Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has been made of the implications for her policies of the debate entitled How to put confiscated criminal assets to good use?, which took place at the Council of Europe on 27 April 2022.
The UK has mature policies in place relating to the disposal of confiscated criminal assets. Domestically, confiscated assets are disposed of in line with the Asset Recovery Incentivisation Scheme (ARIS), under which operational agencies are allocated a portion of the assets recovered.
The use of ARIS allocations/payments is a matter for each agency. However, in the spirit of the Scheme, incentive payments should be used to drive up performance on asset recovery and, where appropriate, to fund local crime fighting priorities for the benefit of the community.
Internationally, the UK is fully committed to recovering and returning corruptly obtained assets. HMG has recently published its first ever Framework for Transparent and Accountable Return, which details HMG’s process for returning assets in line with UNCAC, including the involvement of civil society actors in this process.