Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill

Lord Faulks Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 9th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am not sure I can follow that. I should declare an interest as a practising barrister, but not one with any relevant interests so far as this debate is concerned. We of course understand why the Bill is being rushed through Parliament, but I fail to understand why the Government have taken so long to respond to what was staring them in the face.

To take up the story from the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, I was excited by the Criminal Finances Bill in 2016. It borrowed ideas from other jurisdictions but did not, in my view, go far enough. The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, not currently in her place, will recall the criticisms I offered then of unexplained wealth orders and of the omission altogether of a property register that would help to identify the true owners of choice London property. My amendments were not accepted by the Government. Sadly, not many in your Lordships’ House, with notable exceptions—I see some of them here today—seemed particularly interested in that Bill.

Then came the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill in 2018, which attracted rather more interest—although most noble Lords seemed concerned to protect those who might be capriciously or unfairly sanctioned. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, and I put down amendments in 2018, once again to set up a property register—mysteriously omitted from the Bill. I was prepared to vote against my own party on this. I was placed under considerable pressure to withdraw my amendment. I was told, among other things, that it was too complicated to do in the 12 months I suggested in the amendment. I was given lavish assurances by the Government, and a timetable. Neither the assurances nor the timetable were adhered to.

In the meantime, other noble Lords had rather more luck with their amendments to the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, who has recently been much criticised in the newspapers, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, put down amendments that were in fact perfectly conventional, rule-of-law safeguards. They were supported in those amendments by the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats. In fact, the Liberal Democrats wanted to go further; it seemed to me that the effect of one of their amendments would have made areas of our foreign policy justiciable. This is partly explicable by the fact that the debate on these sanctions came immediately after Brexit, and everybody’s minds, at least for the most part, were not directed towards Russia.

In Committee and on Report I spoke against all the amendments. It was not that I wanted arbitrary imposition of sanctions, but it seemed to me that our foreign policy needed a degree of flexibility. It must be remembered that sanctions are essentially a tool of foreign policy. The Government were wrong to compromise, as they did, in relation to these amendments. The position now, of course, is that the oligarchs we wish to sanction will have the benefit of the finest legal minds that money can buy to represent them.

I recommend that noble Lords read pages 46 and 47 of the Explanatory Notes to the Bill. They are certainly the longest Explanatory Notes I have ever read in relation to the European Court of Human Rights. It seems to me that the civil servants advising the Minister have said that, as a result of the amendments to the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act and elsewhere, it will be very difficult indeed to sanction anybody. Paragraph 230 says that Part 3 of the Bill

“potentially engages the following provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights: Article 6 (right to a fair trial), Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) and A1P1 (respect for peaceful enjoyment of possessions).”

I am sure we all hope that the oligarchs can have peaceful enjoyment of their possessions. The European Convention on Human Rights was not designed to protect people like them.

I hope the Minister can assure me that the government amendments will be enough to defeat the legal might of the oligarchs. In this context I recommend the suggestion made by Professor Ekins and Sir Stephen Laws in their Policy Exchange paper, published this week in the Spectator, about a way of doing this without encountering some of the difficulties I foresee.

On the subject of the Human Rights Act, in 2015, together with the now Deputy Prime Minister, I was given policy responsibility for a British Bill of Rights. It never saw the light of day, despite our best efforts. In your Lordships’ House I was regularly upbraided at the Dispatch Box for even contemplating an amendment to the Human Rights Act, let alone leaving the Council of Europe. I was told it would send a bad message to Russia and Belarus as fellow members. We are still members of the council, but it does not seem to have much inhibited Russia or Belarus as they trample over the human rights of the brave people of Ukraine.

Then there was the Joint Committee, which I was privileged to chair, with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, as a member. It was entirely apolitical in the sense that all parties agreed to a number of important things that we thought could be done to the draft Bill, including verification—already much mentioned—and trying to get rid of the problems of trusts that could be used to bypass some of the protections. We stressed how important the timing was and how urgent it was. The timetable is in fact recorded in our report—a timetable not adhered to by the Government.

We have allowed ourselves to be the receivers of stolen goods in this country. We have seen the murder of Litvinenko and the Salisbury poisonings. Reputable sources suggest that as many as 10 or more murders are attributable to Russia. Ukraine is not our fault, but we have embraced the Russian oligarchs and Putin’s henchmen.

The Explanatory Notes say the Bill has been introduced as part of Her Majesty’s Government’s

“urgent response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.”

It contains some useful provisions, which I thoroughly support and which can no doubt be improved when the next Bill comes along. But it should never have been necessary to come to this.