such a contribution? One thing we will come back to is the sanctioning of individuals. We have frozen the assets of a lot of Russian oligarchs, but we have no mechanism to seize those assets. A move from freezing to seizing—we are doing some work next week to look at the practical changes that would have to be brought in to enable that to happen—would release more resources not just for enforcement activity but, in this instance, to help with the reconstruction of Ukraine after the war.

Staffing must grow. For example, there are only 118 employees to deal with more than half a million suspicious activity reports a year that the agencies receive. By my arithmetic, that is 4,250 reports per official. In Germany, there are 500 reports per official. In Australia, there are 1,400 reports per official. They are all better staffed than we are here. This is so much an invest-to-save activity. It is a nonsense that the Government do not distribute their resources in a way that enables that to happen.

There is also the chaos of our existing regulatory infrastructure, which is fragmented. As the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton said, lots of stuff falls through the holes. A lot of whistleblowers and people come to me with cases, and I refer a case to one agency, which tells me to refer it to another, and it then disappears and I never hear about it again.

We must take on board the failure of the professionals to self-regulate. There are too many bodies; 13 bodies supervise the accountancy sector. The hon. Member and I met representatives of one of those the other day. I think that they have suspended seven people in the past year. That is a nonsensical figure in relation to the activity that is taking place—the collusion and facilitation of wrongdoing—so we have to sort out the regulation of the enablers and the regulator. There is an overarching regulator, which regulates all the regulators. That should be sorted out and personal responsibility must be taken.

I will make two other points. The most egregious case that I have come across—this is a comment on all our regulatory systems and our failure to enforce—relates to Lebanon, where there was a tragic explosion in a warehouse that had fertiliser, which was supposed to go to Mozambique. That resulted in hundreds of deaths, thousands of injuries and massive damage to property. A few weeks after that occurred, I got a phone call from a Reuters journalist with whom I regularly work. He told me that the company that owned the fertiliser was British-registered. I gave my usual comment about “hopeless, lax regulation” and did not think twice about it. About three weeks after that, I got a number of phone calls from people in Lebanon, the Lebanese Bar Association and others. It emerged that the company had been set up here as a UK-based company by a woman in Cyprus who was in fact the company service provider. She put herself down as the beneficial owner, but she obviously was not. She told HMRC that it was a dormant company, but it obviously was not because it was dealing in fertiliser. It then emerged that the real owners were Russian-Syrians and that the fertiliser was going nowhere near Mozambique, but to Assad to be used in barrel bombs to kill his people. That is a shocking story, but it demonstrates how our regulatory infrastructure and the failure of our enforcement agencies damages the lives of people not just here at home but abroad.

I have a final story, which, again, causes me great concern. After the Kazakhstan tragedy—a demonstration against the kleptocrats who run the regime where Russian soldiers were used to fire at the crowds and people were killed—two British academics came to me with their research, which demonstrated that there were 30 individuals in Kazakhstan who were involved in money laundering and human rights abuses and whom we should sanction. I used the privilege of the House to mention the 30 individuals in an Adjournment debate and then sent the list to the Foreign Office. A few days after that, I got a letter from one of the people I had named, asserting his innocence. Obviously, he wanted me to respond outside the House, so I acknowledged the letter and did nothing more. I then got a second letter with a phone call, asking whether we had received the letter. My assistant said that we had. I then got a letter from the desk at the Foreign Office asking me whether we had received the letter, whether we were responding and what we were going to do about it. I asked the Foreign Office why it was pursuing this and on whose behalf it was working. It said that it thought that it was important to facilitate relations between kleptocrats and British politicians.

That is shocking and leads me to think: are the Government really serious about bearing down on all the economic crime and corruption that week after week, year after year, we talk about in the House? If they are, they must pursue consistently and vigorously every instance of it, and not just the Russian kleptocrats—evil though they are—but kleptocrats elsewhere who are stealing from and killing their people and creating instability in the world.

--- Later in debate ---

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) for bringing this debate to the House and for all their work in bringing together the superb set of proposals in the economic crime manifesto. It is an important debate for us to have, even on a day like this, for the simple reason that at the heart of every autocracy, every dictatorship and every tyranny is corruption. Those who enable that corruption enable dictatorship, tyranny and autocracy. Our country led the industrial revolution and is a proud hub for the global financial services industry. Just as we once destroyed slave trading around the world, it is imperative that we destroy economic crime around the world in the 21st century. That is why the debate is so important.

I commend the all-party groups for the publication of their economic crime manifesto. I draw the House’s attention to the Foreign Affairs Committee’s contribution to the debate—our report published last week. The conclusion that we reached, which is set out clearly at paragraph 14, is a pretty damning indictment of where we have ended up:

“The Government’s unwillingness to bring forward legislation to stem the flow of dirty money is likely to have contributed to the belief in Russia that the UK is a safe haven for corrupt wealth.”

The ecosystem of wealth managers, lawyers, PR merchants, bankers and estate agents who enabled Putin’s kleptocrats have contributed to the strength of Putin in Russia and therefore to the prosecution of war in Ukraine—that is the conclusion that the Foreign Affairs Committee came to last week.

[Andy Slaughter]

My right hon. Friend is speaking very well on the subject, as he always does. We have heard that the oligarchs use Londongrad as a playground, not just for leisure and lifestyle but for criminal activity, because law enforcement is too weak. What adds insult to injury is that when journalists and private investigators step up to expose what is going on, they are subject to punishment from the institutions of this country—the courts—through SLAPP, or strategic litigation against public participation. The people who are getting away with it are the people who should be in the dock.

