Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate the Government has made of the level of money laundering and large-scale fraud made by way of financial transactions and offshore trust funds through the City of London.

The NCA estimates that there is a realistic possibility that the scale of money laundering impacting on the UK annually is at least in the tens of billions of pounds. The cost to businesses and the public sector from organised fraud is no less than £5.9 billion.

This Government has launched the new National Economic Crime Centre (NECC), which will deliver a step change in the UK's response to - and impact on - economic crime. For the first time, the NECC brings together enforcement and justice agencies (HM Revenue and Customs, the City of London Police, the National Crime Agency, the Serious Fraud Office and the Crown Prosecution Service), other government departments, regulatory bodies and the private sector with a shared objective of driving down economic crime in the UK. It will leverage a 'whole system' approach to enhance and coordinate our collective capabilities to target, pursue and dismantle the highest harm serious and organised criminals, including corrupt elites. Where appropriate this will include prosecutions.

This Government launched the new Serious and Organised Crime Strategy on 1 November and will invest at least £48m in 2019/20 in law enforcement capabilities to step up efforts to tackle illicit finance and enhance our overall response to serious and organised crime. These will include additional investment in the multi-agency NECC; increased frontline capacity and capability to tackle fraud; and an uplift in investigative and intelligence assessment capabilities at the National Crime Agency.