I will try to keep my remarks short. Like others in the House, I welcome the Bill, but it should never have taken the nightmare of a war in Ukraine for us to act and to halt the avalanche of dirty money that has been allowed to enter Britain today. We are the jurisdiction of choice for not just Russian oligarchs, but kleptocrats, money launderers, people traffickers, smugglers, terrorists and other villains. That is the result of the failure of this Government and previous Governments to act. The Labour Government also had some responsibility for this, but the inaction over the last decade or so is down to this Government and the previous Conservative Governments.
As every other hon. Member has said, the Bill has to be the first step. I look forward to a further Bill coming forward swiftly at the beginning of the next Session so that we can enact other important measures. The other point that other hon. Members have made is that the Bill is not something great or inventive. It was first promised to us by David Cameron; I think that was in 2015, although others think it was 2016. There was then a massive consultation, pre-legislative scrutiny and a Bill in 2018. It was in the Queen’s Speech in 2019 and reinforced in the G7 summit in Cornwall, and then we heard that there was not going to be an economic crime Bill. It was all gone, and then war came in Ukraine and suddenly it has re-emerged.
The implications of the Bill go well beyond Ukraine, although the Bill is vital as we try to put pressure on Putin and his utterly dishonourable gang of cronies, and to de-escalate the conflict through economic sanctions. We need to move faster and go further. Some very important amendments have been tabled; I will not use my time on them now, because hon. Members will want to talk about them in Committee, but they include freezing an oligarch’s assets while lawyers consider the case for sanctions, and ensuring appropriate funding so that we do not just put something into law without using it to go after the oligarchs properly.