[Liam Byrne]

Exactly. My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

I will quickly run through five parts of the economic manifesto that have to be at the core of the next economic crime Bill. One of the virtues of having this debate today, at this moment of great flux in our politics, is that I hope to put on the record the cross-party consensus that now exists about the provisions that need to go into economic crime Bill 2.

Many of us argued for a long time for the first Bill, which was rushed through the House in record time for obvious reasons. Many of the amendments that improved the Bill came from participants in this debate. What we are saying to the Government today, through the good offices of the Minister, is that the Bill did not go far enough—it did not begin to touch the scale of the problem. There is therefore an expectation that when the Government draw together the provisions of economic crime Bill 2, they will look at the economic crime manifesto, the Foreign Affairs Committee’s report and the text of this debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Robert Neill]

The Law Commission often offers a sensible way forward, and I urge the Government to adopt those recommendations and try to implement them swiftly. This involved considerable work and a great deal of expertise and advice, and I see no reason for us not to move on the “controlling mind” test quite quickly, even if we needed to look a little further at the “duty to prevent” test. Neither of those is unfixable. They offer a sensible way forward in relation to the “controlling mind” test”, and I hope the Government will act.

The other matter I want to raise in respect of larger-scale frauds is the work of the Serious Fraud Office. It certainly involves controversy, and there are some issues to which the SFO needs to respond in relation to the conduct of certain cases. I hope very much that we will see the full publication of Sir David Calvert-Smith’s report on one of those cases. On the other hand, to its credit, with a staff of 250-odd, the SFO has secured for the Consolidated Fund, through payments under deferred prosecution agreements—of which there are now 12—the recovery of some £1.6 billion. If a modest percentage of that were ringfenced, and, rather than going back to the Treasury, were held and reinvested in the budget of the SFO and allied crime-fighting agencies, that would be a massive step forward in providing it with the resources with which to deal with serious international and corporate crime.

In one of the cases that we spoke about recently when the Justice Committee visited the SFO, the disclosure material involved some 1.9 million documents. Dealing with those is a massive task. The SFO could invest in more artificial intelligence for searching documents. There are some legal complexities surrounding that, but it is doable, and is already done in commercial civil litigation. However, it is necessary to invest in it. If some of that money from the deferred prosecution agreements were ringfenced and reinvested, it would be money very well spent.

Having spoken about those large-scale matters, I hope that we will not forget that there is a great deal of “small-scale” fraud—small-scale in the global picture, that is, but very big and important to the victims of fraud. The Justice Committee recently conducted a number of hearings on fraud in the justice system. The message of the evidence we heard from Victim Support was “Do not think that fraud is a victimless crime, which is all too easy to do”. That view was supported by the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, which reported that some 74% of fraud victims were emotionally impacted by the crime. At the very least, someone will feel that they have been made an idiot of; more often, they will have lost what may be a small sum of money for a bank, but is a lot of money to them. They will feel vulnerable thereafter, almost betrayed. So this is not a victimless crime, and we should never allow it to be thought to be so. This is coming from the people who have been talked to because they have reported the offence of fraud. There are estimated to be 3.7 million incidents of fraud but according to Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services, the majority of them are not reported. We need to do a lot more on that everyday fraud.

[Andy Slaughter]

The hon. Gentleman talks about this subject as well as about the major frauds. I was shocked to find out that in 2020-21 fraud accounted for 39% of all crime and that the average investment fraud deprived the victim of £14,000, which is a significant sum of money to an individual. Is it part of the problem that we are not taking this seriously enough? If we were, we would no longer be relying on Action Fraud, which I thought the Government had agreed to wind up and replace with something effective.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

It is fair to say that the plan we are advancing is the only credible plan to address the issue. It is comprehensive and will end the dangerous channel crossings, preserve life, get illegal migration back under control and, of course, bring sustainability to the related finances.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

My constituent faces losing her job with the NHS and is unable to visit a seriously ill close relative abroad because the Home Office has failed to deal with her visa, which was requested last year. I have raised this four times with the Home Office urgent inquiry line and have received no response for two months. Will the Minister look at this particular case, which I wrote to the Home Secretary about last week, and, more generally, at the service, or lack of service, that the urgent inquiry line is providing to MPs?

[Kevin Foster]

I am very happy to look into the individual case.

Migration and Economic Development Partnership with Rwanda

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank my hon. Friend for her comments. She is a Kent MP, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke), and I know exactly how strongly her constituents feel about this issue and the impact on constituencies in Kent—I sometimes think Labour Members forget about that. She asks me about our determination. Our resolution is strong. We will continue with not just our work, but our commitment to break up the people-smuggling gangs.

Finally, it is a real shame, but it is worth leaving the House with this point right now. Over the weekend, we have seen mob rule—including, actually, Labour councillors in London engaging in mob rule—to stop people being removed from our country and to stop immigration enforcement action against those with no legal basis to be in our country. We are determined to do the right thing, despite the synthetic outrage we get from many Opposition Members and, quite frankly, some of the appalling protests we have seen involving political activism from the Labour party.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

As Home Secretary, the right hon. Lady has a responsibility to uphold the rule of law. She cannot only approve of courts when they make decisions in her favour. Will she take this opportunity to affirm her support for the whole of the justice system, including the European Court of Human Rights and our membership of the European convention? All we have heard from her today are smears and mudslinging directed at lawyers, courts and judges.

[Priti Patel]

I would like put the hon. Gentleman’s comments into some context.

[Andy Slaughter]

Answer the question!

[Priti Patel]

I am speaking to the hon. Member directly through the Chair. He may want to calm down his synthetic outrage. I have not made a single slur about our judges or our courts. I have spoken about the processes of the courts and it is right that we do that.

