I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. In the past few months, I have visited regional organised crime units up and down the country, including in his region, and the NCA, and they all say that their barrier to getting further with some of these problems is not the resource issue; they all say that their barrier has been the ability to find the cash, see the cash and seize it. Those three things are incredibly important. We can put all the resources in the world into our law enforcement agencies, but if they do not have the powers to take back some of the stolen assets, it will not make a difference.
The thing that struck me coming into this job only a few months ago, although I thought I knew a bit about terrorism from my previous life, and what has absolutely shocked me is the weight and strength of organised crime across the United Kingdom. To see its depth, how it affects my community in the north-west and how close it comes to us all really takes my breath away. I am absolutely determined not only that the guys and girls at the top, the Mr Bigs, get sent to jail for as long as possible, but that those people who consider themselves a little removed from it—the facilitators, the white-collar smoothies who launder the money into property and so on—also face their time in court, because they are the people who contribute to the message that there is a permissive society and that it is okay to be associated with crime. They are the people who help the nasties to put a gloss on themselves.
That is what I am determined to do with the Bill. All Members should rest assured that I will use the Bill to try to build momentum in non-legislative areas—in the
non-regulated sector. I want to ask the regulators of estate agents and accountants what they are doing to play their part. If we can change the powers here, if their members get into trouble, what are they going to do to hold their members to account? Legislation is only one part of this. I hope that everyone supports the Bill and that the message goes out that there is more to do and that we will make sure that those people who facilitate and think that they live on the edge of the crime know that we are coming after them.