Aid: Anti-Corruption Measures

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I join noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord McInnes, for initiating this debate. It is positive that in a debate on corruption, we have made a strong case for development support. I thank the noble Lord for that. As he pointed out, corruption does not just steal money from where it is needed most; it leads to weak governance, which in turn can fuel organised criminal networks and promote crimes such as human trafficking and arms and migrant smuggling.

At the end of last year, the G7’s Financial Action Task Force gave the UK its highest ever ranking in recognition of the initiatives taken to help tackle corruption at source. The UK has created the first open data register of beneficial ownership, introduced measures of accountability for senior bankers and passed laws requiring individuals to explain unexplained wealth. But are these measures enough? The National Crime Agency describes the scale of the problem as,

“a strategic threat to the UK’s economy and reputation”.

By allowing the criminal and corrupt to launder their money through our financial system, we encourage and enable more organised crime and authoritarian regimes who threaten our national security.

At the time of the Salisbury attack, Global Witness analysed cash flows from Russia, which revealed that £68 billion had been invested in the UK’s overseas territories, with the British Virgin Islands the second most popular destination for money leaving Russia. As my noble friend Lord Anderson highlighted, Parliament forced the Government to require the overseas territories to bring in public registers of company owners by 2020.

I am sure the Minister will refer to the International Anti-Corruption Conference in October, where the Government announced that they were launching a campaign for global beneficial ownership transparency. For that to be credible, however, the UK must ensure that all its jurisdictions play by the same rules. As noble Lords have indicated, fighting corruption and ensuring that aid and development finance improves development outcomes requires greater levels of transparency and new ways to engage citizens to promote accountability. It is about a system of checks and balances.

I recognise the strong measures put in place by DfID to counter fraud and corruption but, as a major donor, we could advocate more. I strongly agree with the noble Lord, Lord McInnes, about making the case for a longer-term and country-by-country strategy; I wholeheartedly support that. I hope the Minister can agree that when we are proactive in publishing comprehensive, detailed and timely information on aid and development finance, we go beyond the basics and do more. I acknowledge just how much we are doing, but if we worked with partner Governments on supporting their efforts, that would also increase transparency.

My final point concerns the importance of civil society in the transparency process. It is not just about focusing on Governments and politicians; it is about ensuring that we promote the idea of checks and balances in the system. That means that when we give support, we should properly engage with civil society and citizens to ensure that they have the information so that they can hold their parliaments and parliamentarians to proper account. That is certainly what I saw when I was in Zambia last year: there were corruption scandals but, when local leaders of communities could challenge their MPs about the information that we brought to them about that corruption, we heard a different tone. I hope the Minister will be able to respond to that point.