Secondly, as you have heard me say already, Madam Deputy Speaker, there are legal processes taking place right now. It is absolutely right that we wait for the judgments to come forward, so that we work with the courts and our legal counsels in the right way, rather than, if I may say so, participating in the sort of faux and synthetic yelling match that is taking place in the Labour party.

Asylum Seekers: Removal to Rwanda

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

It is fair to say that we believe there is a legal basis for this policy and that at all times we will be compliant with our obligations under both the refugee convention and the ECHR, but my right hon. Friend will, of course, be aware that the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), the Deputy Prime Minister, is taking forward a programme of reform in relation to the Human Rights Act, and will no doubt want to make his views known.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

How can the Minister say Rwanda is a safe country when 12 refugees protesting about cuts to food rations were shot dead by security forces in 2018? It is not lawyers, but courts that are finding his policy ultra vires. Should he not pause and rethink, rather than hurling abuse at anyone who points out its defects?

[Tom Pursglove]

I am not going to get into a long and protracted debate with the hon. Gentleman. I have said plenty about this particular point previously. He will recognise that this matter is in front of the courts today. On that basis, it would be inappropriate for me to comment.

Ukraine Refugee Visas

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

I thank my hon. Friend for her positive suggestions. The Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes), is here on the Front Bench and can look at using the twinning network—particularly, ideally, where there may be some language ability in either Polish or Ukrainian. That would be useful in helping people to settle, certainly in their first few days. In terms of engagement with Poland, I was with the Polish ambassador this week, talking to them directly and hearing what their priorities are. Their key focus is that we need to support the vast majority of people who will look to remain in the region, rather than just seeing resettlement as the priority, but it was useful to hear their thoughts on what more we could do to support them.

On moving the application form into Ukrainian, we are looking to provide guidance on how to fill it in in Ukrainian and Russian, since some Ukrainians speak Russian as their first language. To translate the whole form would require a significant amount of technical work; moreover, the vast majority of our decision makers operate in English and it would be difficult to find large numbers of Ukrainian speakers who we could deploy into UKVI’s operation. Certainly, our goal is to make it relatively simple, so that people can fill in the basic information that they need to for the safeguarding check. Any documents they submit do not need to be translated. Birth certificates and any other proofs or documents we might ask for can be submitted in Ukrainian, given that the decision makers are familiar with the documents themselves. Certainly, we are looking at how we can advance the digital capability and the guidance so that people know what they are doing step by step as they go through the form.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Many emails I have received have a common theme. I will just quote a couple:

“I have had to write…no fewer than five different applications in order to be able to comply with the requirements of the scheme.”

Another said:

“The forms, aimed at Ukrainians, were hard for me to fill out and I speak English and am used to forms, but I managed to help them complete the application. The applications were submitted on Saturday 19th March. Since then we have heard nothing.”

The first email went on:

“While our friend is in danger, the Home Office is mired in bureaucracy, prioritising form over human life. It looks to me as if the whole process is going to take weeks and weeks.”

Will the Minister admit that there are blockages in the systems, and will he do something to clear them?

[Kevin Foster]

As we have already touched on, we are now seeing the rate of grants increasing significantly on the Homes for Ukraine scheme, as we saw with the Ukraine family scheme. I have touched on the number of visas that we issued in just two days last week under that scheme. We expect to see the same with this scheme, and we will soon see a very large number of the applications that have been made granted.

Ukrainian Refugees

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I apologise for not being here from the start of the debate, Mr Gray. I thank colleagues for their forbearance.

My small London borough is one of the top 20 in the country for the number of Ukrainian-born residents. It is an extremely diverse borough. I will not pretend that we yet have as many Ukrainian refugees as we did Afghan refugees last year; we had several hundred of those. However, it is a significant number and it is growing; one of the reasons why it is growing is that the Home Office is not dealing with the problem. The circumstances are very different, but the one thing those groups have in common is that they are victims of Home Office bureaucracy.

I have families in Ukraine, Poland and France. I have families who have had to split up because some could get further than others. Some have even got to the UK in this grotesque game of snakes and ladders, where the aim is to get to the next stage without going backwards. Some UK nationals have spouses or other relatives who are Ukrainian and are finding that visa centres are closed. I have constituents in the UK whose visas are expiring or have expired. Some have even been so delayed in applying for them that they are worried about being sent back or being sent out of the country. I hope the Minister will reassure us that there is at least no intention to exclude anybody in that way.

I asked my caseworker for an update today on all the cases, and almost every one ends with the line: “We have had no responses from the Home Office to any of our inquiries,” or “We have made urgent inquiries to the Home Office but have had no response yet.” We are seeing a repetition of what happened with Afghanistan last year, I am afraid. The system simply is not working. Every case turns on its own facts, but I will, with your indulgence, Mr Gray, read an e-mail I have received that highlights a lot of the problems. It is from a constituent two or three days ago. The circumstances may have changed, but I do not think they have.

“My wife’s daughter-in-law along with her 12-year-old son fled Ukraine and are now in Warsaw Poland. In the last four days they have both been ill, probably due to cold, exhaustion and stress. They are now safely in a flat of friends of friends but she does not speak Polish or English. Because of this we have been trying to get them an appointment at the Visa Application Centre in Warsaw. This has involved us getting texts and images from Poland and Ukraine together with copies of documents we have in the UK. I have filled out their application forms, amassed all the evidence I can, and emailed it to the friends for them to print. ahead of an appointment. I am erudite but even I have struggled with some of the English on the websites. So it would be almost impossible to do this in Poland, with no knowledge of English and with no access to a computer.”

