Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill

John Baron Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 7th March 2022 Commons Chamber

Others have made a comparison between the UK and the USA. There is a massive difference in the effectiveness of enforcement between what happens here in the UK and what happens in the USA. We see that through all the actions that have been taken on the leaks—for example the FinCEN leaks and others. The Americans are just more aggressive and better resourced. They have a system whereby the agencies can hold back some of the money that they get in fines to fund their work. I think I heard someone ask how we could fund these changes. Well, that is one of the ways. The fines do not all have to go to the Treasury. Some could be held by the enforcement agencies themselves for them to do the work.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

The right hon. Member knows that I am supporting her amendment tonight, but may I suggest that we need to look innovatively at how we fund these agencies? Perhaps they should be taking a share of successful prosecutions. Initially, we need a big increase in funding for these enforcement agencies to get them off the ground and make them fit for purpose, then we can explore longer-term funding solutions.

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

It always seems to me absurd that it costs £12 to establish a new company in Companies House. Obviously we want to make it easy for new businesses to enter the market, but £12 is absurd. We know that that gets exploited in relation to shell companies, but does it also facilitate economic crime? If we quadrupled that figure to £50, it would still not be a fortune, but we would then have a massive investment that we could put into our enforcement agencies without raising any further money through taxation. There are a whole range of mechanisms that would not have a direct impact on public spending. They may mean that the Treasury gets a little bit less than it thought it would, but they would not have a direct impact on public expenditure and we could employ them to make these enforcement agencies fit for purpose.