I want to pay tribute to two people, the first of whom is the Minister for introducing this Bill. I think we all accept, in all parts of the House, that the corrupt money that swishes around in the British financial system is part of a type of crime and corruption across the whole world. Unfortunately, it also has a very detrimental effect on the housing market in the UK in that large numbers of houses are bought not to live in but as an investment vehicle and a means of laundering money. While some of those properties are at the high end of the market and there might be no effect on the majority of our constituents, in some cases these people have been buying property portfolios all the way down the housing market—and by increasing the value of the top end of the market they are affecting the whole market. If we want to get serious about the housing market in this country, we have to tackle the issue of corrupt money in the British system coming from overseas. I welcome the main provisions of the Bill. I applaud the Minister for trying to get some way towards a provision that might be termed the Magnitsky clause, as he suggests in his new clause 7.
I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab). He and I have had very many conversations on this subject for a long time, but we still have not managed to decide how to say the name “Sergei”. One of the most depressing things to add to the long list that he outlined is that Sergei Magnitsky was prosecuted posthumously, which must be a new low in putting two fingers up to the normal standards of criminal prosecution around the world.
I am absolutely certain that significant numbers of the people who are prohibited from entering the United States of America under the Magnitsky list have entered the United Kingdom since his death. That is why the Minister really needs to think again about visa bans. I do look to the United States of America in this regard. Several hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), have already said that the United States of America has gone much further than we have. The Minister tried to argue that the Americans have a very different legal system. Yes, they do, but it is based on the same fundamental principles as ours and, I would have thought, on the same values as ours. That is why we ought to be going at least as far as the United States of America. When the Commons debated this on 13 December 2010, the motion stating that we should proceed with a Magnitsky Act was carried unanimously. The Minister at the time, who is a thoroughly charming chap, said that we had to wait to see what the United States of America does. Well, I think we have all decided that we are not going to wait to see what the United States of America does on anything at the moment, and we might choose to set our own path in relation to these matters. I sometimes feel as though the UK is dragging its heels on this issue.
Sergei Magnitsky was killed just before 2010, when I was Minister for Europe in the Foreign Office, and most of the debate about this has happened since then. My personal perception was that both David Cameron and President Obama were very reluctant to show a strong arm to Russia because they thought that by pressing the reset button—this was Obama’s view—we would somehow manage to get major concessions out of Putin. That has not proved to be an effective strategy. In every single regard, Putin has simply taken those moments as a sign of weakness and proceeded to use force to a greater degree. On the day that David Cameron became leader of the Conservative party, the first thing he did was to go to Georgia to stand with the Georgians against Putin’s invasion of that country. Yet there are still Russian troops in Georgia, and since then we have had the issues in Ukraine.
There is now clear evidence of direct Russian corrupt involvement in elections in France, in Germany, in the United States of America, and, I would argue, in this country. Many believe that some of the highest-level decisions affecting security in the United Kingdom, in Germany, in France and in the United States of America are now compromised by Russian infiltration. The murder of Sergei Magnitsky and his then being posthumously put on trial shows that Russia is, in effect, a kleptocracy—a country ruled by people who have stolen from the people and used every means in their power to protect themselves and guard their position with jealousy. It is, in essence, the politics of jealousy writ large. I fear that this has infected the United Kingdom, and also one of our closest allies in Europe, Cyprus, where much Russian money is currently stored away corruptly and laundered illegally.
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A sign of the problem we face is that it is impossible to extradite anybody from Russia because Russia will not allow in its law—in its constitution—the extradition of any Russian national. We are therefore unable to prosecute in many of the cases that we are talking
about. I am still mystified about why the authorities in this country have failed to act in relation to any of the assets belonging to those in this country who were involved in the murder of Sergei Magnitsky and in the corruption that he unveiled. Many people have pointed to some £30 million-worth of such assets, none of which has yet been seized or frozen, while in 11 other countries around the world $43 million-worth has been seized and frozen. It feels as though this country is reluctant to move on this, or has inadequate laws to be able to do so.