He goes on to say,

“Firstly the application form, which is 8 pages long, has to be completed in English. Once the application is submitted on line the GOV.UK website directs you to a commercial partner’s website called TLS. There you can download a 7 page checklist which has to be completed in English. But then the website is not allowing you to download your completed checklist and accompanying documents. On the website you can also book at appointment—only you can’t because the website is not allowing you to do that either. Even when we can secure an appointment some of the evidence is in Ukrainian and so probably will not be accepted by the VAC”—

The visa application centre.

“Also because they fled in a hurry they do not have all the documentary evidence required. Once they have attended an appointment there is no indication of how long they may have to wait to hear if their applications are successful.”

He ends by saying this:

“They are our family, we own our own home in Shepherd’s Bush, have room to accommodate them and money to cover all their expenses. But the red tape is not allowing them to come here. I hope you are your colleagues can put pressure on the Home Office to relax the rules immediately.”

I am not going to mention the name of the family, even though I do not think they would mind if I did. The Home Office has all those details. It has had them for some days. We have not had a response, and that is true for almost every case. Yes, every case will have different facts, but I hope the Minister can see that there is a common thread here.

I do not know whether this is wilful or negligent, or whether it is a matter of happenstance and the Government are trying to correct things, but the net effect is that the Government’s actions are the opposite of what they are saying. They are saying “We want to help,” “We will help,” and “We will help significantly—hundreds of thousands of people,” yet every case I see says that that is not true. Every case is stalled at some hurdle, geographical or bureaucratic, because of the way that the Home Office behaves. I ask the Minister: first, can he please reply to my emails? I do not think that that is too much to ask, given the urgency. Secondly, can he please look at this in the round, and at our duty, as a compassionate country that wants to take in refugees? I believe that the Government genuinely want to help, but let us see some proof, shall we?

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Foster]

That is a good point. Some funding is being offered to local communities. I take on board the point made by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) about the slightly different structure in Northern Ireland, as we saw with the national transfer scheme for unaccompanied children, reflecting the devolved structure there. We are providing a funding package to local councils; I appreciate that hon. Members taking part in the debate will not have heard the statement in the main Chamber, but that is something we are working on.

I think it is safe to say that I and the Scottish Government have not always got on particularly well, but on a serious note, I welcome their genuinely constructive offers. I have had brief conversations with Neil Gray—he is co-ordinating for the Scottish Government, as Lord Harrington is for the UK Government—about what work they can do on those points. As colleagues have said, speed and getting people in are becoming essential. How can we do that?

My own community does not have the experience of Glasgow, for example, in welcoming communities of asylum seekers. That should not become a delaying factor across large parts of the UK, and balances need to be struck. There are funding packages to try to create that support. I also recognise that there are wider debates around how we can ensure that support is provided. That is what colleagues in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities will be working on closely.

[Andy Slaughter]

If families do manage to reach the UK and do not have immediate offers of accommodation, which is happening—I gave the example of a family who could accommodate people, but others, perhaps in overcrowded social housing, will get relatives who they will not be able to accommodate—where should they go? Is the Minister saying that they should go to the local authority, which will say, “Yes, we have funding from the Government,” or is there some other solution?

[Kevin Foster]

There is a slightly different position for those who are already in the UK. The hon. Gentleman made a point earlier about people who are fearful of being asked to leave, and I reassure him that there is no prospect of removals to Ukraine. I will not, and clearly cannot, put a timeframe on that, but at this moment, any removals action has been suspended. That includes our voluntary returns; again, that would clearly be quite a bizarre thing to encourage at the moment. There is no prospect of someone from Ukraine who is ordinarily resident in Ukraine—there is a slight difference from Ukrainian nationals—being asked to return. We have already automatically extended a number of visas for those who are already here with temporary status as a skilled worker or student. There is no need, at this stage, for them to apply for anything. Of course, if someone’s status is due to expire, they can certainly get in contact.

There is no intention that people will need to leave this country, and even if that were the case, there is in reality no practical returns route anyway. To be very clear, Ukrainian nationals who are here lawfully do not need to leave, and we will make further announcements and confirmations over the next few weeks about the position looking forward. I think most of us would accept that the priority at this stage needs to be those who are in Ukraine and looking to make preparations in case they need to leave. We are particularly aware that there are large numbers of people in western Ukraine who, depending on what happens in the coming weeks with the military campaign, may move into Poland, Slovakia or Hungary if Russian forces come closer. Of course, we hope that that does not happen; we see the defence of Kyiv being mounted, and I think we can be confident that Ukraine is halting what was a Russian advance in that direction.

As I say, people here in the UK do not need to apply for different statuses, and later this year we will confirm the position on future entitlement to settlement and in other areas. However, I think we would all accept that at the moment there are very few Ukrainians arriving who are particularly focused on a potential indefinite leave to remain application in 2027.

Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 7th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I am sure we all agree that the Bill is urgent and that it is good as far as it goes, but it is inadequate because it has been hastily drafted, and it was hastily drafted because the Government dragged their feet.

If I understood the Home Secretary’s argument earlier, it was that the number of amendments that have been tabled shows the degree of support for the Bill. The number of amendments shows the gaps in the Bill and its inadequacies. Hopefully, we will correct some of them in Committee later, but I would like to hear from the Government which of the amendments they propose to accept. If they do not intend to accept them on technical grounds, I would like to hear them at least give assurances that during the Bill’s passage they will bring forward their own versions of the relevant measures.

I said earlier to the Home Secretary that there is a gap between the rhetoric and the reality. I was thinking of a briefing given to the Financial Times last week on the same day as the Bill was published, which said:

“UK cabinet minister Michael Gove is drawing up plans to seize British property owned by Russian oligarchs with links to President Vladimir Putin, without paying them compensation. Ukrainians fleeing their homeland could be housed in the lavish UK residences of oligarchs hit with sanctions under the proposals discussed by Gove”.

