Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill

Lord Bishop of Leeds Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 9th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, I welcome this Bill and the speed with which it is being brought to us, but I share some of the concerns that have been represented already. I do not intend to go into any of the detail of matters that have already been spoken about; I am sure other noble Lords would be better at that than I might be.

I hesitate to bring an ethical argument because, in my experience in this House, ethical arguments simply get ignored. Indeed, one Minister replied to an ethical argument made on a different Bill by saying, “We will not listen to strictures on morality from anyone.” That led me, at the next stage—on Report—simply to say that that implies there is no place in politics for ethics. But it is my ethical concerns, which one might represent as cultural, that cause me to stand now.

Culture is not cleaned up by one act or one reaction to a particular stimulus, albeit a serious one such as the invasion of Ukraine. Some months ago, the Foreign Secretary threatened that sanctions would be introduced if Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. At the time, I thought that we should not be threatening that as a reaction to something else that happens. This stuff is immoral. The money that is sweeping through the sewers of London needs to be cleared up for its own sake, not simply as a bargaining chip in relation to Ukraine. If we are going to get rid of dirty money, we ought to do so because it is a moral obligation, not because it is a tactic.

If money is dirty and people are—we keep hearing the word—corrupt, is it that the money is indeed dirty and these people are indeed corrupt, or is it just that the game has changed, so it is now convenient for us to label them in that way? They were not corrupt six months ago, a year ago or five years ago—that was just the reality of the world in which we lived. If it is just the game that changes, and therefore we react to that, I think we have an ongoing ethical, cultural problem. We are tactical, and that is all. If we are going to change the culture, we have to be led by conviction rooted in values, not simply the pragmatics of the particularity of the case we are dealing with.

I am very pleased that an amendment will be tabled in Committee to Clause 18, so I will not say more about that now. I welcome the Bill, but I am concerned about the wider culture within which it sits; I hope that that will be registered, even if disagreed with.