However, this Bill is necessary not only in relation to Magnitsky and to Russia. Rakhat Aliyev was reckoned to have some £147 million-worth of London property. He was the former secret police chief in Kazakhstan. He went on to have two tours of duty as ambassador to Austria, and then to Austria-Macedonia, Serbia, and Slovenia. During the time that he did those jobs, he amassed an enormous fortune from areas such as banking, oil refinery, and telecommunications—virtually every form of state monopoly that he could manage to peculate from. He was the son-in-law of the former president Nazarbayev. He was charged with money laundering through the British Virgin Islands—another reason we need to take more concerted action. He was charged in Austria with the torture of two bodyguards and the murder of the opposition leader in Kazakhstan and of a Kazakh journalist. He committed suicide in 2015. Up until that moment, there was still no system in the United Kingdom that would have enabled us to tackle his financial assets in the United Kingdom and seek recovery of them. Indeed, there is now an issue about what we should do about those who have inherited those substantial assets. They would certainly not be covered by the Government’s new clause but would be covered by the new clause tabled by the hon. Member for Esher and Walton. That is why I still support it, even if he is not going to press it to a vote.
The hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless) referred to Libya, where there is a major issue because the transitional Libyan Government found that some $10 billion had been peculated from the Libyan people, depriving schools, hospitals, and the whole of the Libyan state infrastructure under Colonel Gaddafi. A lot of that money has clearly come to the United Kingdom. Indeed, the Libyan authorities have been trying to pursue it here but have found it phenomenally difficult to do so. So far, as far as I am aware, the only asset that has yet been recovered is a £10 million townhouse.
The Minister suggested that the threshold in new clause 1 was too low and that it would be too easy for people to be able to bring prosecutions, meaning that it would fall foul of the Human Rights Act. Incidentally, I hope that we are keeping the Human Rights Act. I would argue quite the reverse. In fact, as the hon. Member for Esher and Walton pointed out, this has to go to a senior judge in the High Court. It is not a case of someone simply turning up and saying, “I want to have this chap’s assets frozen, please”—they have to make a proper argument. Secondly, it is on the balance of probabilities, which is a standard evidential basis in most civil actions. It is true that new clause 1 places a duty on the Secretary of State to pursue such matters, but only where it is in the public interest so to do. There are plenty of cavils and protections against the abuse that the Minister seemed to suggest might otherwise apply.
There are significant differences between the two new clauses, as the hon. Member for Huntingdon mentioned. First, the Government’s new clause applies only to abuses by public officials. The definition of public official in the UK is already established in statute law, and that is a significant limitation. Secondly, as I have said, there is no duty for the prosecuting authorities or the Government to initiate civil recovery proceedings at all. Third parties cannot apply under the Government’s new clause, and there will be no public register of human rights abusers who are subject to recovery proceedings. There will be no designation orders, so it will be quite easy for people who think that they are about to be proceeded against to squirrel their assets away to another domain fairly quickly, because there is no system for freezing those assets before recovery proceedings can start.
The Government’s new clause applies only to new degrading treatment or punishment after the commencement of the Act, rather than to events that have already taken place. As Members have already said, the Government’s new clause will not apply to human rights abuses that happened more than 20 years ago. I hope that the Minister will respond to the point that was made by the hon. Member for Huntingdon about when the 20 years begins and ends.
It seems as though the Government still believe that they can somehow or other appease some of these people from around the world. They seem to want to pussyfoot around the issue. I just do not think that that meets the present danger and need, particularly in view of the risk to the financial propriety and reputation of this country. We cannot prosper if we allow bribery and corruption to flourish through the back door. We should be saying that none of these people, whether they are from Russia or from any other country, are welcome in the United Kingdom.
I have already said that I believe that many of those involved in the murder of Sergei Magnitsky and the corruption that he unveiled have visited the United Kingdom, notwithstanding the Minister’s statement that such people can be refused a visa. That may be the case, but we cannot be certain that they have been excluded, and they cannot know that they are being excluded. It would be far more useful to be able to bring the two issues together with a visa ban and a proper Magnitsky Act like the one in the United States of America.
My final point is that we are, as I think the Minister said earlier, operating under a set of circumstances that exist because we are in the European Union. The Prime Minister has regularly said on her return from European Council meetings, “It has been great to be able to get tough sanctions against Russia imposed by the European Union.” If we are the only country that has argued for tough sanctions in those meetings, it will be much more difficult for us to prosecute the foreign policy that we want, particularly in relation to Russia, when we are no longer there.
The hon. Member for Esher and Walton has a completely different view on that last point, but I hope that he—and the whole House—will agree that we have to find new mechanisms to enable us to ensure that we do not become the sink spot for international corruption and bribery, and for human rights abusers who want to abuse the rights and privileges of owning property and living in the United Kingdom.