I do not see very much of that in the Bill.

What we have seen was initially 18 months and now six months to publish information. Yes, there will be penalties for the failure to publish that information, but there will also be ample warning and time to either disburse or transfer those assets. Whether the Government accept the proposal from the Chairman of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), that it should be three months, or our proposal that it should be 28 days, that period has to be cut down.

In addition to that—I am looking at new clause 29, tabled by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis)—we need the early freezing of assets to prevent them from being dissipated during that period. The Government, if one believes their own briefing, think that we should be seizing those assets. Where are those proposals? Where is the comprehensive coverage of people whose assets can be frozen and what assets there are likely to be? How are they going to drill through the elaborate network of shell companies in order to do that?

That brings us on to another point that is absent from the Bill: regulation and enforcement. Let us be clear: we need not more enforcement agencies, but the ones that are there to work properly, and the National Crime Agency and the Serious Fraud Office do not. That is partly because of a lack of funding, partly because they need staff of a higher quality and ability, and partly because of the revolving door between those agencies and defendant law firms, which goes on all the time at the moment. We have got to the stage now where the Attorney General has ordered an investigation into the head of the Serious Fraud Office because cases are collapsing, or because the wrong targets are being pursued—the minnows rather than the sharks. Indeed, we have the absurd position where the Serious Fraud Office itself is a target of SLAPP—strategic lawsuit against public participation—litigation by the Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation.

I hope that we will have time to discuss the amendments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) on preparing legislation on SLAPP and on protecting whistleblowers. These are difficult things to do. Oligarchs are entitled to lawyers, but they are not entitled to misuse the law in this country. This legislation requires careful drafting, as will the seizure of assets. These are draconian and dramatic steps that our courts are not used to taking. To make sure that they are watertight, but also fair to all parties, the measures require careful drafting; they must not be done at the last minute on the back of an envelope.

I was delighted to see Tom Burgis win his case against ENRC last Wednesday. It shows that, if they are given the tools, our courts are prepared to stand up in that way. I was astonished to read this comment by the losing party, ENRC:

“We have seen a growing campaign of xenophobia pervade aspects of the media and parliament that targets individuals and companies based on their nationality, including bizarrely ENRC, which is a UK company with Kazakh shareholders.”

I do not think that Tom Burgis is anti-Kazakh and that such prejudices were driving him when he wrote his book, “Kleptopia: How Dirty Money is Conquering the World”. On the contrary, he was doing us all a service. The Government need to rise to the challenge now. It does not help if they are not clear on where the donors to the Conservative party are coming from at present.

Humanist Marriages

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

What a pleasure to speak in a debate chaired by my constituency neighbour, Dr Huq, I think for the first time. I congratulate the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) on bringing this important debate forward. I was intending to speak in it, before I was elevated—if that is the right word—to the spokesperson position. He has championed this issue, and others. Only this week, I was lobbied by the National Secular Society on his Education (Assemblies) Bill. He is the apostle of the secular, but never of the mundane.

I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins), for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) and for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith), who have all spoken eloquently, with examples of how humanist marriage works and their own testimony as humanists. They have also, which has been a common theme in the debate, emphasised the logic of where the issue is going and the unfairness of the current situation.

There is really only one point for the Minister to address, which is to explain the puzzle of why the Government are dragging their feet. I hope we will hear a clear exposition on that. In the words of the letter from 53 MPs—including myself—that we have heard referred to, humanist couples in England and Wales simply ask to have the same freedom of choice to marry in line with their beliefs as their religious counterparts. I hope the Minister does not disagree with that.

I have another quote, this time from my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), about putting right

“a long-standing injustice in a simple and uncontroversial way.”—[Official Report, 21 May 2013; Vol. 563, c. 1074.]

The door is open, more than ajar, and the Government have only a small step to take through it. My hon. Friend said those words in a debate on the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, to which she, from the Labour Front Bench, was proposing an amendment that would have extended legal recognition to humanist marriages. That is now nine years ago. As has been the case throughout, she was supported by colleagues from across the House.

Labour supported similar amendments during the passage of the Bill through the House of Lords. Its efforts led to section 14 of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, which gives the Government the power to enact legal recognition of humanist marriages by order. In other words, most of the groundwork has been done. Looking back at Hansard, I am struck by the fact that during an earlier debate, when the late Lord Eden of Winton was objecting to the attempt to get humanist marriage into the Bill, my noble Friend Baroness Thornton, speaking for the Labour Front Bench, intervened on him to ask:

“Does the noble Lord think that the humanists need to wait another 19 years for another Bill to come passing by?”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 19 June 2013; Vol. 746, c. 303.]

Well, we are nine years later already, so nearly half of that time has elapsed, and humanists are still waiting.

The Government have been reviewing the matter ever since, with several more years anticipated before they are prepared to legislate. They have not even committed to do so all this time later—the Minister could put that right today. In the face of the High Court decision in Harrison, which now looks a little disingenuous, given the position the Government took in that case, it looks as if Baroness Thornton’s question will sadly prove prescient.

In November last year, I spoke for the Labour Front Bench in the main Chamber on the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Bill. There has been a piecemeal approach to marriage reform over the last few years. I mentioned in that speech that there had been good movement and progressive legislation on civil partnerships and same-sex marriage.

