I want to speak about the amendments and new clauses in my name and those of my colleagues. I refer to amendment 41, new clauses 4 and 21 to 23, and amendments 18 to 23
and 40. I have indicated my support for a number of other new clauses and amendments. I dare say that given the cross-party nature of the amendments that were tabled over the weekend, if we had had more time we would have had more names attached to all of them. The Minister would do well to listen to the cross-party calls from Members of both Houses. I have little in common with the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), and I disagree with him vehemently on many issues, but I have signed some of his amendments.
I share the horror felt by my colleagues and my constituents at the news that is coming through from Ukraine. We condemn the flagrant and repeated breaches of the Geneva conventions by Putin and his troops. I thank the people of Glasgow Central who have been raising funds and gathering goods across the constituency, but particularly those at the Hindu mandir, dropping off those goods to help the people fleeing Ukraine. Their sense of humanity has been undoubted, and I hope that it will be met by Ministers—not least the Home Secretary, who disappeared before we could raise further issues with her—because the people of Ukraine deserve our support.
This Bill is patently not enough. The volume of worthy and sensible amendments, and indeed the Government’s own amendments, testify to that. Action is long overdue. Stephen Gethins, Professor of International Relations at St Andrews and our former colleague in the House, has said:
“For years we have turned a blind eye to Putin's dirty money, propaganda and influence in our democracy. Those who called out the corruption were badged as anti-Russian when it was the Russians who were Putin’s first victims. It is a shame that many are only paying attention to his crimes after such grave events. I hope that real action will be taken. After years of inaction we owe the people of Ukraine and Putin’s other victims at least that.”
I agree very much with Stephen Gethins.
The situation we find ourselves in today, legislating in great haste, did not need to happen. This is not new. Putin and his cronies have been shifting their ill-gotten gains through the UK for many years now, unimpeded—and indeed facilitated—by UK Governments of various stripes, while journalists, civil society campaigners and, to their credit, many Members across this House, such as the right hon. Members for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), have repeated their calls for action throughout many Bills.
7.30 pm
In recent years, we have had the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill, and many of the same calls that are being made today were made at that time. Had the UK Government listened, we might not have needed to be here today in this complete and utter midden. It took the Salisbury attack to happen during the course of that legislation for the UK Government to take action on Magnitsky sanctions. They had the opportunity to do more at that stage to stem the tide of dirty money, but they did not. We had the Registration of Overseas Entity Bill published in draft and sent for scrutiny, but no action has been taken until today. And we are still short of comprehensive measures to close the loopholes and shut the door on the kleptocrats once and for all.
We had the creation of the Office for Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervision, supposedly to tighten up on the facilitators and enablers, but while some, including the banks, flooded the system with suspicious activity reports, others appear to have taken very little responsibility for their actions. That was reflected in the Treasury Committee’s report. Under Gordon Brown, we had the creation of the golden visa scheme, which attracted these oligarchs in, gave them a veneer of respectability, treated them with the deference that very few of my hard-working, honest constituents receive from the Home Office and allowed them to buy their seat not only at party fundraisers but at the very heart of British democracy—[Interruption.]