Money Laundering Debate

Full Debate: Read Full Debate
Department: Home Office

Money Laundering

Nigel Huddleston Excerpts
Monday 19th March 2018

(6 years, 1 month ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts

Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.

Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.

This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record

Ben Wallace Portrait Mr Wallace
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The right hon. Gentleman knows that I will not come to the House and publish the names of individuals who may or may not be the subject of an investigation or of operations against them because it could threaten our ability to have an effect on them. Needless to say, we are determined to ensure that we use intelligence-led policing to find money and deal with those individuals, whether they are from here or abroad.

Nigel Huddleston Portrait Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)
- Hansard - -

These crimes can be horrendously complex. Can we be confident that the SFO, the NCA and other bodies have the skills and resources to investigate them properly?

Ben Wallace Portrait Mr Wallace
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Yes. As I said at the beginning, one of the challenges of taking on people with deep pockets or large corporations is that they have no qualms about setting off to the Supreme Court or the High Court to challenge us. We are keen to ensure that we support the NCA with unexplained wealth orders, because some of the people to whom they serve them have a brass neck and are happy to challenge us. That is why we put in blockbuster funding for the SFO, which means that when there is a case of significant scale, it can access funding directly from the Treasury to ensure that money is not a barrier to taking on some of those very bad people.