One Bill that I was involved in was a private Member’s Bill introduced by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and, indeed, enacted. It permitted opposite-sex couples to have civil partnerships. That was a peculiarity in the law and perhaps something that needed addressing. Again, it was a long struggle. My constituents Charles Keidan and Rebecca Steinfeld fought a four-year battle, going as far as the Supreme Court, for their right to have a civil partnership. The Government do not move easily on these matters, but they move in the end, and I wonder why they have to make it so difficult. With that in mind, my advice would be to learn from their past mistakes and stop dragging their feet by giving legal recognition to humanist marriage, instead of there being further delay.

To answer my question as to why humanists have been made to wait, in 2014 the Government conducted a consultation exercise about extending legal recognition in that way. The result was 95% in favour, but again the Government kicked it into the long grass. At that time, an article in The Sunday Times on the matter quoted a senior Government source as saying:

“Lynton Crosby and the Tories have basically said ‘no way’. They think this is a fringe issue and are saying, ‘why would we do this?’”

If that was an accurate report, Mr Crosby and his colleagues were wrong both to be so dismissive of the fundamental rights and freedoms of humanists and to think it was a fringe matter, given that humanist marriages have proven, even without legal status, to be hugely popular and have grown greatly in popularity in those jurisdictions where they are legally recognised.

As I mentioned, Labour has pledged to give legal recognition to humanist marriage, and that has been its consistent position for many years now. The Government have undermined their own position by introducing outdoor civil and religious marriages, as we have heard. Why are they okay? Why was that change made just a few week ago, but humanist marriage reform is not seen to be a priority? Why have humanists been at the back of the queue for so long, and what reason is there for making them wait any longer?

It is not only Labour that supports humanists and humanist marriages. As I said, colleagues from across the House support legal recognition of them—not just the Members who signed the letter that was published today but those who subscribed to speak in the debate, even if some of them have been unable to attend. The hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti), who was for quite a period the Prime Minister’s special envoy for freedom of religion or belief, introduced a Bill to bring about the legal recognition of humanist marriage in 2020. He said:

“The lack of legal recognition of humanist marriages in England and Wales is discrimination, pure and simple.”

[Crispin Blunt]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for reminding me that I had forgotten the request from my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) to make that precise point about how much he supports the Government moving on the issue.

[Andy Slaughter]

I am glad to have jogged the hon. Gentleman’s memory. To continue with the quotation, the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham went on to say:

“This matter has been under review for some seven years now”—

this was two years ago—

“and that’s more than long enough. My Bill would bring about legal recognition of humanist marriages within three months of its passage, thus enabling the many who want a legally recognised humanist marriage to be able to have one now. It would not prevent further changes to the law, after the completion of the present Law Commission review, but would remedy the present discrimination.”

It seems certain that there would have been majority support for such a move, were the Government to have given it sufficient parliamentary time two years ago.

That support can be seen around the rest of the UK. We have heard that humanist marriages were introduced in Scotland in 2005—under a Labour Government, I might add—when the Registrar General identified that he could bring them about by reinterpreting existing legislation that applied to religious marriages. Sadly, the wording of the law in England and Wales renders such an approach here impossible.

Support can also be seen in Northern Ireland, where humanist marriages have been legally recognised since 2018. That was initially brought about by a court case that was necessary as a result of Government inertia during the lengthy collapse of the Executive. However, I understand from Northern Ireland humanists that since the resumption of power sharing they have had nothing but friendly and supportive meetings with Members of the Legislative Assembly and Ministers from all parties.

It is worth noting that the Northern Ireland Executive is currently consulting on introducing legislation to put humanist marriages on a firmer statutory footing, rather than relying on the court decision, as at present. That strikes me as a sensible way to go about things: fix the fundamental discrimination of the lack of legal recognition of humanist marriages as early as possible, get such marriages going, and then look to develop legislation to put them on the firmest possible footing. Such an approach avoids nine years and counting of consultation, and of disappointment for couples such as Kate Harrison and Christopher Sanderson—Kate being the lead claimant in the 2020 court case. They are waiting for a change in the law before getting married, mirroring the example of my constituents in the civil partnership case, who had to wait years simply to get something that most people regard as a basic human right. They have been waiting for far too long.

We have heard about Wales. Unfortunately for the Welsh, marriage law is not a devolved matter. Last year, the Labour Government in Wales wrote to the UK Government demanding immediate legal recognition of humanist marriages or, failing that, for marriage law to be devolved so that the Welsh Government could act where the UK Government have not. It is manifestly past time for the UK Government to act. I hope that they will now do so.

The law is discriminatory. It treats humanists as second -class citizens. It imposes additional financial burdens on them. The excuse that the Government wish to comprehensively address the issue is clearly wrong because they are approaching matters in a piecemeal way. It would be extremely simple to make the change. On that basis, I simply ask the Minister whether he can confirm what the Government will do—not waiting for the Law Commission initially—to bring humanist marriages into legal effect as quickly as possible. I have received numerous letters from constituents this week and last week—like many Members present, I am sure—in anticipation of the debate, all asking those questions and others.

This is not the only issue outstanding; I also mentioned, the last time we debated marriage, the issue of common-law marriage. I am not suggesting that we wait until we sort that problem out, because that is a problem that affects 3 million couples—6 million people. It has quite significant, and in some cases devastating, financial effects on people who believe they have security but find out upon the death of a partner, or after separation, that they simply do not. There are a lot of further steps that the Government need to take, but that is not a reason for holding up the simple, straightforward and uncontroversial step of giving legal status to humanist marriages. I hope we will hear from the Minister today that that is about to be done with great speed and enthusiasm.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Pursglove]

I certainly take on board the hon. Lady’s point. Colleagues here this afternoon have made that argument in very strong terms, and it is one that I am mindful of. I also note the individuals who decided not to get married and to wait and see what the Government’s next steps will be following publication of the Law Commission’s report.

