The hon. Gentleman speaks with great knowledge on this issue, and he is right that we need a streamlined, simple approach that clearly places responsibility and liability where they need to be. That is smart regulation. Over-complicating regulation is precisely where the lawyers, fixers and those who so often facilitate this illicit activity find their niche, and how they exploit it is their leverage. Let us make this a game-changing Bill, along the lines that he suggests, and let us hope that the Government’s scale of ambition matches his and that of other hon. Members across the Chamber.
As far as the record of this Government goes, the evidence is hardly encouraging, with just 168 prosecutions and five convictions brought against companies by the Serious Fraud Office between 2016 and 2021, and increasing reliance on US-style deferred prosecution agreements that fall well short of providing full accountability for corporate criminal behaviour. I pay tribute to the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington
South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), who has set out detailed plans to reverse the SFO’s loss of senior staff and expertise, transform the agency’s approach to prosecutions, and allow more of the proceeds of successful cases to be retained by the SFO, as part of a renewed crackdown on corporate malfeasance under the next Labour Government. Labour’s blueprint is there, and Labour Members would be delighted to see the Government adopt it when addressing this issue.
Other new clauses tabled by Back-Bench Members address additional areas that the Government could and should address, but that unfortunately they have not addressed in the Bill. New clause 23, tabled by the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) is one example. Its call for a review of the need for further regulations
“to prevent the circulation in the UK economy of the proceeds of economic crime controlled by individuals or entities subject to sanctions”
is welcome, as is new clause 25, tabled by the right hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland). If I were to raise any slight criticism, it would be that the new clauses fall a little short of what is needed, but Labour supports them nevertheless. Specifically, both new clauses fail to mention the enormous and central role that is played not just by the UK, but by individual Crown dependencies and overseas territories in enabling—and all too often actively facilitating—global flows of illicit finance, and the ill-gotten assets of kleptocrats and crooks.
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That issue was addressed in yesterday’s debate by the Opposition in new clause 26 on beneficial ownership registries. The fact that we are still dealing with local administrations in overseas territories that are dragging their feet on the introduction of these registers, while the Government look on in apparent admiration of their supposedly sincere efforts, is deeply frustrating. Labour Members will keep pressing the Government to take the action that we all know is necessary and long overdue.
The other point worth making about reporting requirements of the kind envisaged by new clauses 23, 25, 30, 32, and 39 is that they sometimes amount to asking Ministers to mark their own homework. We should not have to rely on the willingness of future Ministers and Secretaries of State to provide an impartial, balanced view of their own record. For that reason, the Opposition’s new clause 33 calls for the establishment of a joint parliamentary committee on economic crime. The Intelligence and Security Committee provides a useful model, with its special powers to review sensitive or otherwise confidential material, and that is worth the serious consideration of Ministers.
Perhaps the most gaping hole in the Bill, at least in its current form, is the total omission of any measures to provide support and redress for victims of economic crime. To say that that is a missed opportunity understates the issue. Given the scale on which such measures are needed, and the overwhelming weight of evidence about the need for new measures, that gap in the Bill is baffling. The Opposition’s new clause 27 represents the first of many steps that the Government ought to take as a matter of urgency to fill those gaps. It calls for a strategy to be published, setting out a range of specific policies to improve access to justice for victims of economic criminals, both in the UK and internationally.