In 2014 the Government published a consultation paper and response assessing the potential merits of provision for non-religious belief marriages. It concluded that the matter was complex, and that by allowing humanists to solemnise marriages in unrestricted locations, the Government would create a provision for humanists that would not be available to all groups. To ensure that we consider the implications of changing the law on marriage for all groups, we invited the Law Commission to undertake a review, which is currently under way and is expected to report in July.

The Government remain committed to considering the case for more comprehensive and enduring reform to marriage law once the Law Commission has completed its fundamental review of the law in this area. Options being explored by the Law Commission include offering couples greater flexibility on the form of their own ceremonies; allowing the ceremony to take place in a much broader range of locations; and providing a framework that could allow non-religious belief organisations, such as humanists, and independent celebrants to conduct legally binding weddings.

As part of the review, the Law Commission will consider how marriage by humanist and other non-religious belief organisations could be incorporated into a revised or new scheme that is simple, fair and consistent for all groups. Legislating to allow humanist marriages now would pre-empt the Law Commission’s report, which is expected to provide a framework that could allow for humanist weddings. Although I recognise the frustration that many have felt while waiting for the publication of the Law Commission’s report, it is right that we do this properly through a wholesale reform of marriage law, which can provide for humanist marriage while preventing disparity from being created with other groups.

By looking at the law comprehensively, the Law Commission will be able to ensure that, in so far as possible, groups and couples are all subject to the same rules and the same level of regulation. The Law Commission’s recommendations are expected to eliminate the current situation where a couple with one set of beliefs is legally permitted to marry in one type of location—for example, in a private garden—but a couple with another set of beliefs is not. That reform is not possible by only authorising humanist weddings. The Government will carefully consider the Law Commission’s recommendations when the final report is published, and it is right for us to await the outcome of that.

Separately, since July 2021, couples have been able to have their civil marriage and civil partnership proceedings in the open air in the grounds of buildings such as stately homes and hotels that are approved, or become approved, for civil ceremonies. Outdoor ceremonies were made possible because the Government laid a statutory instrument at significant pace when covid was at a peak in order to give couples more choice of settings, and to support the wedding and civil partnership sector. I think all of us would recognise that that was an important step to take in the context of the pandemic when individuals did of course still want to get married and when there were important considerations for businesses up and down the country. That was the right thing to do.

I am proud that couples were given a lifeline to enable them to have some semblance of normality on their big day when there were restrictions in place. Some have said that was an example of piecemeal reform, but that is not the case. It was a measured response to the most significant public health crisis this country has faced, allowing couples and their loved ones to celebrate their special days safely.

One of many venues to have benefited from the statutory instrument was Hodsock Priory, which said:

“Guests love it as it feels romantic and is COVID safe. It’s a positive experience and asset to our venue.”

As the statutory instrument has effect only until 5 April 2022, it is right that we make these changes permanent.

This week, the Government’s consultation on outdoor marriages and civil partnerships closed. The Government are fulfilling their commitment to carry out a full public consultation on outdoor weddings and to lay a further instrument to make the current time-limited changes permanent in spring 2022. This will continue to provide flexibility and choice to couples, venues and the wider wedding industry, in a sector in which almost 75% of all weddings are civil ceremonies and more than 85% of those are held on approved premises—a sector that has been hit hard by the pandemic.

When the Government announced the temporary measures for civil ceremonies in June 2021, they also committed to legislate to enable outdoor religious marriage when parliamentary time allowed. The outdoor marriage and civil partnerships consultation also sought views on the proposal. This proposed reform to religious wedding ceremonies is being considered to maintain parity between couples seeking a civil or religious wedding by providing similar choice and flexibility and allowing such ceremonies to take place outdoors.

[Andy Slaughter]

I think we are all grateful for the Minister’s sentiments, but I am not sure that we are persuaded by his arguments. Even if we are moving in the right direction, it is going to be another couple of years if we wait for the Law Commission. There is nothing to stop an interim provision, which—if the Minister is concerned about disparities—could limit humanist weddings to approved premises in the same way as civil or religious ceremonies. That would mean that thousands of couples who want to get married and may have been waiting years to do so could go ahead now. It seems unnecessarily harsh to make them wait that length of time, even if the Government do get there in the end.

[Tom Pursglove]

It is my understanding that humanists can get married by their chosen celebrant on approved premises, but that the superintendent registrar and registrar must be present. To allow that to take place without the superintendent registrar or registrar would require an affirmative statutory instrument, which, by itself, would take around eight months to deliver. It would not be an immediate change.

[Andy Slaughter]

We have had some experience in the last two years of getting statutory instruments through in rather less than eight months. I am sure it could be rushed through in four.

[Tom Pursglove]

The hon. Gentleman will know that I always try to set expectations in the House at a reasonable level. I do not think it is right to set unrealistic expectations about such things. That is the situation, as I understand it, were we to go down the route he advocates.

I reiterate my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate—I know he will continue to engage with me on these matters, and I will certainly welcome such opportunities—for bringing this important issue to the House’s attention. I wish to reassure him and other hon. Members present that this issue is very much on my radar. The provision of humanist marriages is something that I will carefully consider. However, it needs to be done when the time is right and through proper consideration of all the issues involved. By waiting until the Law Commission provides its recommendations in July 2022, we will have a clear and comprehensive view of the opportunities associated with comprehensive reform to marriage law and options to address the concerns raised during this debate.

As I said at the outset, I am mindful of the strength of feeling in the House on this issue, as well as the strength of feeling among individuals in all our constituencies. My own constituents have written to me about this issue over the last week or so, in advance of the debate, and I am grateful to them for contacting me as their local MP. I am mindful of their strength of feeling. I give the House the undertaking that when the Law Commission produces its report, as the Minister responsible, I will of course want to take a look at it in very short order, progress with these reforms, see what the commission recommends and make informed decisions about how best to proceed.

Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Bill

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Friday 19th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

This has been a short, harmonious and positive debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) on her Bill. She has engaged with this topic for many years and she now appears to be on the brink of prosecuting it successfully, having secured Government support.

As we have heard, a 16 or 17-year-old in England and Wales can currently enter into marriage or civil partnership with parental consent. Looking at the bare figures, the number doing so is low. In 2018, fewer than 150 16 and 17-year-olds entered into marriage, out of a total of 235,000 marriages in England and Wales. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) said, this may understate the nature of the issue, as allowing marriage at 16 blurs the lines and perhaps gives succour to those who support child marriage at even younger ages. By having a clear dividing line at 18 we will unambiguously be saying that there are no circumstances in which children should be entering legal relationships of marriage or civil partnership. The children’s charity Barnardo’s has raised concerns based on research showing that marriage for children aged 16 and 17 can result in their experiencing domestic violence and sexual abuse, and missing out on educational opportunities. As we have heard at length, there are also arguments that marriage at this age can leave vulnerable young people open to coercion and forced marriage. More than 10% of forced marriages involve the 16 and 17-year-old group.

The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights defines child marriage as

“any marriage where at least one of the parties is under 18 years of age.”

It defines forced marriage as

“a marriage in which one and/or both parties have not personally expressed their full and free consent to the union.”

The Commissioner’s view is that all child marriages equate to forced marriages, as a child cannot give

“full, free and informed consent.”

Furthermore, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended in 2016 that the UK raised the minimum age to 18. Overwhelmingly, the issue affects girls and women; 80% of those who married as children in 2018 were girls. That is by far the strongest argument for raising the minimum age for marriage and civil partnership, and it is why we are happy to see this Bill get its Second Reading today.

However, if we are really to tackle forced marriage, this Bill alone will not be sufficient. I would like to see more from the Government on how they intend to protect children and young people at risk. How will the Government support those who wish to leave marriages that they have been forced to enter? How can we provide a safe space for people to report a forced marriage? We also recognise the importance of support staff in schools in helping to look out for the signs of forced marriage. For that matter, can we have better training for registry office staff to spot the signs of coercive marriage? We are talking about not only forced marriage, but the increasingly common practice of taking advantage of those who lack capacity for financial gain. Only about a fifth of reports to the Forced Marriage Unit in 2019 were from the victims themselves, with the vast majority of reports—64%—having been by professionals, such as those in the education, social services and legal and health sectors, as well as some other third party organisations, such as non-governmental organisations.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

Obviously, this is a most welcome Bill, but the crucial part of it, which we have not talked about today, is how the police are going to investigate and ensure that these offences are prosecuted efficiently and correctly. There have been numerous examples in recent years where issues of safeguarding, serious sexual offending and the protection of victims have not been investigated in an appropriate way by police forces. That must be fundamental to the success of this Bill.

[Andy Slaughter]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I know from the time we spent together on the Select Committee on Justice that he is very passionate about these matters. Last year, the figures were distorted by the pandemic, but before the pandemic the Forced Marriage Unit supported about 1,400 victims in any given year. That probably underestimates the problem substantially, with many cases going under the radar. The Home Office itself has said:

“Forced marriage is a hidden crime, and these figures will not reflect the full scale of the abuse.”

He is right to draw that to our attention. Everybody else has been very economical in their remarks, and I will attempt to do the same—

[Mr Virendra Sharma]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this is about not only passing this Bill, but raising awareness? On forced marriages and other institutions, we need to go to the education system and all other participating institutions to promote the law, so that the children in schools are fully aware of their rights. That is the way forward, as Members have said.

[Andy Slaughter]

I am grateful for that intervention as well. It could be argued that this Bill is addressing a narrow and specific, albeit important, point, but the ramifications of the Bill go far wider in drawing attention to exactly the issues that my hon. Friend has raised. As the promoter of the Bill said, the current law is almost a century old and outdated—family life has moved on markedly since then. To take just one example, we now require young people to continue their education or take an apprenticeship up to the age of 18, so being able to marry below that age seems to be somewhat in conflict.

The state should always be hesitant about legislating and intruding on family life and relationships, but our record in the past 20 years is good. We have brought in progressive legislation on civil partnerships and same-sex marriage. I was pleased to sponsor, owing to a constituency connection, the Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration etc) Act 2019 promoted by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), which gave the rights of civil partnership already enjoyed by same-sex couples to opposite-sex couples, thus completing the equation of equal status.

There is more to do: we should legislate on humanist marriage and look at common-law marriage, where millions of people—women in particular—mistakenly find themselves without rights or assets on the death of their partner. However, the Bill is an important and substantial step forward. It is a progressive Bill, and the Opposition wish it well in its remaining stages.

Afghanistan Policy

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

Again, I really cannot be expected to make decisions such as the hon. Member describes at the Dispatch Box. The ARAP scheme has been defined by the MOD. We are setting out the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme. If there are queries about eligibility, then I encourage her to look at the gov.uk website for greater guidance.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

This morning, a family with a very sick child, one of 300 people placed in a quarantine hotel in Shepherd’s Bush, were told to get on a coach to Stockport, despite having lodged an application for housing assistance in Hammersmith. On Saturday, 90 Afghan evacuees arrived at a bridging hotel in Fulham with no money, the clothes they stood up in, and no information about what was happening to them. A local charity, West London Welcome, and our council are trying to help. If we try to get through to the Home Office, it does not answer emails or phone calls. Is this what the Minister means by Operation Warm Welcome?